Chinese New Year Performance
Shopping for silk flowers– Chinatown Chinese New Year street fair
Lion dancer
Dragon chasing its tail
A very long dragon
Young lion dancers practice
before the New Years parade
Lion Head close-up
Year of the horse
New York Life float
Chinese New Year Parade
Another animal float at the
Chinese New Year Parade
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Festivites celebrating Chinese New Year 2006 in SF begin on January 21. The festivities include the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Pagent, New Year Flower Fair (Jan. 21), Carnival (Jan.27 – Feb 2) and Chinatown Community Street Fair (Feb. 11)with the famous parade being the culmination of the celebrations. The parade — officially known as the Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year Parade — will begin on Saturday, February 11th at 5:30 pm.
Chinese New Year is celebrated on the first day of the First Moon of the lunar calendar—based on the cycles of the moon. Lunar Year 4704 (2006) is the Year of the Dog. Sunday January 29 is the actual Chinese New Year Day.
Probably the most important traditional Chinese celebration, also known as Spring Festival, the New Year was a time to say "Good by" to the Kitchen God, settle outstanding debts and celebrate everyone's birthday.
Individual birthdays were not considered as important as the New Year’s date, so everyone added a year to his age on the Seventh Day of the New Year.
The 15th day of the first month of the Lunar year was reserved for the Lantern Festival. Multicolored paper lanterns were made in the likeness of butterflies, dragons, birds, dragonflies, and many other animals, along with the more common red, spherical lanterns.
Entire streets were blocked off, with lanterns mounted above and to the sides, creating a hallway of lamps. Brilliantly-lit floats and mechanically driven light displays combined with dragon and lion dances, parades, and other festivities.
Flowers and fruit, particularly Tangerines, oranges and pomelos (large pear-shaped grapefruits), were traditionally used for decorating homes.
Children and young adults were given money in Lai-See Envelopes at New Year’s time, similar to the way western children receive Christmas presents.
The pictures on this page are from the 2002 Chinese New Year celebration and parade the beginning of the Year of the Horse, according to the traditional Chinese folk method of using twelve animal signs for naming years. Repeating every twelve years, the animal signs follow one another in an established order.
The festivities in 2003 celebrated the begining of the year of the sheep and 2004 was the year of the monkey.
If you were born in the year of the dog — 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, or 2006 you share your Chinese Zodiac sign with Winston Churchill, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Mother Theresa and Jennifer Lopez.
Although Chinese New Year celebrations in San Francisco's Chinatown last a month or more with street fairs, parades and dragon dancers, events are planned for evenings and weekends unlike the traditional Chinese celebration where stores would close for a week and everyone would take time off work.
The San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade—started in 1853 by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce—is the oldest of its kind and largest outside Asia.
For the first 100+ years, the parade was held in Chinatown, mainly along Grant. By the 1970s, it was moved to Market and Stockton streets so that there would be room for the crowds of people who come to see the parade.
San Francisco's Chinatown parade is a bend of typical American marching parades and the traditional Lantern Festival. The dragon dance is adopted from the Chinese celebration, but the beauty pageant, floats, and marching bands are not.
iNeTours.com has a growing list of San Francisco Chinese Restaurant Reviews, by Louis Madison. Many of the reviewed restaurants are in San Francisco's Chinatown but there are Chinese restaurants throughout The City.
Find San Francisco hotels or apartments. San Francisco Corporate Apartments.
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Miss Chinatown USA
Miss Chinatown Float
Young girls in traditional Chinese costumes
Dancing girls & parade float
USO themed float & dancers
WACS with USO float
Young woman on USO float
Kids in pony costumes
Traditional costumes & float
Lion on Chinese New Year
parade float
Pictures from the
2003 and 2004
Chinese New Year Parade
Chinatown in SF
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