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Celebration set to ring in the Year of the Rat

Event to kick off at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Maui Mall

The Maui News

The 21st annual Maui Chinese New Year’s Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Maui Mall in Kahului.

The festival will feature Chinese food booths, Chinese arts and crafts, local products, calligraphy and leather brush artistry. The Office of the Mayor will welcome the new year at 10 a.m., with firecracker blessings and the Maui Chinese Martial Arts Academy Lion Dancers of Sifu Arlie Asiu and the late Sifu Steve Catugal. A repeat performance will take place at 1:30 p.m.

Event festivities will include a keiki Chinese costume contest with prizes, a keiki ribbon dance, a Chinese cooking demonstration, dance performances and kung fu and tai chi demonstrations. There will also be an antique and historical display, a Chinese new year ritual table, balloon fun for the kids and good luck photos with an ancient lion head from the Kwock Hing Society.

This year’s celebration heralds the year of the rat, which begins with the new moon at midnight Saturday and lasts until Feb. 11, 2021. As the first sign of the 12-animal cycle of Chinese astrology, the Year of the Rat is considered a year of new beginnings and renewals. According to legend, the rat was one of the earliest creatures at the dawn of civilization, chewing a hole in the celestial gourd to allow man to emerge and biting a crack in the darkened universe to let in air that allowed the world to begin.

While the rat has developed a negative reputation in Western culture, it is considered a protector and bringer of prosperity in the East.

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