Chinese Americans’ China New Year Parade： The Combination of China Culture and Western Tradition

China Spring Festival is one of the most influential traditional national festivals in the United States. As an immigrant society with diverse ethnic backgrounds, all ethnic groups living in the United States have more or less kept their own ways of spending the New Year. However, it seems that no ethnic group, like the Chinese, not only inherits the traditional customs of New Year’s Eve, giving red envelopes and giving gifts, but also organizes large-scale Spring Festival celebrations in public places, making the China Spring Festival a national carnival-that is, the China New Year Parade of American Chinese.

It should be said that the form of "parade" did not come from China, but from the western society with a long tradition of parade. Among them, there are demonstrations to express value propositions or political ideas, such as the "pride parade" to publicize gender freedom of marriage and love; There are also parades to celebrate religious festivals, such as the carnival parade, which originated from Catholic fasting. Many cities and towns in Europe have kept parades in traditional national costumes. Chinese Americans’ China New Year Parade is a way for Chinese to combine China tradition with western forms: it can be regarded as the localization of China tradition in western society, and it can also be regarded as a modern extension of western tradition in a multi-racial background.

San Francisco, Los Angeles and new york, as the settlements of Chinese Americans, naturally gather the most intensive Spring Festival celebrations. It is the China Spring Festival celebrations in these three cities that have really expanded the influence of China Spring Festival in the United States, so that foreign friends who can’t speak Chinese will roll up their tongues and say "Happy New Year" to Chinese friends during the Spring Festival.

San Francisco

San Francisco is the first Chinatown in the North American continent and the first stop for early American immigrants to set foot in North China. The China Spring Festival Parade in San Francisco can be traced back to 1858. The influx of immigrants from China due to the Gold Rush combined the tradition of drum music and lanterns in China with the form of parade in the United States, and promoted the establishment of a fairly stable parade in the municipal government. During the development of a century and a half, the San Francisco Spring Festival Parade has grown in scale, and now it has become the most influential Spring Festival celebration outside China.

San Francisco 2017 Spring Festival Parade.

But strictly speaking, the Spring Festival parade in San Francisco seems to celebrate the Lantern Festival instead of the Spring Festival. It is called "San Francisco China New Year Parade", but the annual time is the Lantern Festival in China; The form of celebration with floats as the main body seems to be implementing the spirit of the Lantern Festival. For more than 100 years, the San Francisco Spring Festival parade started from Market Street, drumming, singing and dancing all the way, walked up Grant Street along Keerney Street, passed Union Square, and finally arrived in China City.

Dragon and lion dance, silk fan dance, ribbon dance, stilt walking and traditional martial arts are the reserved programs of the parade, which are mainly performed by Chinese schools and Chinese martial arts societies in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, today, the Spring Festival Parade in San Francisco is not only a national activity within the Chinese community, but also a city celebration with the participation of the whole people. San Francisco municipal departments and public schools often arrange dragon dances and martial arts performances. For example, in the recent Spring Festival parade in 2017, both the security department and the fire department in San Francisco brought dragon and lion dances. Of course, there are also some schools that cut corners. There are neither traditional performances nor national costumes. They just pull the band over to make up the numbers. In suits and ties, the marching middle school band played drums and trumpets solemnly, playing "Congratulations on Making a Rich" all the way, which made people laugh.

In addition to the parade, San Francisco also has food week, New Year market, "YMCA Spring Festival Run Run" and other activities; It’s just that these activities are of a commercial nature, which can be very busy for businesses and advertisers in San Francisco.

New York

New york, as the largest Chinatown in North America, is naturally a celebration center for the Spring Festival in China. Compared with the national China Spring Festival Parade in San Francisco, the Spring Festival celebrations in new york are more dispersed and diverse. Judging from this year’s activity schedule, in addition to the "Fireworks Celebration and Cultural Festival" held in Roosevelt Park on New Year’s Eve, there are many street performances attended by Chinese folk music societies, Tai Chi societies and Qigong societies on New Year’s Day. In Brooklyn, the Brooklyn China-US Federation organized a parade with makeup in Sunset Park. In Queens, residents of Flushing Chinatown also have spontaneous parades to celebrate; In Manhattan, many office buildings are decorated with lanterns and red lights to welcome the China New Year, including the Empire State Building.

New york 2017 Spring Festival Parade.

New york also held a city-scale Spring Festival parade like San Francisco. This year’s parade was held on February 5th, which is the 18th parade without interruption. Although the history of parades in San Francisco is not as long as that in San Francisco, thanks to new york’s geographical location and huge Chinese community, there are more parades and people participating in the activities than in San Francisco, and the duration is longer-from 12 noon to 4 pm.

In addition, as an artistic and cultural center, new york’s Spring Festival celebrations also make full use of local museum resources. During the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival in China, the Metropolitan Museum has a series of cultural activities, including puppet shows, Peking Opera performances, origami classes and tea parties. The Chinese Museum of the United States has also launched China handicraft exhibition, Chinese cooking class and China dance performance in time to attract tourists.

The most noteworthy thing about the Spring Festival in new york is that in mid-2015, Mayor new york announced that new york public schools would have a holiday in China New Year. Chinese people have been working hard to make the Spring Festival in China a legal holiday for a long time, and the annual signature petition to the White House has never stopped. The holiday of public schools in new york is probably a small achievement of this sport.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, located in southern California, is another important Chinese settlement, and of course it is also an important New Year celebration meeting place. The prosperous entertainment industry in Los Angeles makes the New Year celebrations here more interesting. In addition to the "Fireworks Run in China City" and the Spring Festival celebrations in satellite cities, there is also Disney’s China New Year-Mickey Mouse in Tang suit, Princess in Hanfu, various China cuisines and Mulan.

Los Angeles Disney China New Year.

The Spring Festival Parade in Los Angeles is the most important New Year’s event in Southern California, and it is also held in Chinatown. It is called "Golden Dragon Parade". The 2017 Golden Dragon Parade, the 118th in history, started at 1 pm on February 4th and lasted for three hours. About forty teams took part in the parade. Like the parades in San Francisco and new york, these teams come from municipal authorities, schools, independent orchestras, martial arts associations, cultural groups and enterprises.

Although the official claims that the Golden Dragon Parade originated more than 100 years ago, it is the last 20 years that this celebration has really developed into a scale and entered the public eye. In 1898, the Los Angeles Dragon and Lion Dance Team participated in the Los Angeles City Carnival Parade. In order to hold an independent parade with a certain scale of dragon and lion dances, the local Chinese Chamber of Commerce has made unremitting efforts to raise funds. Since then, with the influx of new immigrants, this parade has continued to grow and develop. After the Vietnam War in 1975, the arrival of Southeast Asian immigrants brought more Buddhist temples and ceremonies. In addition to Vietnamese song and dance performances entering the parade, temple fairs also became a landscape of the New Year celebrations in Los Angeles.

American Chinese have been far away from their home country for a long time, but they have not given up their attachment and dependence on their home culture. Although people often say that the United States is a melting pot, in fact, Chinese Americans have never completely abandoned their own culture in the process of communication and integration with other ethnic groups. Times have changed, and many of the second and third generations of Chinese immigrants no longer know Chinese, but they still maintain a boxing heart for the culture of their home country.