Lunar New Year Celebration
Last Friday, Brightworks had the incredible good fortune of watching The Lion Dance troupe, Lion Dance Me, take over the parking lot! The traditional lion dance performance was accompanied by live music and supported the honoring and learning about Lunar New Year traditions as we came together to bring in the new year with joy and hope.
About The Holiday
Lunar New Year is one of the most important holidays celebrated in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and other countries with significant Chinese populations. According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon, specifically the Wood Dragon year, which will bring authority, prosperity, and good fortune. Families have many traditions they follow to bring in the new year and to celebrate the new Spring season.
Community Celebrations
February 10, 2024, marks the first day of the Year of the Wood Dragon. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco is bring back the public art project, Zodiac on Parade featuring the mythical Dragon, to its list of festivities this Lunar New Year.
The public art project, which was introduced in 2021, will display five Wooden Dragon statues in and around San Francisco from Sunday, January 28 – Saturday, March 2, 2024. Want to plan your route to find all 5 Dragons? View all of the locations.
San Francisco is home to one of the largest Chinese New Year Festivals and Parades of its kind in the world!
Check out what Chineseparade.org has to say about the history of the celebration:
In 1847, San Francisco was a sleepy little village known as Yerba Buena with a population of 459. With the discovery of gold and the ensuing California Gold Rush, by 1849, over 50,000 people had come to San Francisco to seek their fortune or just a better way of life. Among those were many Chinese, who had come to work in the gold mines and on the railroad. By the 1860’s, the Chinese were eager to share their culture with those who were unfamiliar with it. They chose to showcase their culture by using a favorite American tradition – the Parade. Nothing like it had ever been done in their native China. They invited a variety of other groups from the city to participate, and they marched down what today are Grant Avenue and Kearny Street carrying colorful flags, banners, lanterns, and drums and firecrackers to drive away evil spirits.
Since 1958, the Parade has been under the direction of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. When KTVU, Channel 2, started televising the Parade in 1987, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce realized that although the Parade would still represent the community, its growth would demand a commitment to higher quality and corporate sponsorship involvement. The Chinese New Year celebration was expanded to a month-long Festival including two street fairs, a basketball jamboree, a public art project and the Miss Chinatown U.S.A Pageant & Coronation Ball.
Today, the San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is the largest celebration of its kind in the world, attracting over three million spectators and television viewers throughout the U.S., Canada, and Asia with the help of both KTVU/Fox 2 and KTSF, Channel 26 (Chinese broadcast). Named one of the top ten parades in the world by the International Festivals & Events Association, the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco is one of the few remaining illuminated parades in North America and the biggest parade celebrating Lunar New Year outside of Asia.
The parade still welcomes a variety of other groups to join in the march, and still hopes to educate, enrich and entertain its audience with the colorful pageantry of Chinese culture and tradition. In order to retain the integrity of the Parade, participants are asked to tie their float or specialty unit to a Chinese cultural theme. We are honored and delighted to have representatives from other Asian cultures participating in this year’s festivities.
