Chester Celebrates Chinese New Year 2023

On Saturday 21st January, The Wah Lei Chinese Association flooded the streets of Chester with traditional music, lion dancing and Tai Chi demonstrations to usher in 2023, the year of the rabbit.

Chester crowds lined the city streets and shop balconies, eagerly awaiting the upcoming celebrations whilst lion head puppeteers prepared to bring extravagant costumes to life.

Before the event began, I spoke to Jonothan Alton, a lion head puppeteer from the Hung Gar Kung Fu Academy, Liverpool. He said, “Normally we do see pretty good numbers but considering the type of weather we’ve been having recently we didn’t expect quite this turnout.”

Joining the other performers in the cold Jonothan added, “It’s been tough keeping warm so far but after the performance, I’m sure we’ll all be dripping in sweat.”

“The lion heads are a mixture of bamboo, gauze, fabric and a sort of paper-mache mixture process. The ones we tend to use here, in the Western world, can be between 10 and 20 pounds which is still a significant amount of weight so it can be pretty physically intense; it’ll be keeping us warm today.”

Shortly after, Jonathan was queued into position and Kylie Wong, event coordinator from the Wah Lei Chinese Association, entered the clearing on Eastgate Street to offer a brief welcome to the city and a rundown of the day's events.

Members of the Ji Siu Tai Chi Chuan Group began the day with a moving display of Tai Chi led by Maria Yuen. The sombre exhibition then quickly transitioned into an energetic flurry of weapon demonstrations. 

Following the Tia Chi demonstration, Kylie Wong introduced the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. They were then joined by the ‘God of Prosperity’, the ‘Emperor of Heaven’ and the ‘Happy Buddha’ in waking three lion spirits. The lion head puppets rose to their feet and began a chaotic and primal performance for the crowd.

The lion head puppets enamoured crowds, dancing through the street and soaring high into the air before sinking low to the ground. Audience members were glued to performers as the enormous lion heads towered over them. 

The lion head spirits then turned their focus towards each other, engaging in a menacing competition of strength that even the Happy Buddha could not separate nor subdue.

The crowds then separated as a giant Chinese dragon puppet soared into the clearing to tame the lion spirits. After a brief display of its own, the dragon ushered the performers and the crowd towards the city centre.

The parade travelled up from its initial performance area on Eastgate street and began down Northgate street towards the now-closed Forum shopping centre, previous home of the Chester Market.

Lion head performers, dragon puppeteers and Tai Chi dancers travelled past the Chester Visitor Centre led by Kylie Wong, Lord Mayor John Leather and Lady Mayoress Heather Leather.

The Parade continued down Northgate street before pausing at Chester Market Square. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress paused momentarily for photographs with performers and volunteers before the crowd migrated into the Storyhouse building.

Performers finally arrived at Storyhouse. Before they could remove their costumes or catch their breath, audience members and staff filled the room with applause.

After the parade, I caught up with lion head puppeteer Joshua Alton, to ask him why it is so important that communities be exposed to other cultural celebrations, He replied,“ if people are exposed to cultures from other countries then they’re more likely to understand cultural norms related to those people.” 

“I think councils could reach out to more local groups to see if there’s any particular interest in doing an event and I think that would be good for everyone to make the city a bit more lively, it helps bring more tourists in, it's just good for everybody.”

The Lord Mayor only had one thing to say to the people of Chester, “Happy Chinese New Year!”

Lady Mayoress Heather Leather, however, had more to say about the event, “Well, it opens everybody’s eyes to different cultures and I think it’s just lovely to see how other people celebrate. We thoroughly enjoyed it.”

I also spoke to Kylie Wong, event coordinator to see how she felt about her first time hosting the Lunar New Year celebration, “I think it went well. The previous years we’ve done some performances, so I would organise that with Storyhouse while our chair [chairwoman of the Wah Lei Chinese Association, Mia Tan] would lead the parade but this time I had to lead the whole thing” 

She added, “We want to bring the Chinese culture to Chester to let everyone celebrate the Chinese new year with us, together.”

“We try our best [to celebrate other aspects of Chinese culture in Chester] if we have time because we are all volunteers but if we have time we like to share our culture.”