I know. I already shared a little bit of the Lunar New Year celebrations in last week’s vlog. That was from Brentwood Town Centre with the lion and dragon dances. But these sorts of celebrations are spread out over the course of several weeks. If you head over to certain parts of Asia, you’ll find that they treat this time like a national holiday. Some businesses are closed for a two-week period (or more!). And so, we visited a couple of other venues this past weekend for some more dances and performances.

This isn’t really a “vlog” in the traditional sense. (Is there such a thing as a “traditional” vlog at this point? But I digress.) Instead, I just recorded several of the dances and performances from Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby and Lansdowne Centre in Richmond.

Something that has been particularly striking to me is how much these sorts of celebrations have changed over the years. Being born and raised in Vancouver, I grew up knowing this time as “Chinese New Year.” And Cantonese was the common language. Mandarin speakers are the majority now, it seems, but we’ve also expanded far beyond just celebrating “Chinese” New Year.

We celebrate “Lunar New Year” now, encompassing more of the cultures beyond China’s borders. In the video compilation embedded above, you’ll find colorful dancing from Mongolia, for example, as well as modern K-pop dance crews from Korea and a powerful drum performance from Okinawa, Japan. The Okinawan people and culture are distinct from the rest of Japan.

I love it all. Let’s celebrate our diversity and revel in our cultural mosaic.