La Lettre de la Photographie

Because it is the holidays, La Lettre de la Photographie, a terrific online daily newsletter read by the international photographic community, asked for holiday/celebration image contributions, not necessarily just of Christmas and the New Years. Thinking over the many ways of celebration, I realized that something from the Lunar New Year, as it is celebrated in the Chinatowns of the United States and specifically, my hometown of Los Angeles with its historic and its modern always changing population of Chinese residents and immigrants, would be perfect.

I always love a competition for it forces me to review what it is I have done and perhaps, especially in a long-term project such as FINDING CHINATOWN, discover something that I captured but overlooked until now. So it is with the photograph La Lettre published in their "magazine" today: After Midnight at the Thien Hau Temple on Yale Street, 2006.
The Temple is where I always return during the Lunar New Year, arriving along with many families often around 10 pm on the New Year's Eve and awaiting the new year. When the clock changes, right after midnight, the firecrackers roar and glisten and crackle; the lion dancers' drums start up and, as they enter the temple, followers reach out to touch them, lucky talismans for renewal and new hopes.

Christmas in Chinatown, Los Angeles

For the second year, a christmas tree is up in Los Angeles' Downtown Chinatown Plaza. The tree is stunning, filled with lanterns and lights and the lighting ceremony gathered a remarkably diverse collection of elders, tourists, residents and visitors to this historic Central Plaza of the "New" Chinatown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Los_Angeles

We started the evening with dinner at one of the landmarks there, Hop Liu, a restaurant whose building has been featured in many films and where you step back into another time.

image adapted from the ChinatownVisitor Map

Then off to the Central Plaza where members of the Chinatown Business Improvement District, organizers of the event and creators of a terrific website, ChinatownLA.com, were gathering along with school children from the neighborhood (Castelar Elementary School and Solano Elementary schools).
It was a truly festive evening, a terrific start to the holidays and a perfect reminder of what it means to be in America, this amazing mix of cultures.