I quite like Chinese New Year in Lancaster, there’s a parade and lions and I find that it’s infused a sense of Chinese cultural somethingness into my idea of how the year sins out. A bit like setsubun next week or Old Twelfth Night last week.
I’m busy this afternoon so I shall miss the parade but I needed to collect some bits and pieces from town so I’m having a coffee watching Chinese girls in deelyboppers (with snakes and tinsel on them) hand out leaflets for the events of the day. I’m listening to various musical set ups and it reminds me of going to the town hall in Showa and hearing shamisen practice. It starts and stops and people move the microphones and speaker set up whilst there’s the noise of the food stalls clattering in the background.
Eking out the last days of the year of the rabbit I guess and then into snake – I have no sense or affinity with snake. Anyway soon the shops will open and I’ll have to get on with things rather than enjoying the music and people bustle.