Love is blooming among the dim sum shops of Chinatown this year in New York, as it always has, even though traditionalists consider this particular year an inauspicious time to wed.

　　Hong Kong-born Erick Luk and his fiancee Donna Lau are videotaped in New York's Central Park.
A quirk in the Chinese calendar meant that the Year of the Rooster, which began in February, was missing "lichun" -- the day that traditionally marks the beginning of spring.

　　Folk wisdom holds that such years -- called Widow Years by some -- can be an unlucky time for a couple to begin a new life.

　　Newspapers in China reported that thousands of couples besieged government offices in January, hoping to get hitched before the old year expired. New York's city clerk's office also had a sharp rise in applications in January.