Chinese New Year

Every year in Malaysia, the Chinese New Year celebration is celebrated with a 'big bang'. Eventhough im not a chinese, im always overwhelmed by the 'magic' of this 'Lunar New Year' celebration. When this celebration is brought up in a conversation between me and my chinese buddies, i always conjure up images of fireworks, red envelopes filled with money, and throngs of chinese families flocking into a variety of restaurants to enjoy their reunion dinner with their loved ones. This annual celebration amazes me because its theme of celebration to the chinese calendar whereby every year is marked by different kinds of animals such as the tiger, horse, monkey etc. This year is the year of the rabbit, so that explains the colourful symbols of rabbits in the TV commercials. I watched the news recently and i saw thousands of chinese people going all delirious in the midst of the preparation of this auspicious celebration, people were seen buying rabbits for good luck, and here's the um, the downside of this 'rabbit' year, it seems that cetain irresponsible people were desecrating the main purpose of this celebration by abusing animals, and yes, you've guessed it, the animals are ironically the main theme of this celebration, RABBITS. Some of the chinese citizens in mainland china 'deprive' the rabbits of their fur and kill them for some sick reason. So, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals decided to take matters into their own hands by protesting on the streets of mainland China wearing very little clothing. So much for the happy celebration.. :-)