Chinese Lunar New Year Firecracker Festival 2013

Sunday marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year and this year is the year of the snake (I'm an ox, or so the Chinese restaurant place mats tell me). To celebrate, my friend Trent and I headed to Chinatown (duh) for the Firecracker Festival. We heard there would be lion dances and half a million firecrackers, which sounded pretty awesome. To be honest, it wasn't exactly awesome, but I'm still glad we went — you never know until you try, right?

We got there at 10:30am, and the festival was scheduled to begin at 11. The whole thing takes place in a sunken basketball court in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, so we were in the second row of people but couldn't really see much. Turns out, the firecrackers didn't go off until around 12:30, with the lion dances coming shortly before. The other two hours were filled with a seemingly endless stream of speeches — half in Chinese, which is understandable, but I can't tell you what they were saying — most of which consisted of councilmen/women wishing everyone a happy new year while simultaneously campaigning for themselves.

When our vote wasn't being solicited, we were treated to another seemingly endless stream of what I can only assume are semi-famous pop singers, but cultural barriers aside, no one in the crowd seemed to have any clue who these people were or why they were singing. It was all so bizarre and incredibly cold — after about 30 minutes of standing on what had basically become an ice pack, both Trent and I began to fear for the safety of our toes.

The lion dances were cool, or rather I think they were. When they began the crowd of photographers and "officials" was so densely packed around them that no one outside of the basketball court could really see anything.

At least we could see the firecrackers, and they were just as loud as you would think half a million firecrackers would be. I'm glad we stuck around long enough to finally see them, and I also loved all of the confetti — I think they should scratch the firecrackers and just do half a million confetti poppers next year. There's a parade this weekend, which is probably the better celebration of the two, with more ideal viewing conditions I would imagine. Despite loving New York I get a tad claustrophobic in loud, pushy crowds, so I'll probably skip the parade this year. We do have plans to return to Chinatown on a non-holiday weekend to try out the Nom Wah Tea Room and the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory— I've actually never eaten Chinese food in the city, which seems kind of ridiculous because I love it.

So, do I recommend the Firecracker Festival? Not really, but I'm still glad we went and now we can check it off of our to-do-lists. We were also treated to the somewhat puzzling appearance of Asian Ronald McDonald, who was the only mascot in attendance, danced along with the songs and spoke alongside councilmen and Chinatown officials to wish everyone a very Happy New Year — so that pretty much made everything worth it.