HONG KONG (AP) — At Lunar New Year, red holds the promise of luck and reunion — a color meant to call people home and carry wishes for the year ahead.
It sits at entrances and lingers along walls. It threads through wishes and wraps around food. In smoke, it lifts and thins into the air.
Across much of Asia — where the festival is known as the Spring Festival, Tet, or Seollal — the new year is marked by rituals long believed to gather people against darkness and draw good fortune near. This year’s festival begins the Year of the Horse, one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac.
These photographs follow the color red from public celebrations to smaller, everyday spaces.
Two people carry red bags with offerings as they walk along a bridge in Hong Kong, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
Two people carry red bags with offerings as they walk along a bridge in Hong Kong, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
Worshippers hold incense sticks as they pray during Lunar New Year celebrations at Wong Tai Sin temple in Hong Kong, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
Worshippers hold incense sticks as they pray during Lunar New Year celebrations at Wong Tai Sin temple in Hong Kong, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A cyclist rides past a rural hospital decorated with red lanterns on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A cyclist rides past a rural hospital decorated with red lanterns on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A person waits inside a laundromat as a red Lunar New Year decoration sits on a tiled bench on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A person waits inside a laundromat as a red Lunar New Year decoration sits on a tiled bench on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A man watches his tablet inside his home decorated with couplets on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
A man watches his tablet inside his home decorated with couplets on the first day of the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/May James)
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