Kung Hei Fat Choi
Take the 6 Train to Canal Street, get out of the subway and walk south towards Mott Street and at this time of the year, be warned that Chinatown is going to be more crowded than usual. It is the Chinese Lunar New Year and New York's Chinatown is in a festive mood.
As soon as you exit into the loud, busy and crowded sidewalk, you step on colorful confetti that is littered all over and you know you have just missed the dragon dance. Follow the trail of festive strips of paper and find yourself in the thick of humanity. Not just Asians but people of different breed, creed, age and race. Kids sat on the shoulders of their fathers to get a better view of marching bands and costumed Asian dancers holding flowers and bright colored flags.
The colors, small and the flavor of this corner of the city is so close to home (more like Binondo, actually) but it is here that you somehow feel like you belong when you are Asian.
Citrus fruits, flowers, popping sound of firecrackers and the loud yet muffled drumming contributed to the celebratory mood and the fulfillment of the superstitions that are practised to start the new year right. And the joyful exchanges of 'Kung Hei Fat Choi', or Happy New Year.
I went with my friend to get some steamed dumplings for lunch and then passed by the Asian store for some groceries and some hopia at the check out counter on the way out. We took the long way out of Chinatown and boarded the M15 bus to head back uptown, leaving the party behind us eating delicious lychee sorbet.
It is the year of the rooster. And I was told it will be a good year for me.
As soon as you exit into the loud, busy and crowded sidewalk, you step on colorful confetti that is littered all over and you know you have just missed the dragon dance. Follow the trail of festive strips of paper and find yourself in the thick of humanity. Not just Asians but people of different breed, creed, age and race. Kids sat on the shoulders of their fathers to get a better view of marching bands and costumed Asian dancers holding flowers and bright colored flags.
The colors, small and the flavor of this corner of the city is so close to home (more like Binondo, actually) but it is here that you somehow feel like you belong when you are Asian.
Citrus fruits, flowers, popping sound of firecrackers and the loud yet muffled drumming contributed to the celebratory mood and the fulfillment of the superstitions that are practised to start the new year right. And the joyful exchanges of 'Kung Hei Fat Choi', or Happy New Year.
I went with my friend to get some steamed dumplings for lunch and then passed by the Asian store for some groceries and some hopia at the check out counter on the way out. We took the long way out of Chinatown and boarded the M15 bus to head back uptown, leaving the party behind us eating delicious lychee sorbet.
It is the year of the rooster. And I was told it will be a good year for me.