Chinese American New Year

Success! In a crazy and interesting way. I was getting ready to head out when the door bell rang . Yay!! People actually came. It was Noah's friend L and his  Mom R and also the younger sibling N was in Jonah's playgroup. The mother in the family is Japanese and she told me some of the traditions for New Year's there. R said that actually they even celebrated Chinese and Japanese New Year depending on which sect of Buddhism you followed, and they also gave out lucky money and had lion dance. This was pretty cool to hear about since a lot of the people from Japan I met through college and high school hadn't been exposed to this side of the culture. But I suppose the same is true of people I met through school who were from Hong Kong or Shanghai.
Anyway, I don't know how we would have done the parade without her help. She ended up taking the Lead Role of the person who leads the Lion head because otherwise how could I play drum while I carried Jonah and how would Noah know where to go?
We did a full on lion dance for our house and the neighbors who were pretty impressed with Noah's "Dramatic pausing" which comes from the big bow. It is one of the reasons why I taught him the big bow instead of the small bow. In a way the small bow is more economical and makes more sense. But as a beginner, bowing is about the only thing you know how to do, so it might as well be a long ritualized event in and of itself. However, but the third house, we were down to the small bow.

We navigated snow banks higher than me let alone Noah (who is 5) and at one point the Lion head and L got in the sled that R brought along and I carried Jonah. I continued to play my toy drum and honestly I was actually getting tired. Maybe this wasn't 5 hours long, but it was still hard. Maybe we stayed within a couple of blocks of our house. But this really felt like an adventure!

The third house was was in Noah's classmate K and the younger sibling B was in Jonah's playgroup. Jonah snuck into her house and just started playing with toys. I almost left him there. The tail was tucked into Noah's sash. And at some point, Jonah wore the head while on my shoulders and I played the drum. Going against tradition, there were times when I just had to stop playing the drum because what could I do.

We went into the house and I made Noah back out just like he would have to on Chinese New Year and here is the best part of this whole adventure for us. The drums weren't as loud and there were no firecrackers, but in a lot of ways, for the people doing it, it was just like the Parade in Chinatown where we were going up and down flights of stairs. In other words, Noah is being trained for that event now, in a smaller scale event than that he can actually handle.

The last house, was another of Noah's classmates M who also happened to be in my Lion Dance and Kung Fu class. He played cymbals and followed the beat pretty well. I think the dance seemed short to them but Noah was wiped out, as was I to tell the truth.  R passed out Chinese New Year Popcorn to each family! This is such an ingenius idea. It was homemade popcorn in a paper bag with the words New Year written in Kanji (which is basically Chinese) on red construction paper. The kids loved it and of course avoided the Chinese New Year candy at all cost. Chinese New Year popcorn may have to become a thing at our house even though R had just made it up. If you think about it, the idea of a Chinese New Year goodie bag with something like homemade popcorn is so American and so JP and at the same time more cultural than the candy that kids don't like and are manufactured elsewhere. I'm telling you, Chinese New Year popcorn could catch on as a thing, like Halloween candy. (after all it was bread and water that was left out for Samain)
Chinese New Year really has potential as a mainstream American holiday. The only house we visited today that was remotely Chinese was our own. But everyone thought it was cool that we stopped by, Why not?
I definitely couldn't have done this without R's help though. So before I get a real drum, what I really need is a real team. Of course I am part of a real team in Chinatown. But for a real team for this house to house thing I need a real local team.

A lot of people seem to privately own real heads and drums and equipment. If you do you should totally go door to door in the neighborhood you live in too. In Boston Chinatown businesses often complain about too many teams. The truth is that you can grow the audience by bringing this holiday to non-Chinese households. Of course you won't get any cash up front in red envelopes. But if you already have the equipment who cares? You will form bonds and connections while celebrating this holiday. Maybe you can pass out New Year's popcorn.
I'm pretty excited for the potential for next year.

Anyway, Noah went with R and L to go sledding while I dropped off equipment with Jonah and picked up our sled. The kids tore into the Chinese New Year Popcorn and we had a fun time sledding. After ward, R and L came over to our house since it was on the way to theirs and it was snowing pretty heavily. The kids played and ate lunch and drank hot chocolate. At some point crankiness started to set in. But it reminded me a lot of what we will do in Chinatown on March 1st, except on a smaller scale. On the Facebook Group, Chinese Lion Dancers, there are videos Lion Dance in Hawaii the weekend before Chinese New Year. Maybe I will do that next year and hopefully recruit more people to help. At least Grace right? We could even do the big head. And we really should get a real drum. Anyway, I have a whole year to think about it.