Hundreds of millions of people around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year. They’re welcoming in the Year of the Horse. Rob McBride reports from the Temple of Earth in Beijing, on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026
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About 1.4 billion people began marking the Lunar New Year on Tuesday amid fireworks as China enters the Year of the Fire Horse, one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.
Known as the Spring Festival in China, the new year, based on the lunar calendar, also brings about the world’s largest annual human migration, called Chunyun, as millions travel across the country for family reunions.
It is also a huge opportunity to boost domestic consumption in the world’s second-largest economy, which has been driven by exports.
Monday night’s gala, one of the largest state-sponsored televised events, was marked by a stunningly synchronised kung fu performance by robots and children.
The Year of the Horse, said to bring optimism and opportunity, is following the Year of the Snake, which represented transformation and strategy.
Here is a quick snapshot of the festival.
It is the most important holiday in China and is celebrated by millions of people in the country and in East and Southeast Asia.
In the days leading up to it, people clean their homes and decorate with red lanterns, couplets, and paper cuttings that represent prosperity and good fortune.
On the eve of the Lunar New Year, families gather for a large reunion dinner, exchanging hongbao, red envelopes of cash as a symbol of blessings and good fortune.
The celebrations usually last about 15 days, ending with the Lantern Festival. Fireworks, dragon and lion dances, temple fairs across big cities and the hinterland are common during this period.
In the Chinese zodiac, each year is associated with one of the 12 zodiac animals, which is believed to influence the year’s character and fortune.
The animal from the Chinese zodiac is then paired with any one of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
This is the Year of the Fire Horse.
This year’s official holiday is nine days, rather than the typical eight, with New Year’s Day falling on Tuesday, February 17.
The Chinese zodiac system is incredibly complex, repeating every 12 years, each represented by an animal in this order: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
The year of one’s birth decides their zodiac sign; meaning, the ones born last year were Snakes, this year’s children would be Horses and next year’s would be Goats.
A complex mechanism decides how the year will be paired with one of the five elements.
This year, the element is Bing, or big sun, paired with the Horse. This pairing occurs every 60 years, most recently in 1966.
For those who believe in the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Fire Horse represents an explosion of energy and independence, with unpredictable realignments.
The Spring Festival in China is not just cultural but also economically significant, typically driving a spike in consumption across multiple sectors.
People spend heavily on food and festive goods, entertainment, and tourism, with retail and e-commerce platforms registering a surge in sales during the pre-holiday period.
The Chinese government is also expecting a record 9.5 billion passenger trips during the 40-day Spring Festival period, up from nine billion trips last year, as they travel for annual reunions.
The government has also issued consumer vouchers worth more than 360 million yuan ($52m) this month to boost consumption.
China is looking to boost domestic spending in its next five-year economic plan, where households save nearly a third of their income.
It is a global phenomenon extending beyond China. In East and Southeast Asia, several countries observe the Lunar New Year under distinct cultural pretexts.
For instance, Vietnam celebrates Tet Nguyen Dan, which emphasises family reunions and specific culinary traditions like banh chung. In South Korea, Seollal, or the Korean New Year, focuses on honouring ancestors and the consumption of tteokguk, a rice cake soup believed to grant people another year of age.
In Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia, the holiday is a multicultural event marked by public holidays.
Diaspora communities in cities like San Francisco, London, and Sydney also host some of the largest celebrations in the world, featuring massive parades, dragon boat races and fireworks.
This Lunar New Year found its mascot in a rather unusual place: in the World of Harry Potter, a wildly popular British production. And that too in the franchise’s most popular villain, Draco Malfoy.
In Mandarin, the name Malfoy is written phonetically as “ma er fu”. The opening character, ma, signifies “horse” and the closing character, fu, represents “fortune” or “blessing”.
John Shirreffs, the soft-spoken giant who trained Zenyatta, perhaps the best mare of all-time, died in Southern California on Thursday. He was 80. No cause of death was announced.
Shirreffs was one of the top trainers in Southern California with 3,589 starts, 596 of them wins resulting in $58.5 million in purses.
He was a familiar face around local tracks, usually ponying his horses to the track during morning training and then avoiding the spotlight when his horse won by staying on the racing surface and not going to the Winner’s Circle, leaving the punditry to his wife, Dottie Ingordo.
Shirreffs first grabbed national attention when he won the Kentucky Derby with Giacomo at odds of 50-1 in 2005. The horse was partially owned by legendary record producer Jerry Moss, the M along with Herb Alpert in A&M records. Shirreffs remained Moss’ primary trainer until his death in 2023.
Then after Giacomo came Zenyatta, whose personality and skill won the hearts of Southern California race-goers in her 19-race winning streak that included an “un-believe-able” (according to race caller Trevor Denman) last-to-first win against the boys in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita in 2009.
Shirreffs, a Marine veteran, fell into horse racing by accident.
“When I got back from Vietnam, I had no place to go, but I had a friend who knew somebody, so they they said, ‘Come on out West,’” Shirreffs told The Times before last year’s Kentucky Derby.
“So here I’m in New York, I don’t know anything about [horses] except I’ve seen a lot of cowboy movies. So here comes Jim Matthews, pulls up in his trailer, he has his horse set and he it backs his horse out of a trailer.”
Shirreffs admits to not really knowing what he was doing.
“A week or so later, Jim’s just calls me and says, ‘Do you want to come to work for me?’ I said ‘Yeah, that’d be great,” Shirreffs said. “So, I went to work for him and didn’t get paid anything, just room and board. He soon said, ‘I’ll give you this horse and if you sell it, you can make some money.’
“So I’m riding this horse across this field and I get stuck in this mud box. I get the horse out of the mud and Henry Freitas [at Loma Rica Ranch in Central California] asked if I would like to work for him. I said, ‘Well, sure, I get paid here, right? This is great.
“I worked there about 11 years, and one day in he says, ‘John, you wanna take my horse to the fairs?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to do that.’ And that’s how it all started. You know, I never planned it and the opportunity just presented itself each time and when I was fortunate enough, and had some experience with horses, and that’s how it started.”
Shirreffs was asked if Vietnam or training horses was more difficult.
“Well, we don’t want to talk about that,” Shirreffs said.
Santa Anita issued a statement regarding Shirreffs’ death.
“Every horse who races at Santa Anita must first pass by the statue of John’s greatest trainee, the wonderful mare Zenyatta. While John’s victories were plentiful and prestigious, what he accomplished with Zenyatta in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic was a masterpiece and deservedly was voted as the top moment in Santa Anita Park’s 90 years. Our deepest condolences are extended to John’s wife, Dottie, and his family, including those horsemen and women who worked closely with John for so many years. May his memory be a blessing.”
No funeral arrangements have been announced.
Across East and Southeast Asia, and throughout diaspora communities in Los Angeles, Lunar New Year marks a season of renewal. It’s a time of deep reflection and collective gathering, as homes are refreshed, elders are honored and streets fill with lion and dragon dances.
Food is central to the celebrations, with dishes chosen as much for what they represent — abundance, unity and good fortune in the year ahead — as for how they taste.
This year ushers in the Year of the Horse — and not just any Horse, but the Fire Horse, a particularly dynamic pairing in the lunar calendar. The timing couldn’t be better. The horse is traditionally associated with energy, momentum and reinvention, and when paired with the fire element, which amplifies passion and action, this year speaks to our desire to move, create and reclaim a sense of possibility — even in the wake of devastating wildfires, immigration raids and widespread uncertainty.
While Lunar New Year officially kicks off on Feb. 17, celebrations in Los Angeles will take place all month and into the next, with banquet-style feasts, limited-time collaborations and cultural performances. Whether you’re seeking a symbolic meal or a lively street celebration, here are 25 festive ways to ring in Lunar New Year across L.A.
Were you ready for some non-football consumerism? Ready or not, the Super Bowl’s annual blitz of commercials landed before and during the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots defense-first matchup, with some ads served up in advance while others were unveiled for the first time during the game. As in previous years, there were serious clunkers (looking at you Bud Light rolling keg ad), but also a few that transcended their buy-more mission (may you live forever, Melissa McCarthy). Other trends we noticed: celebrities double dipping to appear in more than one Super Bowl commercial (three if you’re Sofía Vergara), lots of borderline-gross humor (exploding heads, singing clumps of shaved body hair, singing toilets and plenty of ads trying to convince America that artificial intelligence tools aren’t a waste of time and energy).
While many of this year’s ads promoted AI and the usual rah-rah-America nods to patriotism, one trend we noticed was that the longer versions for some of the best Super Bowl ads, found online, were even better than the condensed cuts that made it to broadcast. What if next year, we make the Super Bowl three quarters and the commercial breaks 15 minutes long? Any takers?
While we wait for that brilliant idea to make it to the NFL’s offices, here are the big game ads we loved the most and a few that fumbled the ball — big time.