HUNDREDS of thousands of humans and quite a few Rabbits are bound for Chinatown Sunday 6 February, to see in the Chinese New Year.


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Over the last few years crowd numbers in Soho for the festivities have reached 300,000, the best attended outside the Celestial Kingdom itself.

So it’s good-bye to the Tiger and hello to the Rabbit. In Chinese mythology, people born in the year of the Rabbit are reckoned to be kind, friendly and fashionable. David Beckham and Jamie Oliver are both Rabbits. Hopefully Jamie won’t be cooking Thumper this weekend.

Bringing young children to Chinatown for the New Year celebrations can be a bit of a slog, what with the crowds and the sudden appearances of noisy dragons.
People laden with offspring would probably do best to base themselves at Trafalgar Square, where space is at less of a premium than Leicester Square or Gerrard Street and its tributaries.

On the other hand, you get great fireworks on Leicester Square and the main lion dances are in Chinatown, so you pays your money and takes your choice, except that it’s all free.

There’s loads more stuff to do, see and eat, much of it detailed on our special Chinese New Year section.

The main parade starts at the Strand at 12 noon, arrives at Trafalgar Square about an hour later and continues until 6pm.