treasure island board of directors and chairman of the asian american pacific celebration committee c laudine chang[applause] >> good evening, everyone. thank you so much for celebrating -- joining us on this joyous occasion. welcoming and celebrating lunar new year. i am delighted to be your mistress of ceremonies this evening. this year, the chinese new year started on thursday, february 3. lunar new year, 4709, symbolized by the year of the hare. we all know it as a chinese new year but lunar new year was actually celebrated by many ethnic groups within the asian american pacific families, including vietnamese-americans, caribbean-americans, and others. in san francisco, we celebrated with our parade. -- korean-americans, and others. we celebrated the whole month to welcome everybody. it is supposed to be a year of good luck, a year of prosperity and good health so on behalf of mayor edwin lee, i want to welcome you here this evening. [speaking chinese] so we have the celebration in san francisco welcome the community to celebrate the chinese new year for many years now but this year we are part