Ten Thousand Things
Multicultural Webfinds

"Ten Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

GLOBAL WARMING LUNAR NEW YEAR: Ching Cheong Still in Prison, World's Greatest Human Migration, & Global Red Good-Luck Underwear..

• It's Hong Kong's Warmest Lunar New Year on record...

• Two dozen bombs exploded in Thailand's Muslim southern region...

• Mary Lau, wife of CHING CHEONG,a Hong Kong journalist serving a five-year prison sentence in China was allowed to visit her husband for the first time in nearly two years, the reporter's employer said Sunday. The Chinese government took Ching Cheong into custody when he travelled to Guangzhou to collect documents connected with the former communist party leader, Zhao Ziyang, who died in 2005, in custody since 1989, when he apologized to and unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate with Tiananmen Square demonstrators.

And, THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE, millions of overseas Asians, ethnic Asians, people who have spent time in Asia, people who have adopted Asian children, and people who like any reason to celebrate, have spread the Lunar Asian New Year (with accompanying Red Good Luck Underwear*) around the world. These celebrations first began to spread, over a millennium ago, from China throughout Asia, including Japan, which only adopted the Gregorian solar New Year's during the Meiji era.

In KOREA, 34 million people endured traffic congestion as they traveled to their hometowns for family reunions and traditional ancestral rites.

In CHINA, people have sent 14 billion New Year's text messages sent in China this year and 2 billion people are traveling, in what is called "the world's greatest human migration."

"'The demand for overseas travel this year has been incredible," said Liang. "It was quite unexpected... People want to go overseas simply because they can now."

"Most Chinese employees are still confined to three, state-sanctioned "golden" weeks of holidays falling in May, October and the start of the lunar new year in early spring. But instead of spending them with family as usual, more and more Chinese are opting to go abroad to shop, see the sites or lounge on a palm-fringed beach instead.

"The number of overseas trips has soared over the past decade, with some 35 million trips in 2006 compared to 620,000 trips in 1990, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. With the average disposable income rising, and the yuan steadily gaining against the U.S. dollar, more Chinese can now afford to travel abroad.

"Travel restrictions have also loosened in recent years. From having only six approved countries to visit in 1999, tourists can choose from 129 as of December 2006. Chinese tourists used to make forays mainly to nearby countries like South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, but now South Africa, Egypt and even Malta attract growing numbers.
"But this surge in outbound travelers is proving too much for China's creaky, but rapidly developing, tourism infrastructure."

In VANCOUVER, the celebration started with Todd Wong's Gung Haggis Fat Choy Robbie Burns New Year's Celebration, held in between the Gregorian solar New Year's and the Lunar New Year traditionally celebrated by Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Thai, and Taiwanese. British Columbia media are touting the mainstreaming of this formerly ethnic holiday, celebrated as a reflection of Canada's embrace of multiculturalism and interculturalism.

Worldwide, businesses are using the holiday to market whatever it is they sell. Perhaps the most extreme example is in the United States where LAS VEGAS casinos are draping their tables in red in honor of their wealthy Chinese clientele, who are not only not wearing the everyman Chairman Mao egalitarian caps of the past, but have swung to the other extreme to a Gilded Age lifestyle reminiscent of the T'ang Dynasty:

"The two-week celebration also draws the year‘s highest rollers, said Caesars Palace vice president of table games, Jimmy Wike. These are players who can bet the maximum of $150,000 per hand, and by casino rules must have deposits or credit lines worth at least $3 million, he said.

"Two years ago, Las Vegas Sands retrofitted The Venetian with a $50 million luxury upgrade called the Paiza Club, an invitation-only, Chinese-themed gambling salon that is similar to its club at the Sands Macao.

"Jade sculptures, rugs hand-woven in Tibet and silk walls await the exclusive "Chairman" guests, who are not presented a bill for specialty chef cooked meals, except for gratuity purposes.

"Chinese newspapers, Chinese satellite television, and Chinese-speaking staff are made available. Las Vegas Sands caters to its important patrons by flying in its top chefs from China to prepare meals, such as shark‘s fin or bird‘s nest soup...

"Ninety percent of all Chinese visitors to the United States spend some part of their trip in Nevada, said Bruce Bommarito, the vice president of international market development for the Travel Industry Association of America. And while Lanni said the Chinese have a "great propensity to gamble," Bommarito said the average visitor spends more than $5,000 shopping each trip.

"'They‘re tremendous shoppers,' Bommarito said. 'And I think that‘s something that people underestimate."'

"When the number of visitors is calculated from last year, tourism from China is expected to have risen 18 percent from 2005, Bommarito said. In 2005, 405,000 Chinese visited the United States, a 24 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Commerce Department .

In LONDON, (where "multiculturalism" is considered "controversial" now that the exchange of people and culture is two-way instead of the one-way British sun-never-setting, white man's burden colonial influx into Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...), 300,000, mostly non-Chinese people, celebrated in Trafalgar Square -- demonstrating that controversies about multiculturalism are selective...

"Thousands have gathered in London's Trafalgar Square for the lavish Chinese New Year celebrations, watching a parade and lion and dragon dancing.

"A massive billboard overlooking Trafalgar Square displays one of China's best known exports.

"But it's not cultural or culinary, it's the ubiquitous iPod.

"Apple's music player is a symbol of the new economic realities of the 21st Century and of the new China, soon to be best known as a manufacturing powerhouse...

Twenty years ago the celebrations in Chinatown would have been dominated by British-born Chinese – but now as well as students, tourists from mainland China mill around amid the mostly non-Chinese crowd.

"Multiculturalism can be an extremely controversial topic these days, but the New Year celebrations are being enjoyed by the thousands in the crowd."

In oil-producing NIGERIA, a major Chinese trade partner, 20,000 Chinese celebrated, as the Chinese ambassador ballyhooed China's assistance in Nigeria's first telecommunications satellite launch.

*Red is a powerful color in all cultures. Wearing red underwear is not just an Asian custom. Spanish, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Italians also wear red New Year's underwear for good luck. In the 1980's and 1990's, American powerbrokers wore red power ties. Poytner.Org has a great interactive site on the use of color in the media. In Buddhism, Hinduism, and in Jainism, red stands for the life force. Jains believe red should be used with caution because it can provoke too much excitement.

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