Yesterday may have been a big TV day, but it was also a gorgeous day to be outside. Those who flocked to Chinatown to see the annual Lunar New Year Parade were rewarded with a vibrant procession of dragons, lions, and performers. Enjoy readers' photographs of the festivities!
Tomorrow, you can celebrate the Year of the Ox by heading to Chinatown for the annual Lunar New Year Parade. It starts at noon or 1 p.m. (Explore Chinatown says the former, Better Chinatown Society the latter)—and you might as well go early and get dim sum!— the route begins at Mott & Hester Streets, going down Mott Street to Chatham Square, E. Broadway and Chrystie Street. There's also a cultural festival starting at 11:30 a.m. at Grand & Chrystie Street. Gong hei fat choi!
The Lunar New festivities are in full swing. Today, there was the fire cracker ceremony at Sara Roosevelt Park and yesterday the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has its Luna New Year celebration. The big event is Sunday's Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown; it starts at 3 p.m. and its path includes Mott Street, Chatham Square, East Broadway, Allen Street, Grand Street and Chrystie Street.
The Better Chinatown Society says that next Sunday's Lunar New Year Parade will honor the two children who were killed when an unoccupied van struck them last week. The group's president Steve Lin told Newsday that parade organizers were meeting to discuss how to recognize the kids, 4-year-old Hayley Ng and 3-year-old Diego Martinez. Little Hayley and Diego were buried yesterday; the Daily News reports that Diego's father Francisco Martinez, "who sobbed and clutched another one of his son's toys, a stuffed blue monkey," is an EMT assigned to Chinatown—he was "off duty the day of the accident, but might have responded to the accident if he'd been on duty." Yesterday, Diego's mother said the day care program didn't contact her about the accident, and mourned how her son died in the hospital alone.
Gong hei fat choi! It's the year 4707 according to the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this year's zodiac sign is the Ox. (President Barack Obama was born in the year of the ox.) There have been a number of Chinese New Year events leading up to today and there will be more this week. At noon, there's a fire cracker ceremony at the soccer field at Sara D. Roosevelt Park—Canal and Forsyth—and there's actually a whole cultural festival there between 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., sponsored by the Better Chinatown Society. Firecrackers help scare away evil spirits.
href="http://londonist.com/2008/02/air_bound.php"> remove one man from Gatwick.
On Sunday afternoon, the fourth day of the Lunar Year, the streets and restaurants of Flushing's Chinatown were packed with families celebrating the Year of the Rat. In case you're wondering, that headline – like many of the Chinese people in Flushing – is Mandarin. It translates roughly to "Congratulations and best wishes for a prosperous New Year."
Maybe you've received a flier to see a show at Radio City Music Hall called Chinese New Year Splendor, which is promoted as a holiday celebration of China’s diverse cultural riches. But mixed within the traditional Mongolian dancing, orchestral music and Buddhist parables are dramatizations of the Chinese government’s oppression of Falun Gong, a qigong-based spiritual practice that is banned in China. And the show’s political content is prompting audiences to walk out by the hundreds.
It's time for the Lunar New Year, which starts February 7th and lasts for 14 days, and this year is the Year of the Rat, 4706. Sure, there are plenty of things to do to celebrate the holiday, but to us, it means one thing -- a new year banquet. We've found a few places that are offering banquets in honor of the Year of the Rat, including variations of traditional Chinese Lunar New Year foods that bring prosperity, happiness and good fortune to all who join together to feast, like dumplings, uncut noodles, whole fish and chicken.
A veteran of Nobu and Ruby Foo’s, Chris Cheung was hired 5 months ago to replace Patricia Yeo at Monkey Bar, the red satin and black lacquer midtown institution known primarily for its, well, monkey theme. In an effort to reemphasize the food quotient of the restaurant, the 38 year-old chef maintains an inventory of global tastes and reassembles them using the template of traditional Chinese food: The curly fries, for example, that come with the burger are made with taro, and the burger itself is served on a bao bun made in-house. The result is not fusion, or an eclectic cook-by-numbers approach to food; Cheung seems to spend a lot of time thinking about ingredients, so the food at Monkey Bar isn’t really served with anything added for dramatic effect, and the plate presentations are relatively uncomplicated. Cheung calls his style “Evolutionary Chinese Cooking.”
This weekend marks the start of many pre-Lunar New Year Festivities in the city. The New Year begins on February 7 (more information here), and there will be the firecracker ceremony and cultural festival in Chatham Square on that day, plus the Lunar New Year Parade and Festival in Chinatown on February 10. There is also a Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing on February 9.
might do to you. Other traditional bake-books operate within the wholly confined orbit of strudel and streusels; A Baker’s Odyssey has strudels galore but is also about forgotten or esoteric American immigrant recipes, so it also covers kulich and chin chin cookies, shoofly pie and puran poori. Recipes involve techniques and ingredients that have sort of fallen by the wayside in an age of 30 minute meals: The book’s cannoli shell dough is made with Madeira, and ANZAC cookies are made with Lyle’s Golden Syrup.
There's an amusing NY Times story about many Chinese adoptees turning 13 and having bat mitzvahs, in keeping with their Jewish families' traditions. There's video and a slideshow of Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro's preparation and bat mitzvah activities. It's an article about the melting pot that is New York and the oddness of having a variety of strong influences. Well, it's odd to everyone else, maybe. From the NY Times:
Yet for Cece, as everyone calls Cecelia, and for many of the girls like her, the odd thing about the whole experience is that it’s not much odder than it is for any 13-year-old.Continue reading "Adopted Chinese Babies Grow Up to Have Bat Mitzvahs"
Yesterday, thousands were in Chinatown to ring in the Year 4705. The Year of the Pig is a very good year, according to the Chinese astrology, lots of prosperity and good luck.
While Chinatown's annual Chinese New Year Parade won't be until next weekend, there are still plenty of activities to celebrate the year 4705. If you're heading to Chinatown tomorrow (New Year's Day), be sure to head over to Chatham Square (the intersection of Bowery, Mott and East Broadway) for the New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival. For the first time since the city banned fireworks (and firecrackers), there will be firecrackers in Chinatown. A "controlled" display of 300,000 firecrackers will go off in Chatham Square between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. We can honestly say that you haven't experienced a Chinese New Year until your ears ring from firecrackers. Sunday's events don't stop with the firecrackers either. There will also be fireworks in Chinatown's Columbus Park (Mulberry and Baxter Street)at 7 p.m. The fireworks display will reportedly reach 10 stories high.
It's the Lunar New Year this weekend, the first day of 4705 being this Sunday. The Year of the Pig is a very good year - pigs are fat and round, which means a prosperous and benevolent year. Some even think it's a good year to have babies, too! Chinatown will be celebrating the Year of the Pig this weekend and for the next few weeks. There's the Flower Market at Columbus Park today and tomorrow, and on Sunday, there's a New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival. The big parade will be two Sunday away on February 25, so get ready.
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We don't know about you, but it's friggin cold out there. Well, not for some of you. It seems as though places that are supposed to be cold are warm and places that are supposed to be warm are cold. Or maybe that's just us. Either way, we're freezing.
Ooh - the State Assembly has passed a bill doublnig the number of red-light cameras in the city. Red light cameras record who has been running red lights, and Assembly Ivan Lafayette of Queens explains, "As soon as you put a red-light camera in at an intersection, the number of collisions there will drop by 70% in a matter of months. The bill will double the current number of cameras to 100 and could generate up to $13 million in revenue from fines. Gothamist, more a pedestrian than a driver, loves the Red Light Camera program, but we do acknowledge that lots of pedestrian cross against the light, even though cars have right of way. Not that we want things to be Giuliani-style with $2 jaywalking tickets again, but traffic problems do begin when some party is not following the light.
You know it's summer when the Mayor, Fire Commissioner, and Police Commissioner hold a press conference to remind New Yorkers that the city has a "zero tolerance policy" when it comes to fireworks. Against a colorful display of contraband materials, the Mayor said, "If you are caught using fireworks, we can and we will arrest you. If you are caught selling fireworks, we can and will shut down your business and starting this year, if you are caught smuggling or transporting fireworks, we can and will confiscate your car." While we understand the safety reasons for stricter rules, this also sounds very Giuliani-esque. Which makes sense, since Giuliani formed the Joint Fireworks Taskforce in 1995, and prohibited fireworks during Chinese New Year in 1997. It's all about the confetti launchers, though they probably shouldn't be used near sparklers.
The Notorious MSG, Original Chinatown Bad Boys
Of all the borough presidents to get a risque fortune cookie, of course it would be Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz. At a Chinese New Year feast at Ming Gee restaurant, the fortune cookies fortunes were apparently very naughty. The Daily News didn't reprint any of them, except "One good [expletive] deserves another," and though the restaurant received the special, proper-for-public-event fortunes from Dai Hing Lee earlier (with gems like "Brooklyn: In your face and in your heart"), there may have been a mix-up in deliveries from another fortune cookie company. One guest thought the dirty fortunes could have been for a bachelor party, which Gothamist supposes, but having a sexy fortune sort of negates the point of the "...in bed" game. Besides, fortunes in fortune cookies these days are more bromides than actual fortunes.
Yesterday's Chinese New Year Parade brought out revelers of all colors - and species. As you can see from various photographs, dogs were celebrated, this being their year and all. While Gothamist loved seeing dogs wearing traditional Chinese dress (just $25.99!), we wonder if dogs really like to wear dresses and jackets like this. If any dog owners have put a qi pao on their dog, let us know, because it seems difficult.
Hey, happy Chinese New Year, everyone! Time to drive out the old spirits of the past year and welcome the good spirits of the new year. The Chinese do this with explosions and fireworks; we'll do it rock-style, with extremely loud noises. Such as:
One of the best things about Chinese New Year is how there is always great food to eat. And, unlike a western New Year's Eve, you don't usually end up with a hangover the next day. Sometimes, you will get lucky with Chinese New Year, but in the form of a lucky red envelope. Over the weekend, Gothamist gathered with our family for some delicious eating. Pictured above are "lion's head" meatballs, a whole chicken soup, a whole fish (which was left unfinished as is the tradition), and glutinous rice cake. For larger versions of the photos and the rest of the meal, check out Tien's site.
- Culture Festival: 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. at intersection of Mott & Bayard Streets
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