San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade
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The San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is an annual event in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. Held for approximately two weeks following the first day of the
Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly r ...
, it combines elements of the Chinese
Lantern Festival The Lantern Festival ( zh, t=元宵節, s=元宵节, first=t, hp=Yuánxiāo jié), also called Shangyuan Festival ( zh, t=上元節, s=上元节, first=t, hp=Shàngyuán jié), is a Chinese traditional festival celebrated on the fifteenth d ...
with a typical American
parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...
. First held in 1851, along what are today
Grant Avenue Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, is one of the oldest streets in the city's Chinatown district. It runs in a north–south direction starting at Market Street in the heart of downtown and dead-ending past Francisco Street in the North ...
and
Kearny Street Kearny Street () in San Francisco, California runs north from Market Street to The Embarcadero. Toward its south end, it separates the Financial District from the Union Square and Chinatown districts. Further north, it passes over Telegraph ...
, it is the oldest and one of the largest events of its kind outside of Asia, and one of the largest Asian cultural events in North America. The parade route begins on
Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...
and terminates in
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
. Highlights of the parade include floats,
lion dance F Lion dance () is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture and other Asian countries in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume to bring good luck and fortune. The lion dance is usually performed during the Chinese New ...
rs, elementary school groups in costume, marching bands, stilt walkers, Chinese acrobats, and a Golden Dragon. Observers can expect to hear at least 600,000 firecrackers, and are advised to bring ear plugs. The Golden Dragon is one of the highlights of the parade, considered the "Grand Finale" of the parade. It is made in
Foshan Foshan (, ), alternately romanized as Fatshan, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. The entire prefecture covers and had a population of 9,498,863 as of the 2020 census. The city is part of the western side of the ...
, China and is 268 feet long, and takes a team of 100 men and women from the martial arts group Leung's White Crane Lion and Dragon Dance Association to carry it. The parade is hosted by the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Corporate sponsors have included
Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...
and
Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the numb ...
. A similar street festival, the Autumn Moon Festival, has been held annually in Chinatown since 1991 to celebrate the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival, approximately six months after the New Year festival and parade, and is hosted by the Chinatown Merchants Association of San Francisco.


History


Early celebrations

During the
California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
, many Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco to work in gold mines and on railroads in search of wealth and a better life. The earliest recorded New Year's celebration was "a great feast" on February 21, 1851, and the first dragon dance in San Francisco was held for the New Year in 1860. In the 1860s, the Chinese community wanted to share their Chinese culture with others; they blended their traditions with a favorite American tradition—the parade—and held a parade with flags, banners, lanterns, drums and firecrackers. ''
Harper's Weekly ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...
'' covered the 1871 celebration from a Caucasian perspective: "Our illustrations on page 260 will give the reader a vivid idea of the way in which the Chinese keep their New-Year's Day in San Francisco. Their year commences on the 18th of February, but the festivities continue for several days, to the great annoyance of the people, as the principal diversion is the constant explosion of fire-crackers and bombs." The ''
San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulletin ...
'' noted the holiday in an 1892 article, writing that "no nation elebratesthe New Year ... with greater rejoicing and feasting than the Chinese", adding that " ny white residents who at other times united in saying 'the Chinese must go' find it convenient to invade Chinatown during the holidays and freely partake of Celestial hospitality. Some go further than this and try to carry off everything that is not nailed down."


Modern beginnings

In 1951, a week-long celebration included an anti-Communist parade with the theme "Torches of Liberty", staged by the
Chinese Six Companies The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) ( in the Western United States, Midwest, and Western Canada; 中華公所 (中华公所) ''zhōnghuá gōngsuǒ'' (Jyutping: zung1wa4 gung1so2) in the East) is a historical Chinese association ...
and attended by a crowd of 10,000. Special police permission was granted to use firecrackers. The 1952 event was similarly colored by anti-Communist sentiments. During the Korean War, a group of Chinese-American leaders, led by H. K. Wong, expanded the parade into the San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival to take place on February 15, 1953,alternate URL at Internet Archive
/ref> including art shows, street dances, martial arts, music, and a fashion show. Wong, frustrated by news coverage of gambling arrests in Chinatown, believed that educating Americans about the most significant Chinese holiday would turn around the bad press: "Many celebrants who come to Chinatown for this grand New Year never knew that Chinese New Year was celebrated privately prior to 1953. The introduction of the Chinese New Year Festival in 1953 eliminated that 'mystery Chinese' feeling of people outside of the Chinese Community." Wong organized a Chinese New Year Festival committee, whose members included restaurateur
Johnny Kan Johnny Kan (1906–1972) was a Chinese American restaurateur in Chinatown, San Francisco, ca 1950–1970. He was the owner of Johnny Kan's restaurant, which opened in 1953, and published a book on Cantonese cuisine, ''Eight Immortal Flavors'', whic ...
and businessman Paul Louie. The 1953 parade was led by Grand Marshall Joe Wong, a blind Korean war veteran, featuring the Miss Chinatown festival queen and of course the dragon; that year marked the first modern San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival intended for the wider public. A crowd of 140,000 watched the parade. The celebrations were expanded to three days in 1954. In 1955, the Festival lasted for a week and concluded with a parade up Grant Avenue. The celebrations were shortened to three days in 1956, and the parade was moved into the afternoon so it could be televised. A new dragon the length of a city block, later stated as , was imported from Hong Kong for the 1957 parade. By 1958, the festival queen contest had been formally expanded into the pageant of
Miss Chinatown USA The Miss Chinatown USA pageant, based on Chinese communities within the U.S., greets delegates around the country. The pageant has been an annual Lunar New Year event since 1958. The winners of this pageant represent the Chinese community and a ...
. The festival resumed its week-long duration by 1963, including a street carnival that was held since at least 1960. The carnival was criticized for having little cultural connection to Chinese New Year traditions, and the
Wah Ching Wah Ching ( zh, s=华青, t=華青, first=t, j=Waa4 Cing1), meaning Chinese Youth, is a Chinese American criminal organization and street gang that was founded in San Francisco, California in 1964. The Wah Ching has been involved in crimes inclu ...
attempted to burn it in 1968; the gaming booths were discontinued for the 1969 Festival.


Current celebration

The parade has since developed over the decades into one of the grandest nighttime illuminated parades in the US, and one of the largest celebrations of Asian culture outside of Asia, although it has been criticized as presenting an inauthentic "stereotypic and fossilized" or "
chop suey Chop suey () is a dish in American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, consisting of meat (usually chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or fish) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery a ...
image" of Chinese culture. The cost of tickets to the pageant and carnival meant that relatively impoverished Chinese American families could only afford to attend the crowded parade, in effect excluding those whose heritage the Festival was meant to celebrate. The 1977 Parade included a wedding procession in an attempt to introduce more "authentic" cultural content; this was the brainchild of organizer David Lei, newly hired that year by the San Francisco Convention and Visitor's Bureau, which had become a co-sponsor in 1963.  In 1981, an estimated crowd of 250,000 watched the parade. The idea of corporate sponsorship was first broached in 1987, and parade units began to prominently display their sponsor's names. Local television stations began to broadcast the parade in 1988; the next year, it was being carried in six markets across the United States, from Honolulu to New York, and by 1994, the
Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...
had picked up the broadcast. That year, the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance was the first gay rights group to participate in the parade; their presence was received with boisterous support. By 1996, naming rights had been sold to the ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' and the event was publicized as the "San Francisco Chronicle Chinese New Year Festival and Parade"; television coverage de-emphasized the event's connection with Chinatown altogether in favor of more typical San Francisco sights, such as its skyline and the
Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Pen ...
. As of 2017 it was considered the largest Asian event in North America, and the largest general market even in Northern California. It was also named as one of the world's top ten parades. For several decades, the parade was organized by Chinatown activist
Rose Pak Rose Lan Pak () was a activism, political activist in San Francisco, California, noted for her influence on city politics and power in the Chinatown, San Francisco, Chinatown community. Pak served as a consultant for the San Francisco Chinese Cha ...
, who died in 2016. Pak was known for her outspoken comments about local politicians as they were passing by the central grandstand at Jackson and Kearny streets. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Pak's quips "ranged from humorous to mean, but they were almost always pointed and pertinent to Chinatown's interests". From 2004 on, Pak barred
Falun Gong Falun Gong (, ) or Falun Dafa (; literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a new religious movement.Junker, Andrew. 2019. ''Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora'', pp. 23–24, 33, 119 ...
, a religious movement banned in China, from further participation for violating parade rules by distributing leaflets. The group and others, including San Francisco Supervisor
Chris Daly Christopher Edward Daly (born August 13, 1972) is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He represented District 6, serving from 2001 to 2011. He now lives in Fairfield, California,Huett, Ellen (March 24, 2014"How tech beca ...
, subsequently criticized Pak for allegedly enforcing the will of the Chinese government. Citing the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, the parade scheduled for 2021 was canceled in November 2020; the floats and painted ox sculptures will be on static display for the public. The parade returned on February 19, 2022.


Festival events

The two-week Chinese New Year Festival and Parade, sponsored by
Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...
in recent years, includes two fairs, the Chinese New Year Flower Fair and Chinatown Community Street Fair, the
Miss Chinatown USA The Miss Chinatown USA pageant, based on Chinese communities within the U.S., greets delegates around the country. The pageant has been an annual Lunar New Year event since 1958. The winners of this pageant represent the Chinese community and a ...
pageant, and concludes with the parade. Miss Chinatown USA is traditionally present at the parade, as is a Golden Dragon which is more than long and manned inside by over 100 puppeteers. The Golden Dragon and 600,000 firecrackers conclude the parade. Over 100 groups participate in the parade, which is televised by
KTVU KTVU (channel 2) is a television station licensed to Oakland, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's Fox network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside San Jose ...
and
KTSF KTSF (channel 26) is a multicultural independent television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by the Lincoln Broadcasting Company, and maintains studios on Va ...
. Other festival events include a Chinatown run and children's basketball games. Several San Francisco community groups such as the Chinatown YMCA, San Francisco Symphony, and Asian Art Museum hold festivities in Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year as well.


CCHP Chinatown YMCA Chinese New Year Run

Approximately 1,700 racers and 250 volunteers participate in the annual Chinese New Year 5K and 10K run and walk which is held by the Chinatown YMCA. The primary sponsor with naming rights is the Chinese Community Health Plan (CCHP). After the race, participants receive awards, goodies, a T-shirt, refreshments, and can engage in family activities and sponsor booths. An award is given for the best dressed, according to the year's Chinese zodiac. Proceeds support community and wellness programs for youth and teens such as Chinatown YMCA's Community Center and Physical Education Program. The route starts in the heart of Chinatown at Grant and Sacramento; the route continues through North Beach and returns via the Embarcadero. Runners in the 10K repeat the loop twice.


Chinese New Year Flower Market Fair

The weekend before Chinese New Year Day, a Lunar New Year Fair takes place in San Francisco's Chinatown. Vendors line the streets and sell goods including traditional flowers, plants, fruits and candies which people give as gifts to family and friends or use for house decorations. Throughout the streets, there are traditional Chinese performances, such as magic shows, acrobatics, folk dancing, and opera. Great happiness is symbolized with fruits such as tangerines and oranges. Tangerines with undamaged leaves symbolize secure relationships, and for newlyweds, symbolizes the beginning of a family with children. A
Chinese candy box A Chinese candy box is a traditional box used during Chinese New Year for storing candy and other edible goods. The box usually has a lid; some are more fancy and elaborate than others. It is usually colored with a red or black motif, since tradit ...
, called Tray of Togetherness or Harmony box, is a sectional tray which is used to serve bite-sized treats, such as candied melon, red melon seeds, candied coconut, and lotus seeds to wish guests a sweet new year. Many Chinese people think it is important to have flowers and plants decorating their homes for the Chinese New Year because they represent growth. Plants that bloom on the day of the Chinese New Year symbolize prosperity for the year.


Chinatown Community Street Fair

The two-day fair and its entertainment is planned by the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce and presents over 80 concessions and booths on the weekend that the Chinese New Year Parade is held. Entertainment includes folk dance, opera, drumming, family photos, giant puppets, lion dances, fine arts demonstrations, calligraphy, lantern-making, and kite-making. About 500,000 people attend the Chinatown Community Street Fair.


Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Pageant

The Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Pageant is an annual pageant taking place in San Francisco, where Chinese American women compete to become
Miss Chinatown USA The Miss Chinatown USA pageant, based on Chinese communities within the U.S., greets delegates around the country. The pageant has been an annual Lunar New Year event since 1958. The winners of this pageant represent the Chinese community and a ...
, a Chinese community goodwill ambassador, along with winning prizes and scholarships. Miss Chinatown U.S.A. will be crowned with her court at the Caesars Entertainment Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Coronation Ball, where a dinner and dance will be held. The show includes quiz questions and competition in the areas of beauty, talent, and fashion. Other titles that are named in the pageant include Miss Chinese Chamber of Commerce/First Princess, Miss Talent, Miss San Francisco Chinatown, Second Princess, Third Princess, and Fourth Princess. Beginning in 1953, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce held the first local San Francisco Miss Chinatown Pageant together with the Chinese New Year Festival to select a festival queen; prior festival queens include Pat Kan (1953, daughter of restaurateur
Johnny Kan Johnny Kan (1906–1972) was a Chinese American restaurateur in Chinatown, San Francisco, ca 1950–1970. He was the owner of Johnny Kan's restaurant, which opened in 1953, and published a book on Cantonese cuisine, ''Eight Immortal Flavors'', whic ...
), Bernice Woong (1954), Carolyn Lim (1955), Estelle Dong (1956), and Ruby Kwong (1957). Once the pageant became more popular, the contest opened up to women throughout the U.S.A. The first Miss Chinatown pageant was held on February 15, 1958 at the Great China Theater. Judges included Chin Yang Lee,
Joseph Fields Joseph Albert Fields (February 21, 1895 – March 4, 1966)According to the State of California. ''California Death Index, 1940–1997''. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, Californiaancestry.com/ ...
, Richard Pollard, Mrs. K. L. Kwong, Mrs. John Yu, and Sally Lee Thompson.


Other community festival events


Asian Art Museum

The
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...
holds special events to celebrate the Chinese New Year. They offer Family Fun Days which include activities such as storytelling, gallery activities, and art projects themed to the year's
Chinese zodiac The Chinese zodiac is a traditional classification scheme based on the lunar calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Originating from China, the zodiac and its variations remain ...
animal. Families can learn about Chinese symbols, flowers, and plants through activities. The museum provides educational guides for children so that they can learn about the Lunar New Year, zodiac animals, and win prizes after completing the guide. During the museum's Lunar New Year Celebration event, museum-goers can watch schools come to perform Chinese dances and music, martial arts, a lion dance, and Chinese stories. People can create art projects, learn to walk on stilts, and learn a ribbon dance.


California Academy of Sciences

The
California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...
hosts a NightLife event for adults after regular operating hours on Thursdays; since at least 2014, one Thursday night during the Festival is themed for the Lunar New Year. A special lion dance performance by the Jing Mo Athletic Association took place on February 2, 2017.


Chinese Historical Society of America

Free admission to the
Chinese Historical Society of America The Chinese Historical Society of America (; abbreviated CHSA) is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, Cali ...
has been offered during the day of the annual parade. Dragon dancing, arts and crafts and other activities celebrating the traditions of the Chinese New Year were held.


Choy Sun Doe

Starting in 2019, gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins were passed out in traditional ''
lai see In East Asia, East and Southeast Asian cultures, a red envelope, red packet or red pocket () is a monetary gift given during holidays or for special occasions such as a wedding, a graduation, or the birth of a baby. Although the red envelope w ...
'' (red envelopes) to children for the one-day
Choy Sun Caishen () is the Chinese mythology, mythological figure worshipped in the Chinese folk religion and Taoism. He has been identified with many historical figures, viewed as his embodied forms, among whom Zhao Gongming (, Wade–Giles: ''Chao Kung-m ...
Doe event, celebrating the arrival of the god of wealth. Some also included money or a gift certificate.


Presidio Officer's Club

Families participated in making a pellet drum, used for thousands of years as part of traditional celebrations, using simple materials.


San Francisco Symphony Chinese New Year Celebration

Each year, the
San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...
celebrates Chinese New Year with a concert at
Davies Symphony Hall Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall is the concert hall component of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, California. The 2,743-seat hall was completed in 1980 at a cost of US$28 million to give the San Francisco ...
. Those who purchase tickets can attend a Festival Reception before the concert at Davies Symphony Hall. This reception includes entertainment such as crafts, arts, lion dancing, calligraphy, food, and tea bars. A Chinese Dragon Dance marks the beginning of the concert and the San Francisco Symphony presents music from Eastern and Western music traditions, and music from Asian composers. After the concert, those who purchased dinner packages can attend the Imperial Dinner held at the Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall on 300 Franklin Street. The Orchestra's musical education programs, from over 75,00 school in the Bay Area, receive the proceeds from the Festival Reception and Imperial Dinner.


SF Beer Week

SF Beer Week included a dim sum beer brunch on February 11, 2017.


SF Chinese Chamber of Commerce/Southwest Airlines Basketball Jamboree

Every year about sixty children, three teams of girls and three teams of boys, from San Francisco Middle Schools and Chinatown North Beach community play six basketball games to celebrate Chinese New Year.


Parade

The parade is the climactic event, held at the close of festivities. Private celebrations of Chinese New Year began in 1851, and the first dragon was paraded in 1860. Scenes from the 1961 parade were used in the film ''Flower Drum Song''. By 1974, a crowd estimated at 420,000 people watched the parade. The modern parades that started in 1953 initially were routed along
Grant Avenue Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, is one of the oldest streets in the city's Chinatown district. It runs in a north–south direction starting at Market Street in the heart of downtown and dead-ending past Francisco Street in the North ...
from Market through Chinatown, although crowds were starting to overwhelm the narrow street by 1962. In 1965, the route was changed to bypass the narrow portion of Grant, detouring at Bush to Kearny. Community leaders in Chinatown were displeased, but city officials forced the route change to avoid traffic jams and a potential fire hazard. The route was updated again in 1981 to its present course, which includes a loop around
Union Square Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
. Despite the route changes, the start and finish have remained on
Market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...
and next to
Portsmouth Square Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most densel ...
on Kearny, respectively, with the sole exception of 1965, when in addition to bypassing Grant, the start was also moved to
Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...
. Because the parade finishes shortly after passing under the Dr. Rolland and Kathryn Lowe Community Bridge between Portsmouth Square and the
Chinese Culture Center The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (or CCC) (; Jyutping: ''Gau6gam1saan1 Zung1waa4 Man4faa3 Zung1sam1'') is a community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 as the operations center of the Chinese Culture Foundation locate ...
, in recent years, admission to the bridge is restricted to ticketed guests for a viewing party during the night of the parade.


''Gum Lung''

The
dragon dance Dragon dance () is a form of traditional dance and performance in Chinese culture. Like the lion dance, it is most often seen during festive celebrations. The dance is performed by a team of experienced dancers who manipulate a long flexible ...
by the Golden Dragon, ''Gum Lung'' (or ''Gàm Luhng'', ), highlights the end of the parade. After the modern parades began in 1953, the first new ''Gum Lung'' was imported in 1957 from Hong Kong, billed as one
city block A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets, not counting any type of thoroughfare within t ...
or long. It was replaced in 1961 by a dragon, whose head weighed . Another ''Gum Lung'' arrived in 1969, measuring long; that year, a smaller dragon was imported by
Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
and the parade featured two dragons for the first time. The 1961 dragon was made surplus and sold to
Marysville, California Marysville is a city and the county seat of Yuba County, California, located in the Gold Country region of Northern California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 12,072, reflecting a decrease of 196 from the 12,268 counted ...
, where it participated in that city's annual Bok Kai parade until 1984; it replaced ''Moo Lung'', Marysville's earlier dragon, which had been loaned to Chinese communities across the United States from Seattle to New York, including two appearances in San Francisco (1885 and 1937). A new ''Gum Lung'', long, was used for the 1976 celebration to usher in the Year of the Dragon. In 2000, another new long dragon, made in
Foshan Foshan (, ), alternately romanized as Fatshan, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. The entire prefecture covers and had a population of 9,498,863 as of the 2020 census. The city is part of the western side of the ...
and the longest to date, made its debut for the Year of the Dragon. A smaller dragon was also purchased in 2000, but was stored for many years until it was donated to the Southern Oregon Chinese Cultural Association, where it debuted in
Jacksonville, Oregon Jacksonville is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, approximately west of Medford. It was named for Jackson Creek, which flows through the community and was the site of one of the first placer gold claims in the area. It includes J ...
on February 9, 2019. In 2015, the dragon, valued at $15,000, was long, had a head that weighs , and was kept in motion for three hours during the parade. Another new dragon was introduced for the 2018 parade, now stretching to long.


Entrants

More than one hundred groups take part in the parade. The judges are located at the end of the parade, in the reviewing stands at Kearny and Columbus Avenue. There, the judges choose float and group participant winners. *The
Yau Kung Moon Yau Kung Mun (also Yau Kung Moon) 柔功門 is a Shaolin martial art. The Chinese term, 柔功門, can be roughly translated as "the style of flexible power". The Hong Kong and US schools usually use the romanization "Yau Kung Moon" or "Yau Kung M ...
Kung Fu Association entry won the parade contest for 10 straight years. *The
International School of the Peninsula Silicon Valley International School, colloquially INTL, (pronounced "international"), is a private grade day school located in Silicon Valley, with two campuses in Palo Alto (formerly International School of the Peninsula, ISTP) and Menlo Park (f ...
has entered and won numerous awards for their floats. *
Academy of Art University The Academy of Art University (AAU or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. S ...
has won the Most Artistic Float Award every year since 2014. * In 2017
Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...
performed in the parade. * More than one hundred members from the martial arts troupe Leung's White Crane Dragon and Lion Dance Association carry ''Gum Lung'' at the finish of the parade; thirty-five members are used in shifts.


References

;Further reading *
alternate URL at Google Books


External links


San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade official site



Chinatown–Festivals–1953
at the San Francisco Public Library digital images collection; similar folders exist for 1954–65. * * (2012) {{Portal bar, Society, China, San Francisco Bay Area Chinese New Year Festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area Parades in the United States Chinese-American culture in San Francisco Cultural festivals in the United States Recurring events established in 1858 1858 establishments in California Chinatown, San Francisco