Honolulu’s Chinese New Year Parade

Clanging cymbals, booming gongs, silk dragons and colorful lions took over Chinatown this weekend for the 2019 Honolulu Chinese New Year Parade! It was so fun.

Would we be able to find parking? Where is the parade route? Will we find our friends? Will it be so loud the kids cry (like in San Diego)? Will it be too crowded to enjoy without stressing about losing the kids? Will the kids eat anything?

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I set my expectations low and told Chris and my friend Sara that I would consider the outing a success if we got one interesting photo of a dragon or lion and tried ate some Chinatown food.

Fear not! We found parking easily a few blocks from Chinatown, near the beginning of the parade. Parade participants were already gathering at the State Capital Building and pointed us in the right direction. We meandered into Chinatown and branched off to get a string of lucky money bags and bumped into Sara’s husband, Steve, while we were buying a puppet lion and rice cakes. Steve told us where to find Sara, Lana and Jackson, and soon the kids were sitting happily on the curb together, munching honey twists and trying to walk the tiny lion.

Then the parade started! swirls of colorful lion costumes and huge florescent flags came swirling down the street toward us! The kids held out money (or ducked in terror) and the lions came over to eat it out of their hands. The crowds pushed toward the lions, waving dollars and laughing.

My favorite part was when a real lion dog–a tiny pug–came marching by. Isaac danced the little lion puppet realistically enough that the pug dashed over to sniff its nose, then froze. Isaac’s puppet wiggled toward the pug. The pug leaped back, looking back at Isaac’s toy, then ran away, back to its owner. All around us the crowd erupted in delighted laughter, describing it again to each other. There’s something so unifying about catching a stranger’s eye and cracking up about the same thing, even when you don’t speak the same language.

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The parade lasted over an hour! At the very end, an extra-large dragon came through. It paused so everyone on both sides of the street could run in and out of the men holding it aloft. “I’m not sure what we’re doing…but…we’re doing this!” I thought, running through after Isaac. Eloise followed next.

Then it was getting dark, so we found a noodle place for dinner. A glowing, nighttime lion dance commenced outside the restaurant while we waited for our food. We finished our noodles and danced back to our car as the lions and Chinatown partied on into the night. It’s Chinese New Year in Chinatown!

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