Chinese New Year Parade
Coming out of the underground with most of the train, ascending the escalator, we can hear the drums gaining momentum. The air is festive. It’s friendly all around. It’s the Chinese New Year parade!
We get to our desired spot and eventually edge our way in to the front next to the fence. Placement at the parade is paramount. At our corner, there are those lining the pavement, others standing on utility boxes, and a bunch of youth on a scaffolding where a building is being upgraded.
As soon as we are in place we begin the wave. We wave at everyone and everyone waves back. It’s agreed. We are celebrating life together. I am waving at beautiful women in beautiful costumes, at little kids playing their drums, at high school and college bands in full regalia with trimmed sashes and white-tipped shoes. It is a night of forgiveness. We even wave at the casino ladies and the politicians in red Mustangs.
There are illuminated dragons chasing pearls galore, some innovative, some homemade, and twenty feet long. There are cool guys with green-rimmed lights on the bottom of their shoes, which make them look like they are levitating as they run through their martial art routine.
The real martial artists are the ones on the scaffolding. I watch them get to the fire escape of the adjacent building. They move up from the first to the second to the third, floor by floor until they are at the eighth. Here the scaffolding changes to a very long thin ladder which reaches the roof. I watch them until they reach the ladder, and then I am distracted.
A loud group of elementary school kids are dressed as Mahjong pieces, like the game board is tumbling down the street. After them, I look back up and I can't see the kids on the scaffolding anymore.
The best fun is to get "kissed" by a lion's furry eyelash because it’s great good luck. That’s why you have to be up against the fence. I got kissed.
The red Lucky shopping cart rolls by. It is way gigantic, so the many people inside it look tiny, like a Gulliver’s Travel adventure.
On the subway home there is a kid in an appropriately sized stroller. He can see himself in the opposite glass. He is waving happily at himself and himself is waving back.
Dana Zed has been exhibiting in the Bay Area for decades. She has solo shows at the de Young Museum, The Napa Valley Museum and countless galleries. Additionally she has done architectural fine art glass for the San Francisco Art Commission, two Maybeck homes and one Julia Morgan. Zed is currently the President for the California Society of Printmakers. She has taught extensively and lives in Oakland CA. Birds and their patterns are inspiring to Dana because hope is the thing with wings, between the Gods and mankind. https://www.danazed.com
See more of Dana's work in 14.1 and 14.1 and 14.1