CHINGAY FESTIVAL

Time to Celebrate the Grandest and Most Anticipated Festival in Johor Bahru!

The annual celebration of the Chingay Festival marks the end of Chinese New Year and is celebrated by almost 50,000 people in one place together! 

It is event the most colorful, most exciting and liveliest festival, but it is celebrated as a way of asking for the blessing and a prosperous year from the deities . The series of activities of Chingay Festival 2020 is already laid out, let us learn more about it!

Johor Chingay Street Parade, annually celebrated by people of Johor Bahru

The Chingay Parade in Johor Bahru has a 140-year history and the celebrations are on a large scale as compared to those in the neighbouring Singapore. You’ll be awed by a mix of acrobatic performances and the brightly decorated floats during the grand parade.

Traditionally, it is only celebrated by the Chinese but nowadays you will see other races joining in the celebration. The parade is part of the Chinese New Year festivities and it is executed to commemorate the birthdays of Chinese deities in Malaysia.

As always, there will be a series of activities for five days for the ancient temple tour 2020. Those will be the following; The lighting ceremony, street cleansing and mounting of the Gods on sedans, coming out of the Gods, God's night tour and the return of the Gods. These will be held in different days and times of the day. Let us learn the details each of them. 

Activities for five days for the ancient temple tour 2020.

Lighting ceremony 

Date       : February 11, 2020 (Tuesday) 18th Day of the Lunar New Year

Time          : 7:00 pm 

Viewpoint  : To officially mark the beginning of celebration, there is an opening ceremony called Lighting Ceremony held on the evening of the 18th day of Lunar calendar. Traditional performance, firecrackers, and fireworks are everywhere! Every year, the lighting ceremony is becoming more and more exciting than the past years.

Street Cleansing Ceremony and Mounting of Deities on Sedans

Date         : February 12, 2020 (Wednesday) 19th Day of the Lunar New Year

Time         : 11:00 am

Location   : Main streets of Johor Bahru

Viewpoint : The streets which are included in the routes for the deities' tour are symbolically cleansed in the washing ceremony by devotees. They are accompanied by loud music from gongs, cymbals and drums, which is intended to ward off evil spirits. Also, it is believe that it will rain on the cleansing ceremony and that will properly clean the streets. Once the cleansing ceremony is done, then it is time to prepare the deities for the journey. They are carefully dressed and then mounted on their divine sedans, where they will be placed as a journey around the city. 

Deities' First Coming Out

Date     : February 13, 2020 (Thursday) 20th Day of the Lunar New Year

Time        : 11:00 am

Location  : From the Johor Temple to the Yixing Road Palace

Viewpoint: After the preparation, the deities are then taken out of the temple for the people to see. The first out of Gods are important to them and they make sure to get a glimpse or take a shot of this moment, that is why huge crowd is expected to gather here. The five deities are lined in order, prior the parade proper.

God's Night Tour

Date         : February 14, 2020 (Friday) 21st Day of the Lunar New Year

Time             : 6:00 pm

Location   : Around the entire city of Johor Bahru, approximately 8 kilometers

Viewpoint    : Minutes before 7:00 in evening, there are lion and dragon dancers, giant dolls, giant floats, loud music, waving flags and all the people who will join the most awaited highlight of the festival, the Chingay night parade. It is a tradition with a belief that deities are carried round the streets of Johor Bahru, and they will bless the whole city with luck, prosperity, and harmony. The sedan chairs of the deities are wildly rock every now and then, with a loud of utterance of "heng-ah" and "huat-ah" for good luck! Once the deities pass by them, people clasp their hands and pray.

Return of the Gods

Date       : February 15, 2020 (Saturday) 22nd Day of the Lunar New Year

Time         : 11:00 am

Location  : From the Yixing Road Palace back to Johor Temple

Viewpoint : After the parade is over, the deities will now be brought back to the old temple by the devotees. Like their first coming out, the return of the gods are accompanied by loud music and cheering crowd. One by one, the deities are returned to the old temple and once of all of them have returned properly, the celebration is officially over. 

Date         : 18th to 22nd Day of the Lunar New Year
Duration  : Five days
Venue      : Around Johor Bahru city centre