SF Chinese community gears up for last weekend of Lunar New Year festivities

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — With the final weekend of the Lunar New Yr upon us, preparations have been underway Friday evening on the Hilton San Francisco Union Sq..

That is the place lots of gathered at this yr’s Miss Chinatown USA Pageant.

“We now have been round for over 60 years,” mentioned Noreen Wong.

Wong is the pageant coordinator. She says this yr’s occasion is the most important one but.

However the pageant is only one of a number of issues taking place within the metropolis this weekend.

VIDEO: Artwork by Chinese language and Latino immigrant girls to be showcased in SF’s Lunar New Yr Parade

“We now have a file variety of items within the parade, and we even have greater than 100,000 distributors lining the streets of Chinatown,” mentioned Donald Luu, of the San Francisco Chinese language Chamber of Commerce.

On Saturday, the Chinese language New Yr parade – the biggest of its form exterior of Asia – will take over the streets of San Francisco.

The parade has lengthy been one of many highlights of town’s social calendar.

However this yr can be a little bit totally different, with safety prime of thoughts following the 2 current mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay.

“All of the regulation enforcement assuring us that they will be there. They are going to be vigilant,” Luu mentioned.

VIDEO: What’s Lunar New Yr and the way is it totally different from Chinese language New Yr?

In addition to these incidents, rising hate crimes towards Asian Individuals following the pandemic has been a reason behind concern for the neighborhood for the previous a number of years.

However regardless of these challenges, native leaders say they’re decided to make this yr’s festivities the very best but.

“We’re a really resilient neighborhood. In all of the hardships we’ve got confronted all through historical past on this nation, we proceed to develop,” mentioned Luu.

A strategy to have a good time their tradition proudly and proceed to share it with the remainder of the world.

“We made loads of nice contributions from the transcontinental railway to proper now, all these nice Chinese language Individuals turning into professionals,” Wong mentioned.

For extra data on the festivities, go to right here.

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