Chinese New Year: Colorful photos, not-so-colorful TV

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Happy New Year! Well, in much of Asia, anyway. It’s the Year of the Dragon, and ethnic Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese across Asia are celebrating with fireworks, festivals and family reunions. Check out more spectacular photographs from The Times through our photo gallery.

Chinese families also celebrate by watching the annual New Year’s Gala, a five-hour pastiche of dancing, singing, comedy, magic tricks, propaganda and kitsch. But as our China correspondent Barbara Demick reports, the tradition is in jeopardy, as younger viewers turned off by the increasingly heavy hand of the Communist Party tune out a censored, bland show.

Just how bland? Warren Buffett showed up to play the ukelele.

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-- Emily Alpert