The Sarawak Tourism Board will celebrate Chinese New Year, 12 February by promoting the Bisaya’s iconic festival, Pesta Babulang.

Babulang is the largest festival of the Bisaya community of Limbang, Sarawak. The festival showcases various music, songs, dances, colorful traditional costumes, decorations, and handicrafts from the Bisaya community. One of the major highlights of the Babulang Festival is the Water Buffalo race which is exclusive to this festival.

This year visitors from out of state will miss the chance to experience the community celebration due to the ongoing Covid-19 travel restrictions, but they can add it to their must-visit list for 2022.

As a token to welcome the Year of the Ox, ‘Ang Pau’ or red envelopes will still be distributed to community elders during Chinese New Year. This tradition dates back thousands of years ago where the elders would thread coins through a red string for the younger generation. It was believed that this would protect them from sickness and death. Hence, today, the practice of giving ‘Ang Pau’ still carries important significance for the Chinese community around the world.

The Ang Pau packets will be shared with STB’s tourism industry partners as well as Tourism Malaysia offices in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, West Malaysia and Sarawak Trade and Tourism Office Singapore (STATOS) to promote Sarawak in readiness for better days to come.

“As Chinese New Year is coming soon, we want to take this opportunity to highlight Sarawak’s uniqueness, in this case, our rich Chinese culture as well as our diverse and unique cultural festival, such as Pesta Babulang that is celebrated by the Orang Ulu community, Bisaya,” said CEO of Sarawak Tourism Board, Sharzede Datu Haji Salleh Askor.

All visitors from outside of the state are required to complete a 14-day quarantine on arrival in Sarawak.