Chinese New Year 2005 - Year of the Rooster - Lunar Year 4703
This year, Chinese New Year Date 2005 is February 9, 2005 - The festivities get under way from 22 days prior to the New Year date and continue for 15 days after.
Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year Parade - Saturday, February 15, 2003, 5:30 p.m.The Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year 2003 Parade in San Francisco is the largest celebration of its kind outside of Asia. The primary theme for our parade this year is the Ram and many of our floats and specialty units will feature variations on this. Over 100 units will participate in the Southwest Airlines Year of the Ram Parade. Some of the parade highlights we guarantee the spectators will enjoy are the elaborated decorated floats, school marching bands, martial arts group, stilt walkers, lion dancers, Chinese acrobatics, the newly crowned Miss Chinatown U.S.A. and the Golden Dragon ("Gum Lung"). The Golden Dragon is over 201 feet long and is always featured at the end of the parade as the grand finale and will be accompanied by over 600,000 firecrackers.
The Golden Dragon was made in Foshan, a small town in China. The Foshan dragonmasters formerly made all the costumes for the Cantonese opera, and the Golden Dragon bears many operatic touches, such as the rainbow colored pompoms on its 6 foot-long head. It is festooned from nose to tail with colored lights, decorated with silver rivets on both scaly sides and trimmed in white rabbit fur. The dragon, made on a skeleton of bamboo and rattan, is in 29 segments. It takes a team of 100 men and women to carry the Golden Dragon. This is also considered an honor to be chosen for the grand finale. Rain or stars, come watch the parade!
Celebrating Chinese New Year - The sharp full-color photographs capture various mom ents in this important holiday: shopping for symbolic foods and flowers, a trip to the cemetery to honor ancestors, the gathering of the clan, preparing meals, attending the parade, and more. A running commentary explains the origins of the holiday that goes back almost 5000 years, the symbolism of the rituals, the significance of the Chinese zodiac, the choice of ingredients for special meals.
Chinese New Year's Dragon - The majority of this book deals with the holiday as a family event --from cleaning and shopping to food preparation and gifts. Street parades and fireworks are only incidental; this story takes place in a middle-class kitchen, living room, and dining room. The girl cleans the house in her jeans, but she wears traditional clothing (with red sneakers) for the family party. The magical happening is a tiny, dreamy moment when the girl feels she's back in ancient China, watching the celebration from a dragon's back. The pictures show a world in which tradition intersects a nontraditional world: the New Year's fireworks explode against an urban skyscape.