Money and Jesus at the Chinatown Lunar New Year parade

Chinatown storefront with lanterns — **This shop was defintely open for business selling lanterns, party poppers, lucky bamboo and other fun stuff. Many of the little pieces of paper inside the poppers were tiny dollar bills.**

The Golden Dragon parade held every year in Chinatown in L.A. is–well, appeared to be–a big money-making venture for merchants, as well as a celebration to Chinese culture.

Gold figurines for Chinese new year — **Gold figurines in a window display must be symbols of good fortune.**

Stores were open and the restaurants–especially the ones with take-out–were doing great business.

I attended the parade 4 years ago and noticed a young boy, accompanied by his father on one street corner, preaching to the crowd. Well, his preaching must have been effective because I saw quite a number of people wandering around this year with large yellow signs about Jesus and the Bible. And the young preacher is no longer a boy, but a young man. Still preaching.

Jesus sign and boys scouts — **The Boy Scouts are promoting parking. Behind them is one of the many Bible signs along the parade route. There were signs in Chinese and Spanish, too.**

Then just before the parade began who should appear but that same young man and his father, walking along the parade route with a big sign and a speaker system.

Policeman telling two roving prechers that they have to walk on the sidewalk, not on the parade route. — **Policeman telling two roving street preachers that they have to walk on the sidewalk, not on the parade route.**

Then a cop on a bike pulled up next to them and asked them to step onto the sidewalk. I could not hear what the father answered, but the policeman then asked if they had a parade permit and, if not, they had to walk on the sidewalk. “We’re not infringing on your freedom of speech”, I heard the cop say. “You need to walk on the sidewalk.” This exchange continued with the policeman being polite and insistent that they had to move to the sidewalk. Eventually, the two roving preachers did step out of the parade route.

I’ll finish this post with a few random photos from this year’s Chinatown celebration. Be sure to read the captions.

Photos of the actual Chinese Lunar Year Parade here.