Last Sunday, we took the children to their first August Moon Festival in Boston's Chinatown. It was the first one I had been to myself for a very long time. As a child, I remember there being huge crowds of people, lion dances right on the street, booming drums, and pieces of red paper all over the streets from the many much-too-loud firecrackers. Our children's experiences were very different. There was a stage set up for all the performers to use and there were no firecrackers at all.
Even though there were different groups performing for the entire festival, such as dancers and martial arts students, we only watched a performance of one of the lion dances. The children had seen a lion dance once before during a local Chinese New Years event for children last year. That performance was held indoors and the drums sounded much louder than they did at this outdoor performance, much to their relief.
I hope you enjoy a few of the photos I took of the performance . . .
(Click any photo to enlarge)
In addition to the lion dance, the children enjoyed walking through the main streets that were lined with street vendors selling everything from beta fish to Chinese fans to bamboo plants to die-cast double-decker tour buses. We also ate lunch at a tiny little restaurant located in the basement of a building called Cafe de Lulu. What the restaurant lacked in ambiance, it made up for in delicious home cooked food. The family that owned the restaurant was very hospitable. Then we remembered to stop by the Ho Yuen Bakery for some baked char siu bao, don tarts, and creme-filled cakes before we headed home. I think we made some great memories that day.
