Chinese New Year Celebration In Temecula: Public Invited

TEMECULA, CA — The Chinese Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, is the single most celebrated holiday for all Chinese around the world, said Dan Liu, managing director of the Temecula Chinese School. Despite the pandemic, the 2021 festivities will go on — including in Temecula and nearby cities.

The official 2021 Chinese New Year falls on Friday, Feb. 12, but the Temecula Chinese School will celebrate starting at 7 p.m. Saturday with a Facebook pre-recorded video stream featuring performances by students, including some from the Temecula Valley Unified School District and Murrieta Valley Unified School District. Residents from across Southwest Riverside County will also be performing. In total, more than 50 performers took part, Lui said.

The public is invited to tune into the free celebration. "We have 20 performances, including Chinese martial arts, traditional Chinese dancing, Chinese musical instruments, singing, Chinese food making, and many more," Liu explained.

Last February the Temecula Chinese School hosted a live New Year's celebration at the Temecula Valley Museum. The two-hour event drew around 500 people.

With no hope of a 2021 live performance, the nonprofit school decided on a virtual event. Producing it has been challenging amid the pandemic.

"We requested all performances to practice proper social distance. Everything from filming, editing, combining all the videos — [they were] are all done separately at different locations ...," Liu explained.

"Even with all the difficulties, participation was at an all-time high," he continued. "We thought about doing a live hosting but didn’t because we don’t have the necessary equipment needed, unfortunately."

Chinese New Year 2021 is the year of the Ox.

"Ox in Chinese symbolizes awesomeness, bullishness," Liu said. "We are hopeful in the year of the Ox, things will change for the better."

To watch Saturday's 7 p.m. celebration, check out the Temecula Chinese School's Facebook page here.