Chingay fans await declaration

The Chingay procession here, which is held after the Chinese New Year celebrations, will be declared a cultural heritage.

This year’s Johor Baru Chingay procession will start on Thursday and end on next Monday.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will make the declaration when he watches the  event on Thursday. The procession will be led by the Johor Baru Tionghua Association, which manages the Johor Ku Miao (old temple), assisted by five clans representing the Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien communities.

Today (Monday) marks the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations, or popularly known as  Chap Goh Meh (literally translated as the 15th night of the first lunar month). For the Chinese here though, the celebrations will continue until the last day of the five-day Johor Ku Miao procession is over. The procession is also known as the Johor Baru Chingay procession, an important event in the Johor tourism calendar and cultural potpourri which is said to have bonded the Chinese community here for the last 148 years.

The dates of the procession differ year to year in the Gregorian calender. However, it is fixed from the 18th to the 22nd day of the first lunar month. This year, the celebration starts on Thursday and will end next Monday.

Johor Baru Tionghua Association president Lim Ik Kim said the association had formed a committee to oversee the application of the procession as a cultural heritage  in 2009. "Our  effort has proved to be fruitful. "We are looking forward to this Thursday to listen to Najib's declaration of the procession as a cultural heritage and receive the certificate from him."

Among the VIPs who are  expected to attend the  procession this Sunday are the Sultan of Johor Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, the Tunku Mahkota of Johor Tunku Ismail  and Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman.

-NST Online.