Philadelphia Celebrates The Chinese New Year
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Hundreds of people gathered in the Chinatown section of Philadelphia on Sunday to celebrate the Lunar or Chinese New Year.
People from all backrounds came out to take part in the festivities.
With fireworks and drums as the soundtrack, perfomers danced down North 10th Street in their dragon and tiger costumes.
"What's great about this is you get to spend time with your family. This is a tradition that we've been celebrating since I was little," said Jeffrey, who came out to the parade with his dad to bring in the Year of the Dog. "The older you get, the further apart you grow, but you know when you can come together for these holidays, it's always great to be able to celebrate it together."
Jeffrey says the parade is awesome, but his favorite part of Chinese New Year is dinner with his family.
"Every Chinese New Year we have to have dumplings. We do this tradition in our family where we put a peanut in the dumplings. You have to search and find that peanut, and if you get that peanut, you are lucky for the year," he explained.
Abby says she enjoys coming to the parade every year.
"It's a wonderful cultural celebration from a very important part of our community, and it's also a whole lot of fun seeing the lion dance and the fircrackers," she said.
The celebration also gives people the chance to experience the proper food for Chinese new year, something Lamei says is a crowd favorite.
"People eat fish. Fish in Chinese is phonetically similar to the word for luck. We also have noodles, noodles represent longivity, and dumplings. All these things are great things to eat during the New Year," she said.
According to the Chinese calendar, this is the year 4715.
