The first combined Chinese and Korean Lunar New Year celebrations at Eastwood Mall on 31 January proved a spectacular success, drawing a crowd of over 3000 people.
For 5 hours, the crowd was entertained by martial arts performance, Chinese and Korean music, Italian singing, and Chinese, Korean, and Indonesian dancing. The highlight of the event was a performance featuring four lions and a 12 person dragon.
There was an exciting finale with the lighting of fire crackers at Eastwood Mall and the lions and dragons encircling the plaza.
There were speeches by Ryde Mayor Vic Tagg, State MPs Victor Dominello and Greg Smith, and Bennelong MP Maxine McKew, and Mr Woong Nam Kim, Consul-General of South Korea.
The volunteers from the Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Club, Korean Chamber of Commerce, Eastwood Chamber of Commerce, and Eastwood Rotary did an amazing job given the limited resources they had.
Other councils like Hurstville and Auburn have annual budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars for their Lunar New Year celebrations. The people of Ryde did what they could with about $4000 from grants and donations.
It was great to see such a big crowd and also the large number of non-Asian Australians coming to enjoy the event.
The celebration brought in a lot of people to Eastwood and was very much appreciated by local businesses. It gave local residents and businesses a much-needed boost in spirits in these uncertain economic times.
I hope to see this annual event continue and grow in the future with additional sponsorship.
On Saturday, the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Club also raised more than $1,100 for Ryde Hospital from the audience.
