WHILE Chinese celebrations of the Year of the Earth Rat are in full swing, it may be cool to visit London’s Chinatown and contemplate there while you are here on a holiday in London. London has lots of things to offer and we can see parts of London based from movies released in January. In the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets, we saw that the thugs in the movie played by Ed Harris retrieved an artifact dumped into River Thames by Nicolas Cage. Then in Eastern Promises, a Russian thug drops a dead body into the same river. Years back, I could recall London being in an authoritarian state in V for Vendetta. Of course, this is certainly not true in the real London life as there has been no body dumped there in recent memory unless you count the Jack the Ripper case in the 19th century which was a very long time ago. Of course, Jack the Ripper’s story was sort of immortalized in the Johnny Depp-headlined film From Hell. The real River Thames which extends far out onto suburbian London features rowing and other water sports.

But right now, since it is Chinese New Year, I will tour you into one of the exotic parts of London – its own Chinatown. 2008 is certainly a lucky year because three of the digits are round; meaning luck is infinite. And the number “8” even feature double zeros. Sadly, this has not been the fate portrayed upon British Chinese as far as Hollywood movies are concerned. We in Britain must erase that concept portrayed by Hollywood. British Chinese are portrayed there as human smugglers where Chinese just wash up on our beaches here in England. That certainly is not true, right? In fact, when you visit Chinatown in Soho, you can see that the Chinese are very industrious. That is one of the Oriental legacies that we inherit from them – they can live well even through the worst of times.

The influence of the Chinese in London culture is so much alive that even Mayor Ken Livingstone himself graced the 2008 Chinese New Year celebrations here yesterday. The parade cruised the major thoroughfares of the whole Soho district, including Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road and the Strand. In Trafalgar Square, there was a concert featuring British Chinese artists throughout the night which rocked the whole area even until dawn.

There is one connection between China and London in this year’s celebration. Beijing, which is the capital of China, is the host of the 2008 Summer Olympics which will be undergone later this year. The next host of the Olympics by 2012 will be London of course. There will be a Chinese film festival featuring movies by filmmakers from Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei. There will be visiting acrobats and music artists from Beijing who will be holding concerts not just during New Year’s Day itself but throughout February and on to the summer while Olympics is going on in Beijing.