Nation’s capital celebrates Lunar New Year

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Asian communities worldwide celebrated Lunar New Year Tuesday, including in the nation’s capital.

Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown marked the start of the Year of the Horse with a lion dance moving throughout the neighborhood.

Lion dances feature a large, brightly colored lion head with one performer inside the head, and another performer as the back end. The performers wear pants to match the rest of the design for the lion’s legs. Drums, cymbals and other percussion instruments accompany the lion as it moves through the streets.

“The lion dance does a lot of things, it chases evil spirits away,” said one of the performers who goes by ‘Teach.’ He founded Hung Ci Lion Dance Troupe in northern Virginia two years ago.

The troupe’s lion danced in front of more than a dozen businesses throughout the area and entered several, including a Chick-Fil-A, a ramen bar and an Asian food hall.

“We were in the restaurants a lot, paying homage and chasing evil spirits,” Teach said. “Blessing the kitchen, the cash register, any statues of Buddha... so it’s kind of like a blessing, not just for the public, but actually for the location, for the building.”

A worker from the ramen bar brought a platter outside with a head of lettuce and an orange. It’s a tradition for the lion to “eat” the lettuce and orange, then throw the remains onto observers to spread luck.

“It’s like a hominym, because the word for ‘lettuce’ [in Mandarin] sounds like the word for ‘lucky’ and for ‘money,’” explained Teach. “You get hit with the lettuce, you get luck, same thing with the orange.”

Several observers in Chinatown presented the lion with red envelopes with money inside, which represents luck for the new year.

It is not lost on the performers that they performed in the capital of a country referred to as a “melting pot” and “nation of immigrants.”

“I want to see that appreciation for everybody, and like, you don’t have to be Asian to enjoy it,” Teach said after the nearly hour and a half performance that featured several non-Asian performers. “It’s too easy for us to like, ‘oh, you’re different,’ and we just focus on that and not what we have in common. Everybody loves dancing.”

The Chinatown Lunar New Year Coalition, from the 1882 Foundation, organized the majority of programming for public Chinatown events this year. The celebrations culminate with a parade on Saturday, Feb. 22.