With Dragons, Lion Dances and traditional Chinese song-and-dance, Chinese New Year parades happen everywhere. The largest one outside China happens to be a few miles from where I currently live. Cosmopolitan San Francisco boasts of being home to the biggest Chinese community outside China (Read – A Chinatown Made in San Francisco). This city is proud of the fact that the biggest Chinese New Year Parade also happens on its streets.
This year, as the Chinese of San Francisco showed off their rich culture and went about their new year tradition of lighting lanterns and firecrackers to chase away evil spirits, I tried to catch of few glimpses of all that gaiety.
A few glimpses was all I caught because it looked like all of SF Bay area and whole lot of tourists had already occupied all the good room beside the parade route. Through the little cracks in the crowds I got to see several floats, a few dances, some martial art, bands and a good number of dragons. After all, it is the Year of the Dragon.
Here are some pictures I managed to click without the shakes. I’m surprised I have this many; you can guess what it’s like to shoot on tip toes, that too with my camera on night mode/flash turned off.
I have not had my fill. I look forward to watching the parade again, next time from a place where I can see better; a place that will let me capture a few great pictures for me to share on Tipsy from the Trip. Watch this space for reports from The Year of the Snake (2013).
Related post – Colour | Culture | Celebration (Lunar New Year Celebrations in Redwood City)
Hello Nambiar,
This one is for you 🙂
http://saikatscribble.blogspot.com/2012/02/identity-crisis.html
And you really visited so many places ? Gosh! Keep posting. Like all the pictures here. They are all so dazzling and colorful. I love this blog 🙂
Cheers!
Yup. Every place in here has been visited :). Most of the places are not very far from where I live, tho'
Thank you so much, Saikat.
Now I'm off to check that link you sent me.
This looks so colourful great pictures, looking forward to the pictures from the year of Snake 🙂
I hope I'll be able to make it. If I go, you'll get to see the pictures, that's for sure, Harsha. 🙂
beautiful and colorful pictures
Thank you, Seema.
Colorful post !
YEAR OF DRAGUN 😀
🙂
do u attend so many events? wow!! when u posted those hollywood posts i was bit confused and didn't know what to comment coz i didn't understand whether u r sharing ur experience of visiting some places and events or not, as a matter of fact i didn't understand anything :D.
pics look great although u took those snaps on tip toes.
and ur previous post was for a contest right? i forgot to wish u :D. all the best
Not really, Deb. I wish I could do more events; it's not the easiest thing to do with the little one.
I do check out places around here. I love seeing new places. Those Hollywood pics were from a trip to LA, a few months ago.
About pictures from the Chinese New year, over a dozen pics were very hazy because of the shakes and hence not post-worthy. I was surprised I had this many to put up.
Thank you 🙂
D nice post, really colorful.
My aunt always used tell of the Chinese new year in San Francisco bay, but after she moved to the suburbs the talk about events such as these just faded away to memory. Nice to actually hear a San fransiscan talk about san fransisco!
It's one big event, Mr Wind. I'd really like to see it again.
I don't live in SF. Fortunately I'm just about an hours's drive away from that gorgeous city. There are several posts about SF attractions and there's more coming. 🙂 I Love SF.
More than religion, language binds humans in a strange way even after the modern revolution of travel across the globe and global village concept…
Your blog is very much active these days, and lot of visitors and comments!
Happy Blogging…
🙂 I guess it does.
Thank you Deepu. Happy blogging to you too.
You keep coming by, ok
love the pics…. they are so colourful….
Aren't they? 🙂
Lovely pics. Last year had been to SF for a day and could go to Golden Gate,Pier 39, Crocked street etc but had to return back to Sunnyvale (My daughter/son in law are working there)as there was absolutely no parking place being a weekend day!
Thank you, Mr. Ayyangar.
Isn't SF such an interesting city? Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39 and Lombard Street…that's a good choices of places for a day tour of the city. There's so much to see there. If not for the parking issues, we'd have visited SF a whole lot more.
Great pictures, I had participated in the Chinese celebrations from Columbus, but it was nothing compared to what you have shown here! Awesome!
Thank you Raji. We have a large community of Chinese around here. This parade is said to be one of the biggest ones and it is also believed that the SF parades were the first of Chinese New Year parades ever; started sometime in the 1860s. You should see it if you get a chance to come to the west coast in Feb.
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