San Francisco's Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is the largest celebration of its kind outside Asia. It ushers in the next year in the cycle of 12 with a spectacular parade, complete with lion dancers, floats and Chinese acrobats.
These annual celebrations include the Flower Market Fair (6 & 7 February), Miss Chinatown USA Pageant (20 February), Chinatown/YMCA Run (21 February), Coronation Ball (26 February), Chinatown Community Fair (27 & 28 February) and the Chinese New Year Parade (27 February). The Chinese New Year itself, when in 2010 the year of the ox becomes the year of the tiger, falls on 14 February.
The Parade moves from Market and 2nd Streets to Kearny and Jackson. Watch its elaborately decorated floats, school marching bands, martial arts groups, stilt walkers, lion dancers, Chinese acrobatics, the newly crowned Miss Chinatown USA and the Golden Dragon (Gum Lung).
The dragon, over 200 feet long, is always featured as the grand finale. It takes a team of more than 100 men and women from the White Crane martial arts group to carry it through the streets, accompanied by 600,000-plus firecrackers.
The Parade moves from Market and 2nd Streets to Kearny and Jackson. Watch its elaborately decorated floats, school marching bands, martial arts groups, stilt walkers, lion dancers, Chinese acrobatics, the newly crowned Miss Chinatown USA and the Golden Dragon (Gum Lung).
The dragon, over 200 feet long, is always featured as the grand finale. It takes a team of more than 100 men and women from the White Crane martial arts group to carry it through the streets, accompanied by 600,000-plus firecrackers.
AU
BE
DE
DK
ES
FR
IE
IT
SE
NO
NZ
UK
US