AS the world welcomes the Year of the Rat on February 7 with firecrackers, dragon dances, religious rituals, gift-giving and gustatory feasts, the Tsinoy community in Bacolod pulls out all the stops for BacoLaodiat, its version of the Chinese New Year festivities.

BacoLaodiat (from "Bacolod" and "laodiat," a Fookien word meaning celebration), now on its third year, will be held from February 7-10 at the Capitol Shopping Center north of the city. During its first two years, BacoLaodiat was mainly a street festival. This time, the Tsinoy community is making the place popularly known as just "Shopping" among the locals the focal point of the festivities to revive it as Bacolod’s Chinatown and promote it as an investment and tourism destination.

BacoLaodiat started as the concerted effort of 34 business, civic, religious, educational and family organizations, under the banner of Negros Tsinoy Inc. These include the three Filipino-Chinese chambers of commerce in Bacolod and Negros, the fire-fighting brigades organized by these chambers, the Chinese schools St. John’s Institute, Tay Tung and Trinity Christian School, and the temples Fa Tzang, Yung Tho, Foguangshan Yuan Thong and Bun Soo Chosi.

Mayor Evelio "Bing" Leonardia and the city council have provided financial assistance to ensure the successful staging of BacoLaodiat. A former tourism officer, Mayor Leobardia says, "Bacolod can develop another festival and BacoLaodiat can eventually be as big as the Masskara Festival."

On the February 7 opening day, a spectacular evening parade of lanterns, illuminated floats, dragons and lions, will start from SM, pass by the Bacolod City Hall and public plaza, then move towards the capitol lagoon which will be ablaze with lanterns on the water and on the grounds. Lighted markers depicting the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac will be installed along the festival circuit. All throughout the city, a synchronized fireworks show, the Symphony of Sparks and Lights, will erupt following the declaration by Mayor Leonardia of the start of the BacoLaodiat. The opening-day revelry will climax with a two-hour cultural show of dances and songs.

Throughout the four-day celebration the Chinese temples will be decorated and spectacularly lighted up at night and each will have special activities, like cooking demos, displays of Chinese paintings and calligraphy, exhibits of Chinese arts and crafts and herbal and traditional medicines, and Chinese cultural games (participated in by members of the Chinese family associations).

Throughout the city, hotels, restaurants and shopping establishments will be offering special Chinese menus and shopping deals and discounts. Bacolod has four major shopping centers – Lopue’s, Gaisano, Robinsons and SM – as well as three-star hotels and excellent restaurants, and nightspots and gimik places that are as lively as those in Manila.

In Shopping itself, a Chopsticks Alley, along 6th Street between Lacson and Hilado Streets, will be a-bustle with kiosks and rolling carts, colorful lanterns and an open-air dining tent serving everyone’s favorite Chinese food. Invited to join the trade activities are merchants of Chinese delicacies and other products from Manila, Cebu and Iloilo.

Shopping is a four-block district, once a sugarcane plantation owned by the late Alfredo Montelibano Sr. which he opened up to lure the businessmen and storeowners, mostly Chinese, after the big fire in 1955 that razed the central commercial district in Bacolod. In recent years, the urban thrust away from the congestion and traffic of downtown saw the rise of young and expanding businesses in Shopping, among them, the restaurants Mei Wei, Apollo, Great Wok, City Lunch, and the modern Kuppa Cafe.

There are also spectacular Chinese temples, a Chinese drugstore with a bounty of exotic goods, the school and church established by Chinese missionaries from China, and other discoveries in this old district.