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Manila: Majority of Manila's 10 million residents trekked to Manila's Chinatown and joined about one million ethnic Chinese in celebrating the Chinese New Year on Thursday, observers said.
"The number of Filipinos coming to Binondo [China town] during the Chinese New Year has been increasing every year. It's a sign that they are now celebrating with us," said Rita Tan whose family owns a shop along Gandara Street.
"Many of my Filipino friends have bought sticky rice cakes [tikoy] for exchanging as gifts among themselves and with their Chinese friends," said Tan, adding that she herself has been giving the to her Filipino friends for five years now.
"Many of our Filipino friends who celebrated the Chinese New Year with us in Binondo wore red. They truly believe that the colour red could scare ghosts away, and give them more luck this year," said Tan.
As expected, Filipinos also enjoyed watching the colourful and noisy firecrackers in Binondo, said Tan, adding that Filipinos in general have been influenced by the Filipino Chinese, who believe that firecrackers could drive away bad luck.
"My Filipino friends have started the habit of celebrating the Chinese New Year by giving away red envelopes with money as gifts, exactly the way we do at the start of the year," said Tan.
Filipinos love reading horoscope and now they have started identifying years with animals, in the fashion of the Filipino Chinese, said Tan.
Trying to be more Chinese than the Filipino-Chinese, many enthusiastic Filipinos have been correcting Manila's old greeting for the Chinese New Year, "Kung Hei Fat Choi", which is Cantonese.
Now, they want to greet their Filipino Chinese friend with "Xin Nien Kwai Le" (formally written as "Xin Nian Kuai Le") in Mandarin.
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