Manchester is home to one of the UK's most vibrant Chinese communities. At Chinese New Year, they make their presence felt around the city center marking the celebration. 

Local institutions also get involved in the festivities.

Lion Dance

The Lion dance is a traditional Chinese New Year performance organised by ChiMo Lion Dance Manchester. 

Instead of taking to a stages, performers visit local restaurants and casinos to bring them luck as well as music and entertainment.

This year there was also a Chinese books exhibition in Portico Library, which first opened in 1806 as a subscription library.

The curators have gathered together some of the works linked with China to mark the New Year.

Many of the books are in bad condition and the Portico runs a scheme to allow members to adopt them for repairing and rebinding in their original style. 

Exhibition curator James Mossart said preserving the works is vital, often because they contain prejudices and misconceptions from their time. The Portico puts a strong emphasis on providing material to contextualize and highlight how issues such as colonialism and religion shaped historical opinion.