Colour | Culture | Celebration

I had never been to a Lunar New Year celebration, so when I heard Kristen Sze of ABC7 Morning News talk about the event in Redwood City, CA, I jumped at the idea. 

So that weekend, there we were — at Redwood City. The Lunar New Year celebration was taking place at Courthouse Square and with our navigation system having issues with the address we went round in circles a couple of times. Thankfully, with some help from a map on hubby’s phone, we managed to get to the venue before the end of the festivities. We had missed the Red Panda Acrobats but we got to see the Taiko perfomances, the Vietnamese music, some martial art demonstrations and most importantly the Lion Dancers.

It was on the fourth of February that Redwood City decided to usher in the Year of the Dragon. A stage was set up just outside the San Mateo County History Museum. The stage had a red backdrop. There were lanterns strung between the street lamps. And there were stalls selling the most-colourful wares you can think of. There was so much colour, so much life and so much energy there.

‘Better late, than never,’ thought I as the event continued to roll out its cultural items. The first artform that we got to see was the Taiko performance. Taiko is a percussion instrument, the Japanese Drum, so to speak. The Somei Yoishino Taiko Ensemble that was staged that day was a combination of music, dance and dramatics. We may not have caught the essence of that performance but I must say I found my feet tapping to those beats.

The last part of the Taiko programme was a lively performance, laced with humour and dramatising a culinary adventure (See video below). There were a lot smiles for this one.

Another thing that cannot go without mention was the amazing Vietnamese music programme, presented by Vân-Ánh Võ at the lead. A musician with an Emmy Award and an Academy nomination, she played the dan tam thap luc (a 16-string dulcimer), the dan bau (a monochord instrument), and dan t’rung (a xylophone-type instument made of Bamboo) and told us a little something about Vietnamese music. It was the first time I had even heard of these instruments and I was clearly fascinated (watch her play the first two instruments in the video at the end of the post.

The culture-rich day ended on a very energetic note. The already colourful event turned into a riot of colours when the traditional Lion Dancers came out and grabbed the attention of the crowds. This really was a very ‘grand’ finale.

X- TRA — Here’s an amateur video of some of the events of the Lunar New Year celebration at Redwood City

Don’t forget to check out – San Francisco’s CHINATOWN
&
Window shopping in Chinatown, San Francisco.