{"id":429929,"date":"2026-02-17T06:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T06:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429929\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T06:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T06:05:09","slug":"lunar-new-year-2026-live-year-of-the-fire-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429929\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunar New Year 2026 live: Year of the Fire Horse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;The pink lion was my favourite&#8217;published at 04:50 GMT<\/p>\n<p>04:50 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-3u1n9h-Contributor etflsgg2\">Lana Lam<br \/>BBC News, Sydney<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Four Chinese lions doing a dance on the steps of a town hall in Sydney\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/3b620076-fbcd-4317-bc65-6f66aacb9cf8.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"674\" height=\"379\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Back in Sydney now. Red&#8217;s the traditional colour in Lunar New Year celebrations but on the steps of Town Hall, it&#8217;s all green, yellow, blue and pink.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Those are the colours of the Chinese lions performing this Tuesday lunchtime for onlookers such as Martina Taylor, 48, and her daughter Olivia, 4.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She loves it,&#8221; Martina says, dressed for the occasion with an outfit of red pants and shiny red shoes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It&#8217;s the third lion dance the pair have seen today, having watched one in Chinatown in the morning and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/live\/cgqg0pwkq2kt?post=asset%3A810c2b9f-54c2-48fa-afc8-fb0b4a6db51d#post\" class=\"ssrcss-ztter6-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">another one at the Chinese Gardens<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Asked which lion is her favourite, Olivia says &#8220;pink&#8221; and that she loves the drumming.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman with short blonde hair carrying a small child in a pink hat\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/60426cae-651e-458f-a643-6933901be67e.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"2856\" height=\"1606\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Also in the crowd is Lychelle Delannoy, 31, who&#8217;s originally from the Caribbean, lives in Singapore for work and is in Sydney for a week-long holiday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lunar New Year festivities are huge in Singapore, she says, so she searched online this morning for where she could see a lion dance in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not Lunar New Year without a lion dance,&#8221; she says, but the Sydney version has caught her by surprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s the first time I&#8217;ve seen a lion dance with four, usually it&#8217;s two.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A woman in a red top and sunglasses smiling at the camera with a crowd in the background\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/5d1cf9a0-cea7-4fc9-8c00-037b5b6a9293.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1266\" height=\"712\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;The pink lion was my favourite&#8217;published at 04:50 GMT 04:50 GMT Lana LamBBC News, Sydney Back in Sydney&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-429929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}