The Top Ten Things to See and Do at Sydney Chinese New Year 2014

The Chinese Zodiac assigns an animal to each year in a rotating cycle of 12 years, with this coming year the year of the horse. We're still slogging through the year of the snake, but the year of the horse is almost upon us. And as the calendar ticks over, Sydney's 2014 Chinese New Year celebrations are happy to kick in a little early, with the City throwing in an equine component on top of its usual mix of street march, food and culture.

It can take time to unfold the full breadth of leisure and show behind the City's annual lunar new year celebrations. Handily, we've narrowed this complex calendar down to a few highlights to help you get the best out of this year's festivities.

Twilight Parade

A firm favourite on the Chinese New Year activity calendar, this year’s Twilight Parade promises the same visual spectacle of vibrant dancers, rainbow-hued floats, and vivid fireworks that have characterised each year's bedazzling parade offering. All manner of horse-themed acts will be entertaining the crowds from 7pm until an eye-dotting ceremony at 8pm to 'bless' the Chinese New Year lions, then the parade kicks off at 8.15pm from Sydney Town Hall on George St. Sydney CBD buildings also get into the new year action with enchanting projections illuminating their facades whilst post-parade fireworks at Cockle Bay wharf will round off the night and help to scare away any back luck from the previous year.

Free. February 2, from 7pm. Sydney Town Hall to Chinatown. Fireworks at Cockle Bay Wharf. Download a parade map here.

Dragon Ball

The Star Event Centre will be transformed into a glamorous, chandelier-swinging, big-band-grooving event with the return of the Dragon Ball, a fixture on the Australian Chinese social calendar from the 1930s to the 1970s when the event saw young debutantes presented to the Chinese Consul General with their families looking on. After a 40-year hiatus, this modern reincarnation of the Dragon Ball band returns for its second year of cranking out contemporary tunes and bringing to life the heady days of swing — think double bass and drums, trumpets and trombones, with a lilting, swing rhythm. This is a night to dust off your glam frocks and sashay out onto the dance floor for a cha-cha or a samba.

February 8, 7.30pm to midnight, the Star, Pyrmont, $72pp + booking fee.

Lunar Feasts

Want to try something other than your beef and blackbean Friday night special? Sydney saddles up its chefs for the Year of the Horse with a rash of Lunar Feasts. There are banquets from as little as $20 at dumpling powerhouse Din Tai Fung in World Square, or try keeping up as Chow Bar and Eating House banquets you through some of its greatest hits for $60pp. Spice I Am's House Shop offers up some budget papaya salad at $20pp and Azuma Japanese Restaurant throws together a hotpot at $50pp. Still undecided? Check out the Lunar Feasts site for a full listing of eateries.

Cinema Alley at Golden Age Cinema and Bar

The 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art's Cinema Alley has been a stalwart over the last few Chinese New Years, taking over the laneway outside its Hay Street headquarters. This year, the Centre's celebration moves to Surry Hills' newly SMAC-approved Golden Age Cinema to screen two of Jia Zhang-Ke's films exploring modern China. At 6.30, Still Life follows people looking for their partners in the shadow of the gargantuan three gorges dam, while at 9pm, four desperate stories diverge in the multi-threaded A Touch of Sin. Outside in the bar and foyer, art by Chen Qiulin and Adrian Wong keep on with a theme of changing China.

Cinema Alley at Golden Age Cinema and Bar is ticketed, free for the art and paid for the movies. Details here.

Horses

With the horse standing at the centre of this year's shift of the zodiac, the new year celebrations has no shortage of horse-themed events. There are equine exhibitions, like Woman Horse and the Macleay Museum's sideline in equine history, and NSW Evergreen Taoist Church is opening its doors to the public for a weekend of tours of its church on the site of the former barracks of the NSW Mounted Police. Meanwhile, at their current headquarters, the NSW Mounted Police are also giving you the chance to tour their stable and hang out with their horses. It's a tour that books out pretty early in its more regular incarnation, so it might be worth booking ahead.

Chinese New Year Markets

There'll be bamboo baskets piled high with steaming dumplings, bowls of soy-covered noodles waiting to be slurped, and Hong Kong/Australian break dance collaborations care of Compartmentalized at the Chinese New Year Markets in Belmore Park. There's live entertainment on the main market stage with a film screenings, martial arts performances and a wee bit of demonstration cooking. Want to belt out a tune? Battle it out at the karaoke competition, and if you're the crowd's favourite, you might end up taking home a swag of prizes. The official festival launch kicks off Friday night with an evening of fireworks to scare last year's baddies away.

Free. February 24-26, Belmore Park, Eddy Avenue, Sydney.

Beijing Silvermine

Beijing Silvermine is a rare and unique collection of photographs capturing everyday life in China during the decades following the Cultural Revolution. Dug out of family archives, the anonymous subjects of these photographs become unknowing participants in mapping a period of immense social change. Beijing-based collector Thomas Sauvin struck up a deal to buy this 'silvermine' of abandoned memories, which were destined for destruction. From moments of exquisite intimacy between lovers through to the static poses of holiday-makers, Sauvin injects the photographs with a retrospective significance by re-casting the subjects as forgers of modern China. The exhibition also features two video animations produced by Beijing-based animator Lei Lei in collaboration with Sauvin, compiling the collection into a surreal imagescape.

Until February 22, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

Mahjong Playlunch

There's the thud of solid bakelite tiles as they're slid across the felt-lined table. whilst players drink cups of steaming Jasmine tea or nibble delicately on tasty dim sums. Suddenly someone calls 'mahjong' and the table erupts into chatter. It's a busy afternoon at the MahJong Room in Surry Hills, and the atmosphere is electric. Celebrate Chinese New Year with your friends at Mahjong Playlunch by learning this thousand-year-old game of skill and chance at Surry Hills' answer to the traditional mahjong houses of old Shanghai. Furnished with a mahjong playing set, a belly full of dim sums, and personal lessons from the staff, it's a cool way to while away an afternoon.

$39/pp including dim sum and tea. Mahjong Room, 312 Crown Street, Surry Hills. Book via [email protected]

Dragon Boat Races

Fast and furious, wet and wild — no it's not an ad for a summer roller-coaster ride, it's the frantic dash in a 12m-long painted boat known as Dragon Boat Races. Dating back 2000 years, the race was traditionally held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese Calendar to encourage rains for prosperity — the dragon, the symbol of water, was the object of worship for the ancient Chinese. Today, it's a heart-thumping sport boasting crews of roughly 20 rowers. Grab a waterside seat and watch some of Sydney's best dragon boat teams battle it out in this highly competitive, thrilling sport.

Free. February 8-9. Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Chinese History Tours

So the current Chinatown is actually's Sydney's third. The first was in The Rocks, the second around the Haymarket, and the current one followed Sydney's markets to the top of Darling Harbour. It's a complicated and interesting history that, like most migrant communities (including the English), is a grab bag of culture shock, social clubs, a bit of crime, a bit of poverty and a lot of social mobility. This year, the Chinatown Historical Tours returns to take through the history of this third Chinatown by foot ending up with some optional Yum Cha. For a grander tour, Our Chinese Past by Bike takes you on a two-wheeled tour between all three incarnations of this cultural hub.

Beijing Silvermine section by Annie Murney. Horses, Cinema Alley and History Tours by Zacha Rosen.