ST PATRICK held his mitre aloft in Beijing's busy Wangfujing shopping street at the head of the Chinese capital's first St Patrick's Day parade and was warmly welcomed by the local citizenry, even if no one in fiercely secular China knew who the saint was exactly. Any forms of public display are strictly controlled in China so it marks quite a coup for the Irish community in Beijing to have a parade at all.
Some 5,000 people watched the parade and at least 200 took part, probably more, although the police had insisted beforehand that only 200 could participate.
China's annual parliament, the National People's Congress, was also under way and security tends to be high for the event.
None of which stopped Beijingers enjoying the day.
"I'm an admirer of Ireland. I know it's in northern Europe and colder than Beijing. And I hear the people are very nice and friendly. But I didn't hear about St Patrick before. I'm not quite sure what St Patrick means," said Du Huibin (24) from Beijing.
The large turnout from the Irish community came despite the fact that many had been out until the small hours at the St Patrick's Day ball in the Kerry Centre Hotel in downtown Beijing.
Duan Yuzhong (24) from Yunnan province, who works for the International SOS clinic in Beijing, also enjoyed the parade.
"Irish people are very nice, and I hear the country is very beautiful. But who is St Patrick?" asked Mr Duan.
The event was launched by Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche and Wang Hongbing, director of the propaganda department at the Dongtan people's government. Ambassador Declan Kelleher and his wife Sigrun were also in attendance.
In the case of this parade, St Patrick was Dubliner Colin Saunders, who works in marketing in Beijing but who donned the saint's costume for the parade.
The parade itself was quite short but lively and thousands of local shoppers stopped to watch the groups taking part, which included Christian Brothers students from Cork. "I've never been to Ireland. I'd love to go. I think the people are nice," said Zhang Hanchun (30) from Urumqi in Xinjiang province in the far west of China.
China's financial capital Shanghai had its second parade on the Huahai Road, and this year was able to move along the streets into the chic Xintiandi shopping district. It was attended by about 1,000 people and guest of honour was a Chinese dragon - in green.
Ceoltas Ceoltóirí provided the tunes and a group made up of students from University College Dublin and Shanghai's Fudan University performed a Riverdance-style routine.
Hong Kong held a gala ball, while Singapore witnessed its largest assembly of bagpipers, with 100 pipers from local schools leading the march at the city state's historic Boat Quay.
This was Singapore's third parade and more than 20 local colleges and universities took part in the event which also featured boats belonging to the Gaelic Dragons boating team on the Singapore river.