Canada's welcome apology
The Lunar New Year is by far the most important holiday in Hong Kong as well as other Chinese-speaking communities. And because of the Chinese diaspora, the occasion is marked in many other countries as well.
This year, Chinese in Canada, in addition to marking the lunar festival, have another reason to celebrate. Prime-minister-elect Stephen Harper, who will be inaugurated on Monday, has said he would issue a formal apology to the country's 1 million Chinese for racist policies of the Canadian government in the past.
In his first address after winning last month's election, Mr Harper had this to say: 'I'd like to just acknowledge briefly that Chinese New Year begins this Sunday, January 29. Chinese-Canadians are making an extraordinary impact on the building of our country.
'They've also made a significant historical contribution despite many obstacles.
'That's why, as I said during the election campaign, the Chinese-Canadian community deserves an apology for the head tax and appropriate acknowledgement and redress. On this occasion, I'd just like to take the opportunity to wish all Canadians of Chinese descent a healthy and prosperous new year. Kung hei fat choi.'
Thousands of Chinese were brought into Canada to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and 1885. However, as soon as the railway was completed, the Canadian government moved to restrict Chinese immigration. Each Chinese entering the country had to pay a head tax of C$50 ($340), which was doubled in 1900 and increased to C$500 in 1903 - equivalent to two years' wages for a Chinese labourer at the time.
No other group was targeted in this way, and the Chinese saw this treatment as humiliating. Altogether, some C$23 million was raised through the head tax.
The question of a formal apology arose as an election campaign issue. Liberal leader Paul Martin, who was subsequently defeated, made a personal apology, but did not say that the government would make a similar gesture.
This follows an official apology in February 2002 from the New Zealand government of Prime Minister Helen Clark, for the country's previous discriminatory legislation against Chinese immigrants.
Australia, too, imposed a poll tax on Chinese immigrants but is unlikely to issue an apology.
The administration of former US president Bill Clinton apologised for the internment of Japanese-Americans during the second world war.
But the United States has not apologised for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or other discriminatory legislation against Chinese.
Actually, a lot has happened in the 121 years since Canada first took legal action to keep out Chinese. Today, they are very much a part of Canada. A Hong Kong-born Chinese, Adrienne Clarkson, a well-known journalist and broadcaster, was governor-general - the official head of state - from 1999 until September. She was the first non-white immigrant to serve as the representative of Queen Elizabeth.
And her sister-in-law, Vivienne Poy, another immigrant from Hong Kong, is a Canadian senator. Mrs Poy is the daughter of Richard Charles Lee who, until his death in 1983, was a pillar of the Hong Kong community.
Today, 16 per cent of Vancouver's population is Chinese, with an additional 14 per cent from other parts of Asia. In Toronto, the majority of the population is non-white. Chinese is now the third most used language in Canada, after English and French.
Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator
