So, having busted on Phoenix’s Chinese week celebration, I also have a proposal for improvement.

Unlike western New Year, Chinese New Year isn’t just a single day. The New Year celebration covers 15 days from the actual eve of the New Year until the Lantern Festival 15 days later.

While not every day in the 15 is a holiday, depending on the day New Year falls on, workers usually only get 3-5 days off from work.

Having spent a Chinese New Year in Taiwan, I was really surprised that New Years’ eve and day are dead quiet. Everyone is home with their families. The city of Taipei empties as everyone returns to their home. The people wandering the streets are largely made up with foreigners with nowhere to go (although the temples do pack in good business on New Year’s Day.)

Westerners with visions of Lion Dances in the streets would be sorely disappointed.

At the other end of the celebration is the Lantern Festival, which closes Chinese New Year. The lantern festival features beautiful and intricate lanterns and people thronging the streets buying food and celebrating.

While lesser known, it seems to me that this would be the ideal time to celebrate Chinese Week. Many Chinese and Taiwanese have, no doubt, gone home for the actual New Year, but have begun to return by the Lantern Festival. More Chinese-ancestored people available could make the Chinese Week more authentic. The Lantern Festival is visually beautiful, and could be used to sponsor contests by schools and corporations to build and display lanterns.

The time has come: Let’s have a Lantern Festival for Phoenix’s Chinese Week!

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Chinese New Year has rolled around again and we made our obligatory visit to Chinese Week at the Chinese Cultural Center.

Irene has been sick, but was feeling better today, so we decided to see if there was anything new. There wasn’t.

Chinese New Year is an interesting holiday, in a Chinese country, apart from the sound of firecrackers, the day itself is practically dead. Everyone spends the day with family.

That doesn’t make such great cultural festival, so they turn it into a dog and pony show. Here in Phoenix, which has no real Chinese community to speak of, it’s mostly an excuse to wander around booths for health insurance, acupuncture, a few “oriental” items for sale (many Japanese) and 5 or 6 Chinese (and one Japanese) restaurants.

Despite being nothing new, Michelle had fun riding the train. I’m not sure if the train is just there for fun or is meant to remind us all of the important contribution the Chinese made building the rail network in the 19th century. I don’t think the Chinese had anything to do with the moon-walk, rock-scaling walls or the ferris wheel, though.

Anyway, many of the local Chinese show up for lack of anything else to do. Many Taiwanese show up, too, although there’s the really stubborn contingent who refuse to show up or participate because, “Taiwan is not part of China”.

Darn, with that phrase I just got my blog banned by Google China.

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