For a night, everyone was Chinese as Pattaya welcomed in the Year of the Rooster at various New Year’s celebrations.
Former Culture Minister Sonthaya Kunplome opened Pattaya’s main Chinese New Year event at Bali Hai Pier Jan. 28 with Acting Mayor Chanapong Sriviset.
The event drew a large crowd that included both locals and tourists, Bali Hai was decorated appropriately for the occasion with red and gold lanterns everywhere and there was lots to see.
The event catered to the many Chinese-Thai people living in the Pattaya area, as well as large numbers of Chinese tourists in town to escape the colder climates in their homeland.
Highlights of the celebration included traditional martial arts shows, stage performances, a Chinese Boy and Girl Pageant, dance routines, greasy pole climbing and, of course, a lion and dragon show.
The winners of the children’s pageant were Dempum Dejkamol and Natnicha Seeto. On the boys’ side, the runners up were Sretapat Jetkhetkran and Ariyapol Chimpalee. For the girls, it was Nattarin Teerametatip and Poonyapat Anstick.
The first- through third-place winners took home 10,000, 7,000 and 5,000 baht in scholarships.
Elsewhere, Royal Garden Plaza had former City Councilman Rattanachai Sutidechanai open their Year of the Rooster celebration, which featured traditional dance shows, Chinese music and a performance from the Pattaya Elephant Village.
The mall also staged a giant rooster dance show, in which a rooster head was attached to the body of a three-meter-long dragon.
The show also featured rooster characters fighting in an act called “Kai Mongkol” or “roosters of fortune”.
