“Do you want to go to Yokohama on Saturday?”
I received this text message from Jan, and the implication
was a total departure from our usual Tokyo-mandatory Saturday policy. As the second largest city in Japan, I
figured it was a good bet.
I did a quick Google search to see if there were any events
going on or certain areas of Yokohama worth checking out. Come to find out, Yokohama is home to one of
the biggest Chinatown districts in the world, and double come to find out,
SATURDAY WAS FREAKING CHINESE NEW YEAR.
Jan swears he didn’t plan this and it was a coincidence but he is a liar
and not to be trusted. There’s no way we
just randomly decided to go to the biggest Chinatown during the biggest Chinese
New Year celebration outside of China. But
we did.
The festivities started at around 4pm, which kicked off what
is known as the Lion Dance, which is really difficult to describe. The idea behind it is blessing businesses and
homes with good luck in the New Year. I
will describe our experience, and try not to completely rain sacrilege all over
the tradition, but cut me a break because I’m new to this.
We arrived to Chinatown with the awkward, timid approach
that you took to sitting down at a lunch table on the first day of high
school. There was so much activity, and
we were not privy to the importance of any of it. What’s the cool table? Where do the nerds sit? WHERE DO WE GO?
Then it happened. We
could hear it in the distance… boom, boom, boom, clang clang, boom. We look at each other and Jan says, “dude,
that is the most metal drum beat I’ve ever heard.”
Like a moth to a flame, we followed the drums. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to
mention that Jan first won my affection by giving me like a dozen CDs full of
drum & bass which rocked my world. I’ve
since come to love him for other reasons, but until that point he was just that
guy in my poli-sci class with the weird name. I owe my marriage to drum and and bass. We like drums. We like bass.
We saw a group of people with cameras held high, trying to
get a capture of The Lion, surrounded by pounding drum beats. This was an interesting experience.
First, the police officers rope off the immediate area. They were shouting things at people but the
only words I understood were “sumimasen” and “kudesai” which mean “excuse me”
and “please” so they were like, the most polite riot police I’ve ever
encountered. Then a group of a half a
dozen young men start banging on drums and cymbals in such a way that I
seriously wanted to just crush a beer can on my head and RAGE. Then I looked to my left to find that my
husband was on the same page and had already done exactly that. We were rocking OUT.
Then, no big deal, a few guys beneath a costume of a giant
lion with frilly things and sparkly things all over it just started LITERALLY
TWERKING but like, OG twerking (get out of here, Miley, you are not original),
and dancing and then The Lion went into this business and shook its fanny for
the staff inside and then accepted 3 bottles of Asahi and apparently blessed
the business for the year to come. It
was AWESOME. I mean, really
awesome. I pretty much had to physically
restrain Jan from starting a mosh pit.
Did I mention while all of this was happening, there were
fireworks going off everywhere? Just
boxes full of noisemakers to your left and your right. It was completely ridiculous non-mayhem
mayhem. I’m not done yet. Then the whole Twerking Lion and Bitching-Ass
Drum Band just moves one door down and does THE SAME DAMN THING! Hella banging drums! Crazy-ass dancing lion thing! Over and over again! Through all of Chinatown! AND NO
ONE IS EVEN ON DRUGS (allegedly)!
Okay, I’m only writing about this now from my living room
but I literally just had to step away from the computer and take a deep breath,
because that shit was intense. Chinese
New Year is pretty much my new favorite holiday. Hey America, you think you party your ass off
on New Years? That’s adorable. Chinese New Year will melt your face.
So after popping into a side alley to reevaluate our life
choices, we realized we were so hungry that we might die. We walked around the corner and saw a sign
that just said “CHINESE RESTAURANT”. In
English. Yup, sign me up. I ain’t even gonna Yelp that first. I am HUNGRY.
Now this was an odd experience. We walked in, and we got some shade thrown at
us because we’re westerners which we’ve become accustomed to. We sat down, started to drink our water and
look over the menu, and all of a sudden an old man in a suit motioned for us to
follow him to the elevator.
Am I going to die?
I wonder to myself as I grab my purse and jacket and shimmy myself into the rickety-ass
elevator like a subservient lackey. On the
second floor, we encounter an empty dining room which completely mirrors the
one we were just sitting in. Don’t ask
me questions, I’m as confused as you.
We ordered some chicken Szechuan dish, and some delicious
looking crab fried rice. While I was
hungry before, by the time the server took my menu away I was eating my
napkin. The smells of the kitchen were
unreal. We decided not to order any
drinks because “saving money” or some dumb shit like that, so we were just
stuck with each other and our rapidly oppressing hunger. Finally, she came out with the Szechuan
chicken. Fanciful Moses, it smelled
godly. We assumed that the rice would be
next out and we refused to touch the chicken until then because we were raised
in Murica, and in Murica, you take that Chinese-style chicken and you roll it
in the rice and then you dump the sauce in the rice and it is a PARTY. The chicken and the rice are not your aunt
Jean and uncle Patrick. They do not
sleep in separate bedrooms steeped in resentment because Uncle Pat got fired
for imbezzlement and Jean really let herself go after Friends went off the
air. No – chicken and rice, they need to
be together. They love each other.
We sat there and stared at a glorious looking plate of
chicken for twenty minutes, wondering if our rice would ever come. We had no way of asking the waitress, “excuse
me, is our rice coming soon?” because we ordered by pointing at pictures on a
menu like petulant children. Through
some sort of non-lingual human witchcraft, she picked up on our anxiety. She picked up the phone to downstairs, and
bitched out someone. I don’t know who,
but someone. 5 minutes later, our rice
was on the table. It was absolutely
amazing. My gold standard of Chinese
food was General Tsao from Safeway or Fafa Gourmet off SR500 and Fourth Plain
in Vancouver. The new standard has been
set.
Chinese New Year in Chinatown cannot be summed up in one word
so I’m going to give myself four – absolutely f*&%ing crazy. It was such an awesome experience.
Last night, we ushered in the year of the fire rooster. The year of the rooster is marked by loyalty,
commitment, and hard work. I was born in
the year of the Ox, and my horoscope is this: “For an Ox, Work may be
challenging but rewarding, family life can be quite harmonious, and Oxen are
recognized for their hard work and valuable contributions.
Bring it ON. Those beating drums and fireworks and explosive performances have shoved me forward. It’s going to be a good year.
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