Saturday, December 31, 2011

Chinese New Year


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!

Don Bergquist – January 31, 2012 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA

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