A Melbourne Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! Today welcomes in the Year of the Rabbit (and the year 4078) in the Chinese calendar. May the new year bring all of us much good luck!

A couple years ago (2009, Year of the Ox) I was in Melbourne during the Chinese New Year celebrations. I happened to wander into the city's Chinatown section and get caught up (literally) in the festivities. It was a great time--and a hot time too. The temperature reached over 100 degrees F (30+ degrees C) nearly every day. The Australian Open was also on in the city at this time, and the extreme heat led the event's organizers to close the stadium roof and take other extreme heat policy measures. More significantly, the horrific bushfires that devastated Victoria and claimed over 175 lives were only about a week ahead.

I took some pictures during the new year celebration and posted them below with some descriptions. Sort of--descriptions can be difficult when you're a foreigner (in this case both non-Australian and not a person of Chinese descent) and therefore not quite sure what is happening around you. Also the sweat was just pouring off me and proving to be a distraction. I also posted some other pics from around Melbourne. You should visit it some time--it's a lovely city.




What I walked into. Downtown's streets were nearly empty...

 

...And then I turned the corner.

 

The main Chinatown strip was the most crowded and felt like a cauldron. The strip is narrow and was filled with troupes of dancers and drummers moving up the street in several simultaneous "dragon parades." In these, several dancers would get under a large, long dragon puppet costume and dance up the street from one shop or place of residence to the next, bringing good luck to the shopowners and residents, while a group of drummers would follow them and provide the dance music. When any of the dragons got to a shopfront, the owners would open the door and offer the gift of a head of lettuce to the dragon. The dragon would then do an elaborate dance all around the street in front of the shop and then finally come into the shop door to offer in its mouth a large melon to the owners.

The dance could go on for several minutes, so long that you might see one of the dancers under the dragon tire out and jump out from under the costume to be replaced by another dancer in the troupe. Near the end of the dance, one of the dancers would hang a long strip of firecrackers over the shop door and light it, setting off a hundred loud explosions and forcing everyone on the street to cover their ears. This went on all up and down the street, and not just at street level, but at 2nd story levels as well, where some people had hung out lettuce heads to welcome the dragon (for these the dragon would dance up a kind of ladder to get to the gift).


Red strip hanging down center is firecracker strip

The old man in the mask kept waving a wand at me...to move away?

Dragon takes bowl holding gift of lettuce

Once the dragons and drummers made their way up one street, they'd turn the corner and go down the next street, leaving the one behind littered with firecracker shells and shreds of lettuce and choked with smoke. If you got caught in the middle of a dancing and drumming stretch, like I did, you had no choice but to stay with it. At one point, I remember being literally smashed up against the window of a restaurant, my back undoubtedly leaving sweat prints all over it, while the dragon did its dance for the restaurant owner. After awhile, the streets cleared up a bit and I found my way to a shrine set up in the street. Anyone was free to pay their respects at the shrine.

Here are a few other odd shots around Melbourne and St. Kilda, a hip beachside suburb of Melbourne with a street known for its great coffee houses and cake shops. (I could've died very happy among the cake shops on Acland Street.)



View of Melbourne from St. Kilda pier


By day the beach and pier at St. Kilda are a haven for gulls, but at sunset the gulls share their territory with some penguins. In the evening, penguins come swimming all the way up from the south and rest among the rocks around the St. Kilda pier. There are sunset tours available around the pier for penguin watching. But you can walk down there and look out for the birds yourself, like I did. My first night in Melbourne, I walked down the pier to look out for the penguins, not believing I'd really see any. But see them I did, or at least one--one little guy diving and fighting through the rough waves crashing against the big rocks along the pier.

Entrance to Luna Park amusement park at St. Kilda. Isn't it freaky?

The amusement park that eats children.

Visitor-wise, the greatness of Australian cities is many of them have a free bus or trolley in the city center that stop at all the best and most important sights and that tourists can hop on and off at will. In Melbourne the free trolley has a narrator to let you know what you're passing. Considering the heat at the time I was visiting the city, these free trolleys were a Godsend way for sightseeing. Melbourne is a city that has many large parks with wide lawns and beautiful trees and gardens. But with the heat and lack of rain at the time, the grass at these parks was burnt yellow and brown. I found another good and free refuge from the heat was the National Gallery. In Australia, the national art galleries in the cities are free. The Melbourne one had an extraordinary Bill Viola video exhibit showing at the time, and also has a striking entrance. This was without doubt the most water I saw anywhere in Melbourne besides the ocean. The lawn across the street from the Melbourne National Gallery must spend all its time panting at the gallery entrance in sheer agony.

Entrance to Melbourne National Gallery, from inside museum

OK, last pic:

 This is a pic of my room at the hostel I stayed at in St. Kilda. Just kidding! This is a cell at the Old Melbourne Gaol, where the likes of Ned Kelly and other infamous bushrangers met their fate.