Chinatown: Golden Dragon Parade and Frank Romero’s Art
Los Angeles’ Chinatown had it’s 118th annual golden dragon parade on February 4th. I had the opportunity to attend it for the first time and all I can say is that it was okay.
For the parade to be the 118th one, I was expecting something a little more spectacular but it really was just ok.It didn’t help much either that the parade didn’t start on time. In a way, this was a good thing since it gave me time to purchase food and find an ideal spot to view the parade.
Ventured into Pok Pok LA only to get dumbfounded with their menu (lack of selection, however they did have hard to find items listed in the menu, which I found to be cool), slow service and absence of Asian customers, which I immediately considered as a red flag. While it’s not always true that an Asian restaurant is inauthentic when no Asian customers are present, it unfortunately tends to be true. I didn’t want to take the risk and decided to venture into Mandarin Chateau, a nearby restaurant instead and I’m glad I did because their food was good. It was just kung pao tofu, but it was good and best of all, vegetarian!
I always hold this realistic fear in Chinatown that food will not always be completely vegetarian even when you double check with the host/server beforehand that the desired dish has no meat in it. (I kid you not since a vegetarian mapo tofu order years ago in Chinatown came with minced pork… You’d think that LA would have it down years ago with the whole vegan/vegetarian “scene”, but in ethnic enclaves, it unfortunately doesn’t always work out correctly even when you triple check with your host/server.)
The food was consumed on the sidewalk near the street that was closed off for the parade and I don’t think this bothered anyone except perhaps people from outside the LA area. (It’s not like I was the only one eating on the “street”. Besides, I had found a decent place to view the parade and wanted to reserve my spot.)
Because it took forever for the parade to begin, I figured it’d be a good idea to purchase a drink from Lollicup. Of all the days, Lollicup just had to be super busy. So busy that my drink wasn’t ready for me by the time the parade actually started. Looking back, I was an idiot to have gone to Lollicup especially when I didn’t even bother to take a sip of my “pina colada snow” throughout the parade. I guess I just lost my thirst by the time I actually got the drink. Ugh…
Now for the parade.
It was slow. It wasn’t well timed.
The intervals were messed up and out of the blue, a float (a beauty pageant float) just stays put in one place for the whole duration of the parade. I’m assuming there was some malfunctioning with that particular float but it was awkward and I am sure it was even more awkward for the gals on that float. Eh.
Marching bands and color guard gals from different schools were featured. Beautiful horses that could gallop and dance were present. Different martial arts schools were featured as well. And of course, lion dances were featured, too. There was one particular group that was good at the lion dance, but at the same time, I’ve also seen better elsewhere… I want to assume that they couldn’t do as much, performance-wise, since the parade was quite lengthy and they would have tired themselves out if they were to over-awe viewers.Anyway, I suppose this should make a lot of sense as to why I just found the parade to be okay overall. I think the parade is great for people that don’t know what Chinese New Year is or have little exposure to it. I should probably also add the fact that the event was for free and free is always good regardless of the actual outcome of the event. I think I expected more from the parade since it was the 118th one and media had put out excess hype on the parade. The good thing about the parade is how viewers seemed to have enough space. Prior to arriving to Chinatown, I had a small “fear” that people would be “fighting” with each other in order to view the parade, but everyone had sufficient space to view the parade and I was happy about this.
In addition to the parade, there were festivities held near Hop Louie which I visited and quickly left simply because it was just too crowded. There was even a stage area for performances but I decided to pass on it because there weren’t any seats available. From what I understood, people were expected to view the show simply by standing. Uh, can I say no thank you? Yeah…
There was a cooking show area that offered seating though and that was a relief to see. It was just a bummer that the stage near Hop Louie didn’t offer seating. Eh
For those that are allergic to cigarette smoke or just can’t tolerate cigarette smoke, there were a good amount of smokers in the Hop Louie show area.
With the parade over and the festivities area being overly crowded, I decided to forget about participating in the festivities and just leave.
Before officially leaving Chinatown, however, I got the opportunity to check out art by Frank Romero. It was a nice treat to visit the gallery and if you’re interested in viewing his art, you have time to do so until the 25th of this month. The viewing is free at Blossom Plaza.