Chinese New Year 2012 (Photos)

The Chinese Spring Festival celebrates the beginning of the new year on the traditional Chinese Calendar. The new moon that occurs between January 21 to February 20 marks the start of the 15 day celebration.  I’ve only witnessed one official Chinese New Year Parade. That was in 2012,  The Year of the Dragon. I watched the parade in Boston Chinatown after some opening remarks by Mayor Tom Menino.

After the parade, we ate lunch at a local restaurant, shopped for fish heads at a Chinese grocery and watched some demonstrations of Chinese art and calligraphy.

I took some photos posted below.

Previous
Next

2020 The Year of the Rat

The 2020 Chinese New Year parade will be held on February 2nd at 11 AM starting at John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road in Chinatown in Boston.  This is the year of the Rat, the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac.

I’m no fan of mice or rats. The Chinese consider them to be the same animal with the same name.

I’ve seen seen some rats in China. Thankfully they were dead.  In 1986 I was in Wuhan working for Digital Equipment Corporation. While walking around I noticed a man on a blanket mixing a white powder with corn kernels. On the blanket was a pile of rat bodies, with a bowl of tails nearby. My hosts explained that he was a rat exterminator. I was impressed with his advertising skills. I also wonder if they were stuffed or fresh. This is where the ability to speak the native language would have been helpful.