介绍:
San Francisco is the home to one of the oldest and largest Chinese New Year Festival and Parade outside of Asia. With street festivals taking place on Grant Street and a parade on Kearny Street, it is one of the largest Asian cultural events in North America.
The festivities can be traced back as far as 1849 to the California Gold Rush. Over 50,000 people had come to San Francisco to seek their fortune or just a better way of life. Among those were many Chinese, who had come to work in the gold mines and on the railroad.
By the 1860s, the residents of San Francisco's Chinatown were eager to share their culture with fellow San Francisco residents who may have been unfamiliar with it. The organizers chose to showcase their culture by using a favorite American tradition, the parade. And today, it has become an annual celebration in the heart of the city.
Now the festivities have spread to other metropolitan areas such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Although not yet a national holiday, the Chinese New Year is now celebrated by people of all races and cultures. Even the US government is getting in on the fun.
US Secretary of Treasury Rosie Rios recently unveiled the lucky money for the upcoming Year of the Ram.
(SB 1, female, English)
"This is the fifth time that I'm doing this. This is the event that I look forward to every year. This is a very symbolic activity for all of us. We know our lucky products are always in demand. And it's a great celebration for the community."
The lucky money are inserted into cards designs such as dragons and phoenixes, representing the circle of fortune, and a picture of a goat, symbolizing this year's zodiac sign. According to Rios, the treasury has produced 88,888 Federal Reserve dollar notes and 8,888 hundred-dollar notes for the dragon and phoenix design.
The United States isn't the only country that is issuing money to celebrate the Year of the Ram. Across the pond in United Kingdom, the Royal Mint has issued coins with a special design.
Wuon-Gean Ho is the designer for the Royal Mint's Lunar Calendar collection. This is how she comes up with the beautiful prints on the surface of the coins.
(SB 2, female, English)
"Working with animals and observing animals certainly helps with understanding how to draw them and how to convey their movements. My dad is a vet and he has a veterinarian practice right next to the house so I grew up with animals. I started making prints at the age of 12."
For the year of the Ram, she has something special in mind.
(SB 3, female, English)
"I used the Welsh dash sheep. They look so beautiful. They're really good looking sheep. They've got these gorgeous curly horns. My initial thought was that it would be mother and child. I really wanted to have this kind of bond. Then I thought very hard about how sheep are always together. They never are usually solitary animals. They're usually in a herd. And I thought maybe I'll bring out the idea of friendship. We've not got the final design which is two sheep looking towards each other but also looking forward at the same time. The ancient Chinese character for sheep looks a little bit like a tree. So I made a landscape out of trees that were composed of these ancient Chinese characters."
However, China isn't the only country that follows the lunar calendar. Many other Southeast Asian countries also celebrate their new year around the same time of the year. In Malaysia and Singapore, the Lunar New Year is accompanied by various festive activities. The main celebrations usually take place in Chinatown. These usually include a festival street market, a street parade with colorful floats and wide variety of cultural performances, and lion dance competitions.
Machelle Ramos is from the Philippines, where the Chinese New Year is considered to be the most important festival for Filipino-Chinese but has also extended to the non-Chinese majority Filipinos as well.
(SB 3, female, English)
"In malls, you can see lanterns. Lion dance, Dragon dance. In Manila, you have a traditional rice cake called Tikoy and you give it away to friends. Because it's made of sticky rice, it means that you will have a sticky friendship, a friendship that will last a long time."
Even though the Spring Festival has its root in Asia, today, it is celebrated by people around the world. Just like Christmas, it's an opportunity for families gather together and enjoy each other's company.
For Studio +, I'm Doris Wang.
