One of the largest Chinese New Year celebrations in the world is in San Francisco. With a parade, food, fireworks, and just a crazy number of people, it really is a spectacle to behold at least once in life. Jenny had gone to the New York City version when she was stationed in Delaware, but it wasn’t as large or as well known as the San Francisco China Town festival.
Being so close to San Francisco, we obviously couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend such a remarkable festival. Jenny and I loaded up the car and took off for the parade. We were shooting to get to China Town early so that Jenny could expose me to some traditional Chinese snacks before the parade. This was the first trip where I discovered something about myself:
I hate driving in San Francisco. The narrow streets, the California drivers, the sketchy parking, all of it drives me nuts and makes me nervous so much I sweat. I was less stressed driving in Kuwait, where there seemed to be no traffic laws whatsoever and cars seemed to burst into flames after a mere fender bender, than I was driving around San Francisco.
After white knuckling my way through San Francisco, I parked us near the parade route and off we went. I could tell that Jenny was a bit nervous bringing me along to learn a bit about her culture and heritage. We bobbed and weaved our way through a steadily growing crowd, Jenny leading me to the first of her meticulously researched Chinese bakeries.
We were in search of two things: BBQ pork buns and egg custard tarts. Jenny had done her research and narrowed our options down to two specific locations to get a serving of these Chinese snacks to hold us over while we watched the parade before dinner.
The first spot was a bust. Written in both Chinese and English, a sign taped to the door declared that this highly rated Chinese Bakery was closed in celebration of the New Year. This was a total anomaly, as it appeared that this was the only store that was closed in the entire China Town area. Not to be deterred, Jenny quickly redirected our route to the second option and off we hustled.
We made it to the next bakery, and there was a line out the door and rapidly growing. Jenny and I were fortunate enough to get there before the line stretched down the block, and we were to the ordering counter within minutes. The bakery was a buzzing hive of activity, with several women behind the counter taking orders, and an endless stream of customers barking orders in Chinese.
When it came time for us to order, the woman behind the counter barked something at me in Chinese, perhaps not noticing how much the lone Minnesotan on the block stood out, and there was a pause that, to me, felt like it lasted for an hour before Jenny jumped to my rescue and ordered for us.
The BBQ pork buns were fresh out of the oven, and the egg custard tarts weren’t far ahead of them. I have been fortunate enough to travel all over and try food from many different cultures, but never have I enjoyed a snack as I did with that pork bun and egg custard tart.
Most of that enjoyment stemmed from the rapid-fire way that Jenny explained why she liked those treats so much (her dad used to make them for her and her sisters when they were little). She hadn’t had them in quite some time, and she explained her love for them in between mouthfuls of the savory buns.
With our hunger satiated for the time being, we marched back to the parade route to take our positions. I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I was a kid, parades in small town Minnesota involved candy thrown from firetrucks on summer days. When I went off to the Air Force Academy parades involved stifling wool uniforms and cadets passing out from locking their knees and dehydration.
This parade was absolutely off the chain.
First, there were literally too many dragons to count. I tried, and lost count somewhere north of 60, but at that time they came by to fast and in such large groups I couldn’t keep up. Dragons of every size and shape imaginable. Some small enough to be held by the passing children of a local karate studio, others as long as a city block and held by dozens of dragon dancers running through the street.
Then there were the fireworks. In a state as fire vulnerable as California, you don’t see very many fireworks, even on Independence Day. City police departments have been known to resort to using drones to locate reveling patriots shooting off bottle rockets in even the the wettest of coastal climates. Apparently the Chinese New Year’s Parade is an exception.
Or those that turn out for and participate in the Chinese New Years parade do not give a rip about California’s draconian fireworks regulations.
My money is on the latter, but either way, there were fireworks seemingly everywhere. Firecrackers going off left and right, the smell of cordite hung in the air and tainted our clothes. The air was legitimately hazy from the amount of fireworks that were set off on the street or above the buildings that lined the parade route.
Through it all, I saw Jenny looking more excited than I had ever seen her up to that point. She was like a little kid, pointing to parade floats, laughing at the antics of the street performers, and looking eagerly for the next spurt of firecrackers. It was intoxicating to watch her, to see how much this parade and festival meant to her.
As the clock neared our dinner reservations, we snuck off to the restaurant while keeping watch on the festivities making their way through China Town. Even though we had reservations, we still had to wait in line outside. It was well worth it, and the two of us loaded up on food with the intention of bringing it back home for lunch the next day. While we sat there, several of the earlier parade acts made their way into the restaurant, greeting the staff as if they were old friends before being ushered into the back room.
After we ate our fill, we took our boxed up food and rushed back to the parade to catch the last couple performances. We decided to walk back to our car, against the parade, for the remainder of the performances so we could catch the end of the parade and still make it back home at a reasonable hour. The last performance was a massive dragon, staffed by dozens of grinning dancers snaked down the street, jumping over entire strings of firecrackers tossed in front of them. The sound in the enclosed street was deafening, the smell pungent, the energy completely electric.
The parade wrapped up, and we pressed our way through the remainder of lively crowd back to our car to start the return journey to Monterey. The whole ride back we discussed how exciting the trip was, and I could tell that Jenny had thoroughly enjoyed herself, as had I, and we set our sights on the next adventure.
