Chinese New Year in Honolulu Pictures
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Courtney · 01-28-2006, 05:36 AM

I wasn't sure which forum this would be best in, so we'll give it a go in here. We went to the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown (Honolulu) tonight - here are a few pictures of the festivities.

If you ever find yourself on O'ahu during Chinese New Year, it's definitely worth going to. The lion dances are very neat, and we loved it when the little kids would do dances with smaller lions. Each lion or couple of lions had their own musicians - usually a drummer and someone playing the cymbals.

The last photo is the BIG lion dance - all of the different lions (each from a different dance troupe, really) come together and dance for a "court", basically. They are all facing the court, and everyone just kind of crowds around. Lots of drumming going on too.

And during all of this, they were lighting firecrackers like it was just going out of style. It was LOUD, but a lot of fun. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

gwugirl03 · 01-28-2006, 05:53 AM

Looks like so much fun!

**chezp** · 01-28-2006, 06:00 AM

It looks like an awesome evening! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif[/img]

**Colexis Mom** · 01-28-2006, 08:25 AM

Great pictures Courtney [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img] Looks like a lot of fun [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

lauren-roxy · 01-28-2006, 09:14 AM

Wonderful pictures Courtney!! Thanks for sharing!!!!

GoofyMom · 01-28-2006, 09:16 AM

Those lions are beautiful!

Pris · 01-28-2006, 10:36 AM

How exciting to see other cultures and their celebrations.

crystalloubear · 01-28-2006, 10:49 AM

That look like a lot of fun.

Jennifer2003 · 01-28-2006, 10:59 AM

COOL!!! Thanks for sharing!

Jennifer

FanOfMickey · 01-28-2006, 11:11 AM

Looks like a lot of fun!

**DopeyGirl** · 01-28-2006, 04:23 PM

Very cool Courtney! (Is it just me or is Taylor looking a lot like her daddy? [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] )

loobyoxlip · 01-29-2006, 10:55 AM

That last picture looks chaotic! Was it? What a cool thing to get to experience!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/082502yes_prv.gif[/img]

Courtney · 01-30-2006, 05:51 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Very cool Courtney! (Is it just me or is Taylor looking a lot like her daddy? [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] )

[/ QUOTE ]

You are the second person to mention that in the past couple of days. She has red hair and dimples, and looks a lot like me when I was her age. My scanner is in a box somewhere, but when I find it, I'll scan in a baby picture of me and put it next to her so you can see.

[ QUOTE ]
That last picture looks chaotic! Was it?

[/ QUOTE ]

At that point, we had walked to what we thought was going to be a "quieter" corner, but we knew that the culminating dance was going to be there. They had blocked off most of Chinatown to traffic, and at each block was a different dance group with two or three lions. We were actually looking for a stage or something to indicate that that was where they would all converge, but there was nothing around. Weren't we ignorant. The quiet corner with maybe 30 people, all of a sudden became a corner filled with people coming in from every direction. We stayed on the sidewalk, and that picture was taken by holding the camera over my head and snapping away, hoping I would get a shot. What you can't see is that by each of those lions are the drummers/cymbal players as well, and they all started playing the same beat at the same time. There were probably a total of 10 lions at the end part (none of the kids, just adults at the end), all around the "court". (We kept talking about how scary it must be to be on the court and have all of that converge on you at once!)

Definitely not something I was used to, but a very neat experience. We're going to go again next year, and hopefully Taylor will be brave enough to "feed" one of the lions for good luck!