Monday, April 25, 2011

All About Cantonese New Year Parade

By John Chan


You may like to know that the one main event of Chinese New Year is the parade. It has both modern as well as traditional connotation.

The parade is one of the major events held during the Chinese New Year celebrations. It is lauded for its colorful pageantry and is considered to be the perfect display of ancient Chinese customs and traditions. As it is the New Year season is a time to hit home with ancient traditions and the parade becomes sort of a slide show of what Chinese traditions are all about.

The history of the Chinese culture expands over five thousands years. These years are filled with various mysterious and intriguing phases that give the Chinese culture its color. The fact that the extensive history of the country has such strong traditions makes the locals take real pride in their cultural heritage.

The Chinese New Year parade is an event which is famous for all that it represents of the ancient Chinese traditions. But present China has introduced certain novelties to make it more acceptable to the foreign visitors who come to the country to witness the pageant. The visitors are made comfortable with modern facilities too. Thus now you will get to see the ancient Chinese customs during New Year parade with a new modern look.

The New Year parade that takes place in China today is based on the typical American marching format along with which there is the ancient traditional Lantern Festival. The essence of the parade is the dragon dance which is solely a Chinese tradition. Over the years though different western inspired ideas have been incorporated into the traditional parade such as marching bands etc which are not actually part of the Chinese culture.

Chinese New Year parades and processions are a product of expressing bonding and brotherhood among different people in the early civilization. The two factors which contributed to this was firstly a closer association between the communities in the Chinese civilization itself and secondly a development of friendly relations with the neighboring civilization.

Today's Chinese New Year parade is not localized to a neighborhood. Rather it has become a global affair that people from different parts of the world come over to witness whereas others watch the live television coverage at their homes.

The parade is a combination of electrifying performances as well as a display of the artistry present in the Chinese culture. Gorgeous and elaborately designed floats can be seen drifting along with the parade with fancy costumes along with the dragons and lions.

While celebrating New Year parade Chinese people bring forward a profusion of color and sound. The loud sound made by the fireworks is a source of deep enjoyment to the Chinese people during the celebrations and they pay little attention to the norms of noise pollution.

The dragon dance is the final celebration of Chinese New Year parade. This puppet is approximately hundred feet in height and is made of silk, paper and bamboo. The entire dragon puppet is then held up by the young men and women and made to dance to the beats of gongs and drums.




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