Chinese New Year Festival

With free admission, the 33rd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Cultural Fair was a great way for all local residents of San Diego wanting to experience all the wonders and cultural traditions of China. Whether it's tasting traditional foods, getting your name written in Chinese or watching traditional dances, this was an event that people of all ages can enjoy. Being able to experience a culture with a fascinating history and rich heritage was something that we'll never forget. This was an experience of a lifetime for me and Jessica.

One of the first things that we did was getting our names written in Chinese at a nearby booth. The Confucius Institute at SDSU were providing the names for free, so of course we had to take advantage of the opportunity. There was a kind lady that gladly wrote our names for us. It was so interesting to see the way that she was using the paintbrush to write out the characters in bold black ink. All of the lines and curves that she made were so smooth and so beautiful. We were so happy with the way our names turned out that both of us still keep it in our school binders.

After letting the ink dry out in the bright sun, we walked over to the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. Although that it costs $2 each to enter, it was definitely worth it. There were so many things that we never heard about before. Did you know that San Diego used to have a Chinatown in Downtown? Apparently it did exist for quite awhile. Anyways there were so many cool hings in there like a palace bedroom, a doll display, a koi pond, and a couple of statues that we had to take pictures with. There were even more exhibits on the other side of the street, so obviously we had to check it out. When we came through the door, the first thing we saw were these huge paper mache dragon masks. They were so beautiful. I was really fascinated by the way that the masks are designed. Although time-consuming, they are defintely worth all the hard work and effort.

When we were done looking at the museum, we got the chance to watch a few of the performances they had on stage. The beats of the drums and the bells shingling away, it was simply specatacular. I have to admit my favorite part was when an elderly woman was feeding the dragon a head of cabbage. Even though it was funny, I was just amazed by the way that the dancers were moving the head and the body of the dragon. The awesome part was that the eyes and the mouth were moving which made the dragon even more realistic.

At the end of the day, we enjoyed some milk tea with boba... well before it started raining on us. If I didn't do this project, I never would've known that there are so many Asian cultural fairs around San Diego. But overall, me and Jessica had a great time learning more about the Chinese culture and checking out what the fair had to offer.

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