Calgary Chinese Festival
I found a comment on a Calgary based website during the week about a Chinese festival in the city, so I searched the internet for the details and on Saturday 11th we parked downtown and walked across to Chinatown to see the celebration. We saw a dragon getting ready to make its contribution as we entered the first street.
there were plenty of stalls selling all the usual stuff from artwork to clothing and food, Sarah took all of 5 minutes to make her first purchase of a summer dress.
the festival took up 4 streets making a city block and squeezed so much into it that you could forget you were in the middle of the city until you were at the corners.
I finally found out exactly what instrument is used to make that distinctly Chinese music, the Zheng is a plucked string instrument developed from a much smaller instrument made from bamboo, originally used by herdsman; you learn something every day.
there is not a lot of room for the fingers when plucking, on the right side of the bridges both hands pluck the strings and on the left side the left hand fingers are used to bend the strings changing pitch or providing embellishment, it was nice to listen to and provided a good feel for the festival .
There was quite a lot of music on each of the streets including this traditional Chinese choir and their exceptionally animated choirmaster who seemed to be having the best of times.
It was interesting to see a Xiangqi board in play (Chinese Chess) One of the most popular board games in China it is a strategy game similar to chess.
I treated Sarah to two more summer dresses as we wandered the stalls until we found a fresh lemonade stand and got ourselves some well needed refreshment.
we sat and watched a stage show with dragon dancers, cracking fireworks and confetti which, when combined, was genuinely impressive
I love the look on the face of the guy operating the head of the dragon, he is clearly having a great time running around with this impressive critter.
there were some really intricate moves during the show with the dragon spiralling around within itself before rising up in the centre, all of which took place in a very tight space.
this shot shows the length of the beastie when fully extended and the short amount of space they had to manoeuvre within.
Other dragons made very energetic movements throughout the show, leaping high and dipping low at a frantic pace.
I've got to say, we had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on or who the big bellied masked man was but we really enjoyed it anyway
the front dragons would rise up quickly and throw huge handfuls of sweets into the crowd for the kids
it must have been very exciting down at the front of the audience for the little kids there
though I'm not sure who gets to clean all of this up later....
the show ended with some traditional Chinese dancers and just one last look at that impressive dragon. This is certainly one to look out for next year.