Lunar New Year 2026 live: Year of the Fire Horse

Sakshi Venkatraman
US reporter

I caught up with one New York City Chinatown business owner, Lucy Yu, who has decked out her bookstore in lanterns and tapestries for the new year.

It’s been a particularly harsh winter in New York, with the snow only just starting to thaw after several weeks of below freezing temperatures.

Yu says she couldn’t wait for the Year of the Snake to be over and for the Year of the Horse to begin.

“It doesn’t always feel like it’s the right time to have a new beginning at the end of December,” Yu tells me, adding that this year however, the timing of Lunar New Year “feels right”.

Her store, Yu & Me Books, is in the heart of the neighbourhood, and Yu says this time of year always fills the whole block with excitement.

It’s particularly special to her after, in 2023, the entire bookstore burned down. It was a community effort to get the store back on its feet, she said, and she managed to re-open before Lunar New Year the following year.

“I think we have a really deep understanding of looking out for each other,” she says.

The Year of the Horse is about “really strong, running start beginnings,” she says.

Image source, Sakshi Venkatraman