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With the Lunar new year approaching, hundreds of people gather at nearby temples to celebrate the Year of the Monkey. This particular temple blocked more than half of the traffic on Westminster Blvd. Prayers are made to ancestors while fortunes and yellow flowers are handed out for luck. Lion dancers preform with a live band to ward off evil spirits. Fireworks ignite throughout the night while everyone waits till midnight for the countdown. Guest appearance by state senator Janet Nguyen yelling into a microphone to rally the crowd of cell phone welding video recordings. A few drones flying overhead the event, one even flying low with an American flag attached.
Nearing the approach of midnight, the crowd begins to sing the Southern Vietnamese anthem. The crowd finishes the anthem and counts down in Vietnamese. The pyrotechnics set off the massive bundled chain of firecrackers which extend from the parking lot grounds to the roof of the temple. After the last firecracker hanging off the temple explodes, the crowd cheers on. Grown men start rolling out and igniting firecrackers. Clouds of gunpowder smoke fill the air, mortars and roman candles brighten the night sky. It's the beginning of a whole new year, according to the moon.