Raucous Chinese celebrations usher in Year of the Ox

CHINESE people welcomed the arrival of the Year of the Ox with raucous celebrations yesterday despite gloom about the economy, setting off firecrackers in the streets and sending fireworks into the sky.

Celebrations were expected to carry on into the early hours of today officially the first day of the Lunar New Year. Parts of Beijing resembled a war zone with residents braving freezing temperatures to let off fireworks. Clouds of smoke and a hail of red wrappings from firecrackers covered streets and explosions shook windows.

Firecrackers are believed to scare off evil spirits and entice the god of wealth once New Year’s Day arrives, which falls on Monday this year under the Chinese lunar calendar. Premier Wen Jiabao, who in previous years has spent the holiday with everyone from AIDS patients to coal miners, visited survivors of last May’s earthquake in Sichuan that killed more than 80,000 people.