Beijing began the Year of the Dog Friday with eerily silent streets, as the usual thunderous bursts of firecrackers and fireworks were silenced by a strict ban that sacrifices tradition in the name of an anti-pollution campaign.
Overnight, police patrolled deserted neighbourhoods in the Chinese capital — normally abuzz with excitement as the country welcomes the arrival of the Lunar New Year.
“I never imagined it would be this quiet! It’s usually packed,” said a Beijing resident surnamed Wang who had been out in the city centre following a traditional New Year’s Eve family dinner.
A migrant worker from neighbouring Hebei province surnamed Zhu said that without the firecrackers, “the magic of the New Year is gone”.
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The low-key celebrations were in stark contrast to previous years, when the streets were crammed with Beijingers setting off firecrackers and the sky was lit by near-constant firework displays, unleashing a deafening thunder until dawn.
But the tradition, conceived as a way to ward off evil spirits, has this year been targeted by authorities anxious to lower winter pollution levels.
Ahead of New Year celebrations, hundreds of millions of Chinese travel back to their home towns, often on crowded trains, making it in the world’s largest annual human migration.
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In Shanghai thousands flocked to temples to pray for good fortune.
While in Nepal, exiled Tibetans living in Kathmandu carried images of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, as the community — estimated to number in their thousands — gathered to celebrate Lhosar, the Tibetan Lunar New Year, with traditional music and food.
Hong Kong’s parade took place in the neighbourhood of Tsim Sha Tsui and featured over 30 floats and performers, including acts from the Hong Kong Cheung Keung Martial Arts Association and the Hong Kong Rope Skipping Academy.
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The Lunar New Year was also marked by spectators at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The day began with locals and foreign tourists munching on rice cakes in broth at the Snow Festival near the Olympic Stadium.
South Koreans in traditional clothes posed for pictures alongside the ice sculptures that dotted the park while children played with large sticks that work as a kind of dice in a traditional Korean board game called yut.
As is customary for Lunar New Year, children received packets of cash from older relatives.
“I like New Year‘s Day because I receive lots of money,” said six-year-old Lee Chae-won.
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Russian Buddhists in the Siberian region of Buryatia near the Mongolian border on Friday kicked off celebrations that will last almost a month.
At the Atsagatsky datsan, or temple, 50 kilometres (31 miles) outside the regional capital of Ulan-Ude, believers came to pray and hear astrological predictions for the next year.
“The poor will get poorer, the rich will get richer, the summer and autumn will be rainy, but in general it will be a good year,” the temple’s lama Tarba Dorzhiyev, 61, told them.
Believers also celebrated with festive food including traditional buuzy, a type of large steamed dumpling filled with meat.
“The gods offer us another year of life and they wish for us to be happy,” said 57-year-old Svetlana Tsybikzhapova, one of those busily preparing the dish.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday released a message of congratulations to Buddhists, saying that “it’s important that Russia’s Buddhist community carefully preserves the priceless moral and spiritual heritage of its ancestors, their original principles and customs.”
Russia, where the majority of the population describe themselves as Orthodox Christian, has around 900,000 Buddhists living in Siberia, near the border with Mongolia and around Lake Baikal, as well as further west in the region of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea.
Buddhists, like other religious groups, suffered persecution from the Soviet authorities, but the post-Soviet years have seen a revival, with teachers of Tibetan Buddhism from other countries playing a major role.
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New York City is celebrating the lunar new year with artworks and performances that highlight an eight-day festival to usher in the Year of the Dog.
Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall will host lunar new year celebration for children on Friday featuring a 40-foot scroll created by schoolchildren. City students have Friday off for the holiday celebrated by many Asian cultures.
Festivities also will include a dragon dance and Year of the Dog dance at Lincoln Center Plaza at 5 p.m. on Feb. 20.
The New York Philharmonic will perform a lunar new year concert and gala at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 20 at David Geffen Hall.
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The Lunar New Year was also being marked in South America. Thousands of people lined the streets of Lima’s Chinatown to celebrate.
Traditional dancing lions and dragons made their way through the crowds in celebration of the new Year of the Dog in the Chinese zodiac calendar.
Businesses throughout the neighbourhood leave offering – heads of lettuce – to entice the dancing lions and dragons to their establishments in hopes of being blessed for the new year.
In Peru, people of Chinese ethnicity make up at least 10 percent of the population.
Chinese immigrants arrived to Peru about 161 years ago.
— With files from the Associated Press and Reuters