The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is the most important traditional holiday in China and uniquely rooted in the idea of family reunion. This year, China and Africa mark the “Year of China–Africa People-to-People Exchange”. In a dazzling display of colour, tradition and international friendship, Sun City resort played host to an extraordinary Chinese New Year celebration this past weekend, marking the second consecutive year that the iconic South African destination has embraced the Spring Festival festivities with cultural exchange at the centre stage.
Year of the Horse
The 2026 Chinese New Year is the Year of the Horse, and during this chinese festive season, people engage in various traditions and customs such as cleaning their homes to ward off bad luck and setting off fireworks to symbolise a fresh start. This cultural showcase held at the iconic Superbowl, was a night of culture, Chinese cuisines, fashion traditional dance and music.
The night opened with the Chinese and South African national anthems, symbolising China and African cultural exchange, followed by the eye opening ceremony with the lion dancers emerging as dusk settled their colourful costumes electric under the spotlights. The drumming started slow a deep, rhythmic pulse that felt almost primal beneath the resort’s grand arches. Then it built up, faster and faster, as the lions weaved through the crowd, pausing to let children pat their silken heads.
Joyful feast
The tables, filled with different dishes and drinks, were joyfully occupied by families and friends, business associates and accomplices full of laughter and sharing. The tables were a representation of Africa and China relationship, culture and good food. In between the activities of the night came red envelope moments were 20, 20,3,5 envelopes were awarded to lucky winners at different segments of the night.
“[Thank you for] joining the domestic/local Chinese community to celebrate Chinese New Year, which is a very very important festival for the Chinese cultural calendar. For us there is a massive cultural exchange taking place. On the other side, it’s very important for us South Africans to recognise Chinese culture and in particular so that we understand this when we have an influx of Chinese tourists,” Brett Hoppé, Sun City Resort general manager told Sunday World.
The night, was also the fifth inauguration ceremony of the Chinese community and police cooperation centre of the North West province and the inauguration ceremony of the Ninth Board of Directors and Supervisors of the Fujian Association of North West province South Africa.
This year’s Chinese New Year festival comes at a time when there is war in the middle East which has some impact on the South African tourism.
Middle East jitters
“The South African government and the department home affairs have done an immense job removing the stumbling blocks relating to visas and the new e-Visa system is underway and has had an impact. Unfortunately, on the negative side that has been somewhat derailed by the goings in the middle East at this point, we are very hopeful that the situation in the middle East will return to normality quite quickly and we will see a missive influx of Chinese tourists as expected,” Hoppé said.
The fireworks
Just after 10pm, the sky above Sun City exploded into colour as a spectacular fireworks ceremony brought the evening to a close. The first rocket shot skyward with a sharp crack, bursting into a cascade of golden light that rained down like falling stars over the Valley of Waves. Red peonies and silver willows followed, then crackling comets trailing white fire, each explosion drawing gasps and cheers from the crowd below.
Children sat on fathers’ shoulders, mouths open in wonder. For a few brilliant minutes, as the fireworks painted the African sky in colours of hope and renewal, the war felt very far away. The horses of the new year were galloping now, the old folks say.
At Sun City, under that shower of light, their hooves could almost be heard carrying everyone forward, together, into an uncertain but still hopeful year.
