Chinese-Australians mock Sydney’s ‘death-themed’ Lunar New Year lanterns as a ‘laughing stock’

City council makes inauspicious start to the Year of the Water Tiger with a cultural faux pas, by using colours linked to death, illness and funerals in its decorations

Chinese-Australian artist Susan Chen defends the work as ‘entirely appropriate’ and says it is an attempt to be ‘inclusive of new narratives’

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Sydney’s ‘death-themed’ Lunar New Year lanterns. In Chinese culture white and blue are the colours of death, illness and funerals.

Published: 5:30am, 2 Feb 2022Updated: 11:33am, 2 Feb 2022

Sydney’s hopes of reviving its downtown business activity amid a Covid-19 reopening may have hit a snag as the local Chinese diaspora shuns its “death-themed” Chinatown.

The local city council has decorated its Chinatown with white and blue lanterns and wrapped trees with white cloth for its Lunar New Year celebrations, as part of an art installation inspired by traditional Chinese water vessels representing the “yin and yang for the Year of the Water Tiger”.

There’s just one problem: in Chinese culture white and blue are the colours of death, illness and funerals and Sydney’s cultural faux pas has drawn the ire of the local Chinese-Australian community.

And, given it is the largest Lunar New Year celebration outside Asia, it has also attracted international attention.

“People are saying they don’t want to go Chinatown because they don’t want to go for a funeral,” said Helen Sham-Ho, a Chinese-Australian community leader and the first elected Chinese-born parliamentarian in Australia.

The debacle would do nothing to help revive the city after two years of lacklustre business activity and pandemic lockdowns, Sham Ho added.

In Chinese culture blue usually symbolises illness, while white lanterns and white sash and cloth indicate death. Blue and white lanterns are also used at funerals.