Feature: Spring Festival celebrations in Laos spread cheer,

VIENTIANE, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- With passionate traditional Chinese performances, the youth chapter of the Lao Chinese Association held celebrations of the Chinese Spring Festival here in the Lao capital.

Lion dance, martial arts and acrobatic displays and all the festivities helped spread cheer and the promises of good fortune and prosperity for the Year of the Monkey ahead.

Also accompanied with profusions of red inlayed with highlights of gold, such traditions have formed a central role in celebrations.

The blend of color and sound associated with the traditional performances to welcome the lunar new year is familiar to all here.

Laos' capital Vientiane has long provided a welcome port of call to visitors and small but vibrant ethnic diasporas from its neighboring countries who have helped keep the spirit of the lunar new year alive.

As further flows of people and opportunities for enterprise and exchange emerge, "localized" older generations' connections to their cultural homelands draw on deep roots that are richly watered with the continuing assistance of further arrivals.

In the case of the Chinese, numbers of expatriates in the Lao capital and countryside alike are discovering the benefits of doing work or business in the economically emerging country.

The passion and commitment of the ethnic Chinese-Lao youth in raucously reanimating such time-honoured traditions could not escape those new to the country.

At the same time, new and old members of the Lao-Chinese community alike are continuing to explore opportunities to connect the two countries and their rich traditions amid a host of modern day complementarities toward the achievement of greater prosperity for all.

Laos is a land of rich cultural diversity and harmony where practice of various lunar new year customs are well preserved as well as truly alive.

Not to be constrained, the Lao populace is keen to get into the spirit of the whole gamut of year-end celebrations on offer.

Among a full list of local and national festivals, Laos celebrates its very own Lao New Year (known as Pi Mai Lao here) annually from April 14 to 16 when the warm weather is countered with liberal doses of water sprayed or splashed over all comers.

Inside the country itself, ethnic groups of the mid- and high- lands areas welcome both compatriots from the lowland majority and international visitors alike to join in the spirit of their own traditional new year festivities, held annually in November and December respectively.