Culture

Lunar New Year Festivities Come to a Colorful Close in China

China’s celebration of the Lunar New Year came to a colorful close today after two weeks of festivities and pilgrimages. Here, a look at how millions of revelers, from the cities to the provinces, prepared and celebrated the beginning of 2015, the Year of the Goat.
By Suzanne Shaheen
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    Photo: Getty Images
    1/17

    Revelers leave the Ditan Park temple fair in Beijing. Millions observe the Spring Festival, the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar, which this year marks the beginning of the Year of the Goat (or Sheep, depending on whom you ask).

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    Photo: Reuters Pictures
    2/17

    Young performers wearing goat hats at a shopping mall in Hong Kong.

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    Photo: AP Images
    3/17

    Migrant workers in south China’s Pearl River Delta cities begin their annual journey home by motorcycle.

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    Photo: AP Images
    4/17

    A worker checks red lanterns at a factory in Hefei city. Chinese factories produce enormous quantities of red lanterns, used for decorating houses and streets every year.

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    Photo: Getty Images
    5/17

    Artists perform a dragon dance at an amusement park in Beijing.

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    6/17

    A group of people pray at the Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing.

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    Photo: Getty Images
    7/17

    Commuters begin their trip home.

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    Photo: Reuters Pictures
    8/17

    A young girl is primped before performing in the outskirts of Taiyuan, Shanxi province.

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    Photo: Reuters Pictures
    9/17

    Girls in traditional costume walk before a performance in Longxian county, Shaanxi province.

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    Photo: Getty Images
    10/17

    Acrobats perform on a high wire at a temple fair in Beijing.

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    Photo: Getty Images
    11/17

    Folk artists perform during the opening ceremony of the Spring Festival Temple Fair at the Temple of Earth park in Beijing.

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    Photo: Getty Images
    12/17

    A villager attends a Spring Festival temple fair.

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    13/17

    A man reacts as firecrackers explode.

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    14/17

    Performers wear beards and traditional costumes as they wait to perform.

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    Photo: AP Images
    15/17

    Tourists crowd a mausoleum in Nanjing city.

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    Photo: AP Images
    16/17

    Revelers burn incense sticks for good fortune in Hong Kong.

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    17/17

    Blacksmiths man a furnace as they prepare to throw molten metal against a cold stone wall to create sparks in Nuanquan, Hebei Province, a tradition in Nuanquan Town for over 300 years.

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