Dominican Day Parade

Usually the Dominican Day parade is the same Sunday as August Moon. This year however they were on different days so we could go. Me, Noah and Jonah headed down on our tricycle and founf a shaded spot right at Hyde Square with a bench. My favorite part was these devils with whips. I had heard of them in college from a friend. He told me if you turned your back that they were allowed to whip you in D.R. 

But seeing them, the only reason why I knew they were "devils" was because of the whips and the story. They basically looked like One person lion heads. They were very colorful I kind of wanted to find out who did them and see if they might want to come along on my Chinese New Year Parade idea. Were they really supposed to be evil?

I bumped into a friend who does Kung Fu in Chinatown and also lives in JP. "Just checking it out" meaning the parade. I asked him about the colorful creatures.

He shrugged, "Just evil spirits."

I wonder if they are evil or more mischievous. And Nians can be evil as well as good. The idea is that the one's you parade with and bless stores with are mostly good. And they call then lions. 

Anyway, Chinese would never consider creatures so bright and colorful as evil. If they wanted to make them evil they would chose purple, indigo, and more traditional funeral type colors. I wonder if the devils were evil pre-European colonization. But anyway, I don't know anything about them and I have to find out more.

Much of the parade was as my friends said, "Mostly music." As in mostly tricked out cars blasting music out of giant speakers. Which was cool. But my left ear is also still hurting. It was so loud that I am actually not sure if Chinese New Year is louder or that parade. The other thing is once you see a car with about 60 giant speakers attached to it quiet impressively, a car with like two speakers is no longer something to look at. I guess that's the point though.

There was also a tricked out kids car which Noah really liked. It was a baby car with rims and speakers.

I didn't see the beginning of the parade, and I was expecting more activities down by the playground so I went down there with the kids and we played for a while. But the festival is actually at Franklin Park. But now it's Jonah's nap time and Noah is doing his worksheets.