Today is the Chinese New Year in Paris's Chinatown. "Chinatown" here has to be taken loosely; there were definitely just as many Vietnamese or Thai places as there were Chinese, and a couple Japanese restaurants floating around. When I showed up, at about 1:15, there weren't many people there yet, but as soon as I got out of the metro station I saw these guys.
They were all pretty young, probably pre- to mid-teens. I saw older groups later, when more people showed up and I got into the middle of Chinatown.
One of the dragons has a moment with an orange.
There were groups of dragons and musicians everywhere, about one per block. Each group (except the kids I came across first) had a string of firecrackers that they set off, deafening everybody in a half-block radius, and covering the ground in this.
After about an hour these guys came walking by, and I followed them.
To here, where they set off their firecrackers.
At this point it was really, really crowded. I climbed up on a fence, but I still couldn't see much. It was me, a few little boys, and a bunch of teenage guys on the fence; I get the impression that French women put way too much emphasis on "ladylike" for me.
The reason I got a decent picture of the musicians for this group is that I was standing
right next to them. My hearing still isn't back all the way.
He wins against the lettuce!
Hah. Hahahah.
I ended up covered in pieces of red paper from the firecrackers and completely deaf from the musicians and with about six hundred pictures of dragons dancing. A French woman next to me told her daughter when she was getting bored, "Just a second.
On va faire le dragon!" The dragons are going to start dancing; only it sounds much better in French., and by better I mean more absurd. On the way back a little Chinese boy on the metro repeatedly smacked me in the face with his "Happy New Year!" balloon. He was very cute.
They were all pretty young, probably pre- to mid-teens. I saw older groups later, when more people showed up and I got into the middle of Chinatown.
One of the dragons has a moment with an orange.
There were groups of dragons and musicians everywhere, about one per block. Each group (except the kids I came across first) had a string of firecrackers that they set off, deafening everybody in a half-block radius, and covering the ground in this.
After about an hour these guys came walking by, and I followed them.
To here, where they set off their firecrackers.
At this point it was really, really crowded. I climbed up on a fence, but I still couldn't see much. It was me, a few little boys, and a bunch of teenage guys on the fence; I get the impression that French women put way too much emphasis on "ladylike" for me.
The reason I got a decent picture of the musicians for this group is that I was standing right next to them. My hearing still isn't back all the way.
He wins against the lettuce!
Hah. Hahahah.
I ended up covered in pieces of red paper from the firecrackers and completely deaf from the musicians and with about six hundred pictures of dragons dancing. A French woman next to me told her daughter when she was getting bored, "Just a second. On va faire le dragon!" The dragons are going to start dancing; only it sounds much better in French., and by better I mean more absurd. On the way back a little Chinese boy on the metro repeatedly smacked me in the face with his "Happy New Year!" balloon. He was very cute.
3 comments:
Xin nian kuai le!
-Alissa
gong xi fah cai<~ totally knows that's not the right pinyin
it doesn't fall within the tiny spectrum of chinese i know anyway, lamezors, so what's it mean?
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