Chinese New Year (also called the Lunar New Year) occurs in the early months of our calendar year, typically January or February and this year falls on January 23rd. This is the first of 15 days of celebration and the start of the Year of the Dragon.

Year of the Dragon
In Chinese tradition, each year is dedicated to a specific animal. The Dragon, Horse, Monkey, Rat, Boar, Rabbit, Dog, Rooster, Ox, Tiger, Snake, and Ram are the twelve animals that are part of this tradition. In 2012, the Dragon is welcomed back after the 2011 year of the Rabbit. Each of these animals are thought to bestow their characteristics to the people born in their year.

While the Year of the Rabbit was characterized by calm and tranquility, the Year of the Dragon will be marked by excitement, unpredictability, exhilaration and intensity. The Rabbit imbues people with a sense of cautious optimism, but people respond to the spirit of the Dragon with energy, vitality and unbridled enthusiasm, often throwing all caution to the wind – which can be an unwise move: The Dragon is all about drama but if you take unnecessary risks, you may find yourself starring in your own personal tragedy.

The Dragon’s Personality
People born under the Dragon are passionate, brave and self-assured. At their best they are pioneering spirits; at their worst, they epitomize the old adage: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Dragons are generous with their resources, a tendency that at its most negative can reflect a foolhardy attitude towards money. But Dragons in general are blessed with good fortune. They are smart, enterprising and have a wicked sense of humor. They have a natural flair for fashion and are the people to consult if you want to catch up on the latest trends.

This Chinese New Year 2012 ushers in the Water Dragon. Water exerts a calming influence on the Dragon’s innate fire. Water Dragons are more open to other people’s opinions than other Dragons which gives them the ability to channel their personal charisma into real leadership qualities.

Famous celebrities born in under the Dragon include John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Al Pacino, Marlene Dietrich and Matt Dillon. The Dragon’s lucky color is yellow.

The Dragon and Love
Dragons are passionate. They fall in love quickly – and out of love just as quickly. Their charisma and charm is an immense draw to people of the opposite sex whose attention and admiration they crave. Though they have a tendency to treat love like a game, they can settle down when they meet the right partner, someone who’s strong enough not to be bowled over by the Dragon’s flamboyant, independent and stubborn personality.

The Dragon’s ideal partners are the Rat, the Monkey, and the Rooster: The Rat is practical, observant and resourceful, able to help the Dragon when extravagant promises have backed the Dragon into a corner. The Monkey is just as popular as the Dragon, curious, intellectual and fun-loving, one of the few personalities the Dragon doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight with. The Rooster can give the Dragon a run for the money on the fashion-forward front; attractive, well-groomed, fiercely loyal and committed to honesty, the Rooster serves as the Dragon’s reality check, keeping the Dragon from making promises that he or she can’t keep.

The Dragon and Wealth
Dragon years are lucky for anyone thinking of starting a business or initiating a new project of any sort because money is easier to come by for everyone, whether it’s earned, borrowed or received as a gift. Consequently we can expect the economic downturn to ease up a bit in the coming year. Fortunes can be made but they can also be lost: Keep in mind like all good things, the Year of the Dragon will come to an end and you will be held accountable for unreasonable extravagances.

Dragons do well in professions that give them the ability to function somewhat autonomously. They make excellent sales people, publicists, political campaigners, lawyers, real estate brokers, actors and politicians.

Chinese New Year is a lively celebration in Thailand, with dragon dances, fireworks, and banquets prepared on the streets for the benefit of ancestral spirits particularly in Samphanthawong District, the largest China Town in Thailand. Well–known for its streets of goldsmiths and numerous restaurants serving tasty Chinese cuisine, Bangkok’s Chinatown “Yaowarat” is filled with people who still preserve a distinctly Chinese way of life, including both tradition and culture. That’s why the Chinese New Year celebration in this area is a major festival and is well organized every year.

In China Town and elsewhere throughout the kingdom, lion and dragon dances are performed to ward off evil spirits, martial arts demonstrations are staged at various venues, Chinese street operas are staged along major thoroughfares and finally, fireworks are lit to mark the end of the new years celebration.

BANGKOK: The Thai opposition Puea Thai party, backed by the exiled politician Thaksin Shinawatra, has won a large majority in a landslide election result.

The Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, conceded defeat late last night, saying Puea Thai will be able to form government.

The political novice Yingluck Shinawatra, 44, a younger sister of Mr Thaksin who was put forward to lead the opposition party, thanked voters while claiming victory after Mr Abhisit’s concession.

Speaking in a nervous voice, Ms Yingluck invited minor parties to join her in forming a government and promised to fulfil promises made during the election campaign.

The election is the first since a bloody crackdown against opposition activists in May last year killed 91 people.

One poll, by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, had the opposition winning 313 of 500 seats, while the Democrat party of Mr Abhisit would win 152 seats. A government exit poll had Puea Thai winning 280 seats, enough to form government.

Before the election, Red Shirt supporters, many of whom had occupied central Bangkok in April and May last year until they were violently expelled by the army, were confident that Ms Yingluck would become Thailand’s first female prime minister after Puea Thai vaulted ahead in polling.

The businesswoman is a younger sister of Mr Thaksin, a deeply divisive figure at the centre of the election who is living in self-imposed exile in Dubai.

Speaking from Dubai last night, he said the exit polls were indicating a victory margin bigger than he had expected.

Mr Thaksin, 61, is a telecoms tycoon who has been sentenced to two years’ jail for corruption.

He is expected to be pardoned in an amnesty and return to Thailand to take a central behind-the-scenes role for Puea Thai, which has strong support among the rural and urban poor. Mr Abhisit’s Democrats represent the old-money government and business elite who despise Mr Thaksin, who has been behind every election victory in the past decade.

Mr Abhisit said during the campaign the election would be ”the best opportunity to remove the poison of Thaksin from Thailand”.

During her campaign Ms Yingluck often described Mr Thaksin as her ”clone” and campaigned on the slogan: ”Thaksin thinks and Puea Thai does”.

Her slick, well-funded campaign promised to focus on uniting the country after six years of political turbulence.

More than 180,000 police guarded 90,000 polling centres as 35 million voters cast their ballots to fill 500 seats in parliament.

Puea Thai (For Thais) needed 260 or 270 seats to form government in its own right as ministers do not get a vote in parliament.

There is a danger the losing side will not accept the result, plunging the country back into violent turmoil, analysts have warned. Puea Thai’s expected landslide will test the army’s willingness to let the party govern five years after Mr Thaksin was ousted.

On the eve of the election the army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, dismissed rumours of a coup if Puea Thai won and asserted the military would remain neutral.

”Any government coming up has the right to take office,” he said. ”I have no problem accepting whatever comes.”

There have been unconfirmed reports the Thaksin camp and the military have been discussing some kind of accommodation.

The army removed Mr Thaksin from power in a 2006 coup.

Voters queued nervously at polling centres in Bangkok after a largely peaceful campaign where the rival parties made strikingly similar policies.

The main parties made extravagant promises such as sharply lifting the minimum wage, pensions for the elderly, computers for children, subsidies for rice, debt moratoriums and cash handouts the central bank said the economy could not afford.

Adding to tensions was the health of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 83, who has been in and out of hospital for much of the past two years.

”We have lost our way and we are trying to find our way back,” Pichai Chuensuksawadi, editor-in-chief of The Bangkok Post, told The New York Times. ”Whoever comes in now must play a key role in keeping things calm.”

Thousands of Buddhist monks took part in a ceremony in Bangkok’s shopping district on May 8, 2011. Numbering 12,600, according to organizers, the monks attended the ceremony on Vesak Day, the annual celebration of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. The event was organised to pay homage to the Lord Buddha and to give moral support to the Buddhist monks and novices from the troubled southern provinces of Thailand. This year marks 2600th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment.

In Buddhism, alms or almsgiving is the respect given by a lay Buddhist to a Buddhist monk, nun, spiritually-developed person or other sentient being. It is not charity as presumed by Western interpreters. It is closer to a symbolic connection to the spiritual and to show humbleness and respect in the presence of normal society. The visible presence of monks and nuns is a stabilizing influence. The act of alms giving assists in connecting the human to the monk or nun and what he/she represents.
12600 Monks where given respect this morning at Central World Plaza in Bangkok by thousand of Buddhists in white dresses and shirts.

After chanting and a sermon, the monks then started to file down the paths between an estimated crowd of 100,000 lay people. In normal alms giving events that I have attended, the monks would start accepting alms straight away. However, as there were 12,600 here it wasn’t possible. So, they all filed down to the end first. Once all of the monks were on the red carpet, the lay people then started offering food to the monks at the same time.

The majority of alms offered were dried food as well as personal necessities such as soap, shampoo and toothpaste. Like the mass alms giving in Samut Prakan, most of the donated food will be sent to 286 temples in the deep south of Thailand. Proceeds will also be used to sponsor the Robe Offering Ceremony for the entire year.

Due to the on-going troubles in the four southernmost provinces in Thailand, it is not easy for the monks living there to go out on their daily alms rounds. In fact, monks have been targeted and shot dead in the past. The event today was organized to give them both moral support as well as dried food.

Newer Posts »