Monday, February 9, 2009

Chinese New Year, Year of the Ox, 2009, Chinatown NYC









Here are some pictures from the closing ceremony of the chinese new year, year of the ox. I spent all day on sunday in chinatown NYC for this parade. Walking for 7 hours was hard enough i cant even imagine how hard it was for the lion dancers. Each club has its own parade that marches up and down chinatown with a few lions, a drum, a gong, and some cymbols. The lions stop at close to a hundred store fronts to bless the store for the upcoming year. I would also like to point out how hard it is to manage this. You have flags leading the parade who sometimes walk to far ahead, you have drums at the end of the parade, you have three lions to coordinate to make sure they bless every store front, you have to make sure people with poles hold back the crowd, you have to make sure your lion dance teams are rotating into the lion and not leaving guys in too long.
At the end of the day the club performes a martial arts demo.

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