Celebrating the Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year starts on the eve with the release of silken lions to ward off evil spirits. This is the prelude to the longer sustained greeting and dancing of the lions on New Year’s Day when, at about noon, a first high spattering of firecrackers is heard on Mott Street.  

A group of boys in bright trousers and jackets decorated with Chinese symbols gathers around a large drum; a rhythmic pattern is established on the drum by one of the older men, and then several boys successively take over the wearying job of beating out the heavy insistent rhythm. It is soon joined by the clash of cymbals. 

When the din is high, a number of dignified men and women emerge from a cellar, gently lifting out a lovely silk banner topped with a bouquet of varicolored pompons that bounce and turn in the winter wind. The sound of firecrackers and drums grows heavier and, finally, the first lion emerges. He has a magnificent head of multicolored silk, studded, be-flowered and embroidered; his large eyes roll furiously in their sockets and the long fringe on his chin and mouth waves and flutters as the dancer inside the head leaps, turns and bends to the incessant rhythm of the drums and cymbals.

Lion, cymbals, drums and banners make their way from store to store, chasing evil spirits. From each establishment, the proprietor emerges with a red-wrapped package of coins for the band and a bumble of firecrackers, which he sets off in front of his shop.  From Pell Street another lion emerges, and from Bayard and from the Bowery and from Canal, and everywhere now there are drums and cymbals and lions and the smoke of a million firecrackers. 

And while you watch, dazzled and deafened, one of the elders might offer you a cigar that he is carrying for the occasion; a child might offer you a little trinket; and a baker is handing out steamed dumplings stamped with a handsome red symbol, which it turns out on inquiry to be merely the name of the baking company.

If there is no snow on the ground, the lions will, when they meet, try to outleap and outcavort each other, in the ancient manner of the lion battles of neighboring towns. If there is snow, and the lions are not leaping, you will behold some lovely litter—heaps of red, blue, green and yellow firecracker shells illuminating the grayed snow.

Household festivities go on for some days and, about a week after New Year’s day, the lions and bands and banners come out for more public celebrations in Columbus Park. Near the center of the park a large area has been cleared for a great fairy-tale dragon whose long sinuous frame is carried by sixteen or eighteen men.  Like the lions, he is more beautiful than menacing.

While the dragon rests to be admired and photographed, a music wagon is pushed into sight. It too has a lovely imaginative shape, and from it the musicians take out bamboo flutes and play rueful little Chinese melodies. Of a little way, the stilt-walkers in extravagant costumes and painted faces follow their leader, who twirls and tosses a golden baton as he makes his crane-like progress toward a thoroughly American-style drum-and-bugle corps of local children.  

Then the whole spectacular entourage—dragons, banners, stilt-walkers, lions, musicians, drummers and the children make their playful way back through the gray streets of Mott, Pell and Mulberry, and the mummery is put away for another year.