STORY: New Yorkers wrap up Lunar New Year celebrations with big parades
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 24, 2024
DATELINE: Feb. 26, 2024
LENGTH: 00:00:44
LOCATION: NEW YORK, the United States
CATEGORY: CULTURE

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the Lunar New Year celebrations

STORYLINE:

New Yorkers are winding up their Lunar New Year celebrations by staging large-scale parades and gatherings during the weekend.
   
One such parade was held on Saturday for the first time in Chinatown near Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
   
Organized by Asian American advocacy group the Asian American Community Empowerment, the parade was designed to celebrate both the Lantern Festival and the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the United States.
   
The gathering was attended by quite a few elected officials, including New York State Assembly Minority Leader William A. Barclay and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
   
Adams noted Brooklyn has one of the largest Chinese communities in the United States and extended his wishes to the community.
   
Huang Ping, the Chinese Consul General in New York, urged the participants to embrace the future by working together to bring more positive energy into the China-U.S. relationship and build trust to get the relationship back on the right track.
   
Highlights of the celebrations included traditional dragon and lion dances as well as cultural and artistic performances. Thousands of residents lined up the main roads and took part in the celebrations with some wearing traditional costumes.
   
The New York metropolitan area had a Chinese population of over 800,000 in 2019, ranking on the top of major U.S. areas with big Chinese American communities, according to a report by Pew Research Center in April 2021.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from New York, the United States.
(XHTV)