Oink! Oink! Welcome to the golden Year of the Pig! Bright red Chinese lanterns adorn the streets, swaying in the last afternoon sun, while visitors munch on pork fried rice, steamy buns and mandarin oranges. This year, I'm in London for Chinese New Year, which apparently hosts the largest festival outside of China (200'000+ people are expected to attend.)
Here are a couple of interesting tidbits that I noticed about the celebrations:
1. The parade was short and lacking (are we racist? thinking there would be more, um, Chinese people in the parade?) Most of participants were young, English school kids - but by the amount of people watching, you would think it was Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I think the English would have had a heart attack in NYC.
2. Like any other city, it took an hour to get through the opening comments on the main stage. Skip the first hour and a half, and you'll save yourself from standing around listening to politicians congratulating each other.
3. Lots of food, lots of people, lots of cameras... Alex and I got stuck in a crowd for 20 minutes, unable to move forward, back, or side to side (literally). Check out the videos below, I took one while we were stranded. (For those of you reading this through my mailing list, please go to my blog and watch them there.)
Anyway, here are some photos for your amusement. And don't forget to check out the videos! They are the best part of this post!
Lion dancers were all over the place, even baby lions with kids under the tail!
Some of the only ethnically Chinese dancers - they looked really cute.
They looked so cute in their red uniforms!
Cool looking Gods coming to bless the parade.
Picture from Chinatown - the crowds must be crazy.
Here are a couple of interesting tidbits that I noticed about the celebrations:
1. The parade was short and lacking (are we racist? thinking there would be more, um, Chinese people in the parade?) Most of participants were young, English school kids - but by the amount of people watching, you would think it was Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I think the English would have had a heart attack in NYC.
2. Like any other city, it took an hour to get through the opening comments on the main stage. Skip the first hour and a half, and you'll save yourself from standing around listening to politicians congratulating each other.
3. Lots of food, lots of people, lots of cameras... Alex and I got stuck in a crowd for 20 minutes, unable to move forward, back, or side to side (literally). Check out the videos below, I took one while we were stranded. (For those of you reading this through my mailing list, please go to my blog and watch them there.)
Anyway, here are some photos for your amusement. And don't forget to check out the videos! They are the best part of this post!
Lion dancers were all over the place, even baby lions with kids under the tail!
Some of the only ethnically Chinese dancers - they looked really cute.
They looked so cute in their red uniforms!
Cool looking Gods coming to bless the parade.
Picture from Chinatown - the crowds must be crazy.
8:51 AM
Riani, I love seeing your happy face in the photos and videos of your London adventure! It sounds like it has been just what you needed. The Chinese New Year celebration looks like it was worth the cold and crowds.(Easy for me to say.) Here in Seattle it is cold and rainy too; 40's today with a brisk wind. Yuk. Only 4 more months until summer...-Kim of the Roo family
7:31 AM
I just went to your blog site. I didn't realized how frequently you were going to be posting. I got way behind!! I will have to check it more often. It looks like you are having a great time. The parade looked pretty interesting!
4:47 PM
funky photos! wow, i didn't know that London would be so hyped up about CNY, assuming that it's a very western city in an even more western country. ^^
you looked and sounded great, btw.
you live in Seattle? hm. that's pretty far away from where i'm hoping to go to this year. I'm thinking of going to Indiana to continue with my degree.
and thanks for commenting in my blog.
how did you get to my site? :)