Having Chinese with my friends is always a good time, it is
even more-so when our favorite Chinese restaurant is celebrating the Chinese
New Year.
Warren, Linda, Julie and I got together for Dim Sum at China
Jade. It was crazy!
First off, parking was a mess. (…though, to be fair, it
always is when the Asian Center celebrates Chinese New Year.) It took me over
twenty minutes to locate a parking place, though my persistence paid off. I got
rock star parking; I was less than a block away, on a corner, unable to be
blocked-in by the next car to park.
It’s not that I can’t or won’t walk a while for a good Chinese
meal, but the neighborhood that China Jade is in is not the greatest. It
appears to be pretty seedy and if it weren’t bright sunlight out, I would be afraid
to leave my car parked in it at all. As it is, with the crowds and the noise
and the people always around, I didn’t feel too bad; my car was in a highly
visible place in a slightly less seedy portion of the area. And It all worked-out.
It is always good catching-up with friends, even if you have
to deal with the traffic and the crowds to do so. But on Chinese New Year it
was particularly fun. Out in the parking lot, the dragon dancers show amazing
feats of skill, they jump from platform to platform wearing heavy and elaborate
costumes. They dance to the beats of drums and the sound of fireworks. The
fireworks and drums are to scare off the evil spirits.
The dragons also eat lettuce hung to garnish the entrances
to the stores. The lettuce is there to entice the dragons to enter the
businesses and bestow luck on the proprietor and their business. It is all
great fun!
Once enticed into the restaurant, the dragons dance around the
tables, eat dollar bills offered to them (thus bestowing luck upon the patrons
that feed then) and generally put on a good show. Unfortunately the smoke from
the fireworks makes the workings of the autofocus on my camera a bit iffy (the
motion of the dragon dancers doesn’t help either) all-in-all, it was a lovely
day! Good food, good times, and good friends.
Wherever you are today I wish you a happy and prosperous
Year Of The Dragon!
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