Lunar New Year Celebration
Year of the Rabbit
Asia Plaza - 30th and Payne, Cleveland January 21, 2023
The Lunar New Year or Spring Festival is commonly referred to as Chinese New Year, Tet in Vietnamese, Seollal in Korean, Losar in Tibet, and Tsagaan Sar in Mongolian.
From January 22, 2023 to February 9, 2024, we will be celebrating the Year of the Water Rabbit. The Water Rabbit is a subset of the Rabbit zodiac sign. Those born in 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 are considered Rabbits in the Chinese zodiac but only those born in 1963 and 2011 are Water Rabbits.
Margaret Wong and Associates, OCA Greater Cleveland, ASIA Inc. and Erie Chinese Journal hosted a celebration at Asia Plaza. There were performances, information booths, free medical resources, food and, of course, the Lion Dance.
Asia Plaza was full of people who enjoyed authentic food such as dim sum inside Li Wah restaurant, Korean wings from Seoul City Wings (try the Yum Yum sauce!), specialty eggrolls from BlasianFusion food truck, a Taste of the Philippines from the Parilya food truck and authentic Hong Kong Style bubble waffle from Ball Ball Waffle.
Sticky Rice, Sesame Balls and more from Li Wah
Trying some dim sum treats for the first time
Seoul City Wings guys
Kwan Family Lion Dance inside Li Wah
Michael Patterson from Margaret Wong's office brought his pet rabbit to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit.
NOTE: All the images below with a white arrow in the middle are videos. (The other images are just photos) You can click on the white arrow to watch the video of whatever is described. Make sure your speakers are on and you can make the video full screen once it begins by clicking the icon in the lower right corner.
Other informational resources were also popular attractions. Here are a few.
OCA Greater Cleveland
St Clair Superior table
International Community Health Center (ICHC)
Global Cleveland table
Of course ClevelandPeople.com was there and we brought our big map of Asia.
Dan Hanson at the ClevelandPeople.com table (photo by Stuart Smith)
People pointed out the land of their heritage on the map
Besides the food, the performances were the highlight of the day. The Kwan Family Lion Dance performed inside Li Wah restaurant and then throughout Asia Plaza. They visited stores and consumed the hanging lettuce to bring luck and prosperity in the new year. Here are some snippets of them outside Li Wah restaurant and an Asia Plaza store.
In the center area, the program began with a martial arts demonstration by the Shaolin Kung Fu Institute.
As you can see in the video below, they performed with various weapons and simulated fights between spears, swords, nun chucks and other weapons. They showed various styles including Angry Monkey.
After the performance, Gino from the Shaolin Kung Fu Institute explained how the Shaolin Temple was built in China in 495 AD. This version of Chinese Martial Arts is weapons based and he features the Monkey Style. The battles are choreographed after ancient battles. He showed some of the weapons such as Tiger Hooks, Monkey Daggers, Deer Horn Knives, Butterfly Swords and even a cane.
You can see many of the performances on the next few pages.
The next performance was acrobatic Chinese dances from the students of the LingYun Rising Star Gymnastics Dance School.
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