BEIJING: Hundreds of millions of people across Asia celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families on Wednesday, as they bid farewell to the Year of the Dragon and usher in the Year of the Snake.

The Chinese enjoy eight consecutive public holidays for the 2025 Spring Festival, an opportunity to share meals, attend traditional performances, and set off firecrackers and fireworks.

Train stations and airports across the country have been jam-packed for weeks as millions returned home to spend the holidays with their loved ones in an annual migration that is expected to be a record.

And high streets, shopping malls, offices and homes are bedecked in festive red banners – believed to ward off evil – throughout many parts of East and Southeast Asia, including South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.

In Taiwan on Wednesday morning, people of all ages thronged temples across the island to make offerings of fruit, sweets, crackers and nuts, and mediate and pray.