Chinese New Year, part 2 - Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Mandarin for "Wishing you increased prosperity". In other words...Happy New Year! And who wouldn't want to become more prosperous in the coming year, eh? Mr. Tony Yee, a Chinatown business leader described how the rat was traditionally seen as the guardians of prosperity. The rat is also the first animal in the Chinese zodiac. The Year of the Rat...rebirth, hard work, activity, renewal. Mr. Yee spoke about how the different civic associations were starting to come together in ways they hadn't before, and that it was his hope that the Year of the Rat would bring a fresh start to the community working together. My thoughts flitted to my own goals of a renewal to my own life, by working to build better practices for myself. There seemed to be something amazingly wonderful in the air as he talked.

Mayor Menino even arrived and wished everyone well!



The lion dancing demonstrations followed, most of the dances were done by area martial arts schools. My friends really made the trip come alive, each sharing their knowledge of Chinese culture and history by describing the traditions of what was going on around us. As each group's lion dance came to a close, the leung would "chew" up lettuce and oranges, which would then be tossed in to the crowd as a wish of prosperity. The lettuce represented money, the oranges represented gold. I ended up catching an orange in one of the final dances. Yay!

After the dances concluded, some of the martial arts schools came out to do a demo. Unfortunately for me, my back injury started acting up. I told my friends I needed to sit down someplace for awhile. While I told my friends that they were welcome to stay, they decided to join me. One of my friends lead the way across Chinatown and we ended up sitting down at...

Um...we walked all the way across Chinatown to sit down at a Mickey D's? I soon changed my attitude as I heard the drums of one of the lion dance troupes going by...perhaps I'd get to take in more of the dancing from the window seat. I was totally unprepared for what happened next. The lion dancers actually came through McDonalds! The entire troupe came in, the leung moved slowly towards me...sliding right by my table...close enough to touch. They moved all the way up to the front, and performed an additional routine at the counter, then backed slowly out. It was an amazing sight to see!

My friends described how leungs often honor an important general in Chinese history. The individual general is signified by the colors of the leung.

A summer performance by Chinatown's Shaolin Hung Gar students

We wandered about for a bit more time, watching the leungs and the fireworks as they stepped from business to business. After that, we split apart...saying goodbye to our two friends as they headed off in their own direction. My colleague and I went to warm up with a noodle bowl at a Vietnamese restaurant. It felt incredibly good to take a few moments to let the heat, and the experience, soak in. He began to cheerfully tabulate the restaurants that he thought his gf would like the most.

As happy as he was, he seemed to be running out of gas. We made our final circuit through to do some quick shopping as we headed to the car. I picked up a suburi-to (a wooden practice sword used to help develop arm strength), some incense, a souvenir for my desk at the office, then made a final stop at a Chinese grocery that abutted our parking garage. We had to go...my colleague was tired, I had friends coming over later in the evening for dinner, yet so much of me was saying noooooo....I want to stay awhile longer!

The firecrackers were still going off as we left.

I didn't want the day to end.