Starting February 8, Chinese New Year 2016 marks the year of the Monkey. 2016 is also a Fire Monkey Year, so get ready for a year of passion, creativity, and joy! In Chinese astrology, each year is associated with a Chinese zodiac animal sign and one of the five elements: Fire, Earth, Gold (metal), Water or Wood. It is believed that both the sign and element of your birth year have an impact on your personality and destiny. The next Fire Monkey year will be 2076: element-sign combinations recur every 60 years.
With the start of a New Year and half way through the school year, it’s also a great time to check back in with Shumin and Vivian, the two main characters of our 2011 documentary. Shumin is doing very well with her high school studies while Vivian is having a great experience in her second year as a university student. The impact of being part of a documentary still resonates in their lives five years on. Here’s hoping the year brings much success to them and their families.
Hóu nián dàjí ! (Wishing you luck in the Year of the Monkey)
– From The Invisible Red Thread Team
The Invisible Red Thread is made possible with 100% funding from the OMNI Television Independent Producers Initiative. The $32.5 million fund is a seven-year commitment created and made available for the independent production of third-language ethnocultural programming. The fund is not only dedicated to helping Canadian independent producers tell their stories in their language of comfort, but also to make sure that these stories are accessible to other ethnocultural communities through re-versioning in different languages. This is the industry’s first, and only, major source of funding for the independent production of non-official language programming. More details on the fund are at OMNI Television’s website 
The Invisible Red Thread - The Movie 