A Look Back at Chinese New Year
Apr. 23rd, 2019 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chimney_swiftFinally! Two months later, a quick write-up of the craziest Sunday I've had this year by far.
A note: I'm referring to this celebration as Chinese New Year or CNY. This holiday is not exclusive to the Chinese, however. The lunar new year happens in many Asian countries, and is celebrated in many ways (including with lion dance! in Vietnam, the lions become unicorns, how cool). This specific event draws on Chinese customs in Boston Chinatown, and while it's definitely open to all, it's also definitely aimed at the Chinese communities in the area. So I'm using CNY as my term, but generally, it's lunar new year.
My day started at eight thirty in the morning at our den, where the whole troupe gathered to get ready for the day and to coordinate for the volunteers who would arrive. I brought two volunteers: my friends Snowy and Plover who acted as photographers and videographers all day. The photos in this post are all Snowy's, actually! There were bao for breakfast and nearly forty people in bright red troupe sweatshirts and maybe twelve of us from the performing side. We got our drum, our cymbals, our gong, our crowd control sticks, our banners, and our lions and headed out.
The way the day works is that each lion dance troupe performs on main-stage performance, and then heads out into Chinatown. We each visit every shop in the area who is participating and dance for them, bringing good luck. Each store has cabbage and oranges for the lion to eat, and in return they give us money in a red envelope. The lion performing can't stop dancing until the day is done, so we would switch out who was dancing underneath. The day for us ended at four thirty/five, and everyone who was left went to a ten course dinner. I don't think any of the performers ate lunch; there was no time and we were running on adrenaline.
It was magical. I'm not really sure how to convey everything that happened that day. There was so much and it all felt so much bigger than me. It was wonderful and overwhelming and tiring and awesome.
I think I really realized how the day was going to go when we were walking to the main stage. All of the different lion dance groups were converging on the outdoor performance space that had been set up, so everyone had all their performance lions and their troupe banners. I hadn't realized just how big the banners are--maybe eight feet tall--and we walked down the empty street with our banners and our lions and our music and all of the sudden you could hear different drums and cymbals and see different banners and I suddenly understood that we were all arriving. And I was a part of it.
I went to sleep with cymbals still in my ears.
It was the most satisfying and fulfilling community event I've ever been part of in Boston.
Here's the main troupe banner. We brought it back to the den after the main performance because it's just too heavy.
This is from our main-stage performance. I'm in the tail of the orange lion at this point.
Firecrackers used to be way more common, but they're not anymore since they're illegal...and because store owners know that our specific group doesn't like them too much!
A well-earned dinner afterwards.
I hope so much to return to this again and again. I've never really had a community to celebrate with, and being able to be a part of something was incredible.
A note: I'm referring to this celebration as Chinese New Year or CNY. This holiday is not exclusive to the Chinese, however. The lunar new year happens in many Asian countries, and is celebrated in many ways (including with lion dance! in Vietnam, the lions become unicorns, how cool). This specific event draws on Chinese customs in Boston Chinatown, and while it's definitely open to all, it's also definitely aimed at the Chinese communities in the area. So I'm using CNY as my term, but generally, it's lunar new year.
My day started at eight thirty in the morning at our den, where the whole troupe gathered to get ready for the day and to coordinate for the volunteers who would arrive. I brought two volunteers: my friends Snowy and Plover who acted as photographers and videographers all day. The photos in this post are all Snowy's, actually! There were bao for breakfast and nearly forty people in bright red troupe sweatshirts and maybe twelve of us from the performing side. We got our drum, our cymbals, our gong, our crowd control sticks, our banners, and our lions and headed out.
The way the day works is that each lion dance troupe performs on main-stage performance, and then heads out into Chinatown. We each visit every shop in the area who is participating and dance for them, bringing good luck. Each store has cabbage and oranges for the lion to eat, and in return they give us money in a red envelope. The lion performing can't stop dancing until the day is done, so we would switch out who was dancing underneath. The day for us ended at four thirty/five, and everyone who was left went to a ten course dinner. I don't think any of the performers ate lunch; there was no time and we were running on adrenaline.
It was magical. I'm not really sure how to convey everything that happened that day. There was so much and it all felt so much bigger than me. It was wonderful and overwhelming and tiring and awesome.
I think I really realized how the day was going to go when we were walking to the main stage. All of the different lion dance groups were converging on the outdoor performance space that had been set up, so everyone had all their performance lions and their troupe banners. I hadn't realized just how big the banners are--maybe eight feet tall--and we walked down the empty street with our banners and our lions and our music and all of the sudden you could hear different drums and cymbals and see different banners and I suddenly understood that we were all arriving. And I was a part of it.
I went to sleep with cymbals still in my ears.
It was the most satisfying and fulfilling community event I've ever been part of in Boston.
Here's the main troupe banner. We brought it back to the den after the main performance because it's just too heavy.
This is from our main-stage performance. I'm in the tail of the orange lion at this point.
Firecrackers used to be way more common, but they're not anymore since they're illegal...and because store owners know that our specific group doesn't like them too much!
A well-earned dinner afterwards.
I hope so much to return to this again and again. I've never really had a community to celebrate with, and being able to be a part of something was incredible.
