Visitors take part in cultural activities during Spring Festival celebration at Trafalgar Square in London. [Photo provided to China Daily]

For many years, the celebrations remained within the confines of Chinatowns and were considered exotic and foreign, he said.

As the number of Chinese people in the United States increases, more non-Chinese have become aware of and started to celebrate Lunar New Year, he said.

“The broadening of the awareness is also due to the shared celebration of other Asians, such as Vietnamese, in the US,” he added.

Chinese New Year celebrations are even more deeply ingrained in Singapore and Malaysia, where ethnic Chinese constitute three-fourths and one-fourth of the populations, respectively.

On Jan 27, Singapore Chinatown’s official light-up ceremony took place, and its celebrations will last for seven weeks.

Thousands of handcrafted lanterns in the shapes of bamboo, oranges and octagons, with auspicious Chinese words, decorate the area.

Soaking up the New Year spirit was retiree Lim Heng Fong, who visits the Chinatown light-up ceremony each year and also shops for home decorations.

“It puts me in the mood for the festival,” she said. “I also hope some of the positivity from the happy atmosphere rubs off on me during the year.”

Along with her husband, Lim heads off to the nearby River Hongbao — another fixture on the Singapore calendar during Lunar New Year — at The Float @ Marina Bay.

This year, 35 craftsmen from Sichuan were employed for three months to create more than 500 lanterns for use in 60 displays.

Fireworks shows will take place every night at River Hongbao’s 11-day event.

Public celebrations aside, Lunar New Year in Singapore has a more personal spin, with families typically gathering under the roof of the patriarch or matriarch to mark the occasion.

Bo Leung in London and Wu Nian in Brussels contributed to this story.