The dragons and the lions invaded on Saturday January 25, 2025 Place Stanislas de Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle). The Chinese community of Lorraine celebrates with splendor and colors, the arrival of the year of wooden snake.
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The dragons and the lions invaded on Saturday January 25, 2025 Place Stanislas de Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle). The Chinese community of Lorraine celebrates the New Year placed under the sign of the wooden snake. The festivities are open to the public part of the afternoon. They also take place in the big fairs of the Town Hall with around thirty stands, shows and concerts.
The highlight of the event, always eagerly awaited, is the dance of dragons and lions. With their twenty-one meters long, the dragons did not go unnoticed.
With these twenty-one meters in length and these nine carriers, the dragon does not go unnoticed.
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© Arnold Gerster/ France Télélévisions
They are nine carriers and dancers to give life to the big dragon in flamboyant colors. Elisabeth maneuver head: “At the beginning, the hardest part is coordination, but afterwards, as we learn the movements. You have to take the sticks, because the head is heavy”. And the young volunteer came out well to guide and give life to the impressive effigy.
Elisabeth maneuver The head: “At first, the hardest part is coordination”.
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© Arnold Gerster/ France Télélévisions
Elliot, in second position, is still out of breath, proof that the dragon dance requires coordination and good physical condition: “You have to follow your head and be fast enough not to slow down the progress of the whole. It is a choreography that you create, there is a lot of improvisation”.
Fengyu Mikusek (李凤玉 李凤玉), the president of the Association of Chinese in Lorraine, is the great ordinator ofe the party. She can count on a beautiful troop of volunteers, but stress is also there: “The weather? Is all the volunteers for the dances will be there for the D-Day? We started to repeat at 8:30 am this morning. It is an organization that mobilizes a lot of energy and time”. Well rewarded efforts, because the Nancy public was there too.
“This celebration is also very important for the Chinese expatriates”: Fengyu Mikusek, president of the Association of Chinese in Lorraine.
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© Arnold Gerster/ France Télélévisions
Beyond the folk and exotic side, this celebration is also very important for expatriate Chinese: “We bring a little color to our compatriots, especially to students who are far from their families, but also to children born in France and who do not know Chinese cultural events too much.” The University of Lorraine is renowned for welcoming and training Chinese students in French before their career in engineering schools or their university courses.
The Nancy public was present at the rendezvous.
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© Arnold Gerster/ France Télélévisions
For nothing in the world, the Chinese would not miss this event. Fengyu Mikusek explains that expatriates do not hesitate to make thousands of kilometers to reach their families: “We call these reunion, the moment of fullness. It means that everything is united and harmonious and that we lack nothing.”
The Chinese New Year date varies each year between January 20 and February 20. It depends not on the calendar year, but on the lunar calendar which also marks, the 1ᵉʳ day of spring.
