by Al Campbell
VANCOUVER, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Vancouver's Chinese community demonstrated the Canadian city at its best Sunday morning in successfully staging its 37th Lunar New Year parade for thousands of locals and overseas visitors in town for the Winter Olympic Games.
On a glorious sunny spring-like day with the temperature sitting at 12 degrees Celsius, the annual parade started off in Chinatown at 9.30am, two hours earlier than usual, to avoid interfering with the ongoing Winter Olympics which started Friday.
With thousands of onlookers, those of Chinese descent and that of other races, lining both sides of Pender Street, the lengthy procession started from of the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden and then made its way through Chinatown. It then traveled down the adjacent Keefer St and on to the Live Center, one of the celebratory sites for the ongoing Games.
Led by a police motorcycle escort, the colorful parade featured Chinese war veterans who had fought for Canada in WWII, dragon dancers, bands both of the marching and jazz variety, city council members and handicap children from the Special Olympics British Columbia.
Chinese-Canadian societies were also prominent, representing such groups as the Wenzhou Friendship Society, Tsung Tsia, the Hoy Ping Benevolent Society, the Vancouver Chinese Business Association Waistdrum Team, the Chin Wing Chun Tong Society of Canada, Toi Shan, the Chinese Universities Alumni Association and the Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee, among many others.
Dawn Pesklivts, a visitor from nearby Vancouver Island, called the two-hour parade "awesome", something she had wanted to see since moving to the western Canadian province.
"All the color, excitement and noise is great. It's definitely different than that of western parades," she said. "I'm just here for the Olympics and this definitely adds to the experience."
Another onlooker, Francois Tremblay of France, was also in town for the 21st Winter Olympiad. "We have Chinese people in Paris, but nothing compared to the numbers here in beautiful Vancouver. This e staged while the Olympics are on."
The status of the parade, which has been staged since the early 1970s, was in question this year as the organizers of the Vancouver Olympics (Vanoc) originally suggested it be cancelled or postponed over "security and other concerns".
Vancouver City councilor Kerry Jang told Xinhua last month the Chinese community, however, that "no way in Hell" would it be cancelled. The third-generation Chinese-Canadian said the Chinese business community "went to city hall and said 'forget it, we're having it'". A compromise was made in staging the parade at an earlier time.
"I said 'no way in hell' and it's absolutely true. Look at the crowd today," said Jang on Sunday, marching in full Chinese robes. "We have a good international crowd out today, people are happy. So what more do you want? This is Chinatown at its best. This is a community parade, nothing to do with the Olympics."
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who also marched, reiterated his council's dedication to working with the city's Chinese community and the plans to revitalize Chinatown, an area that dates back to the early 1890s, in a speech following the procession.
Starting with new-year dedications in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Vietnamese to reflect the local groups celebrating the Spring Festival, the mayor said the parade was truly a memorable way to kick off the Year of the Tiger.
"The Lunar New Year celebration is a proud Vancouver tradition, one of the great celebrations of the year, bringing all of our cultures together and made possible by the leaders in the Chinese-Canadian community," Robertson said.
"It is so important for us to show the world who we are here in Vancouver, show that we are wonderful hosts and really show how important the Chinese community is in the history of our city, in the present day, and of course for the future of Vancouver, hugely important."
With Xu Ruisheng, vice mayor of Guangzhou, looking on, Robertson, who will visit the Guangdong capital in September to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the Guangzhou-Vancouver sister city relationship, added it had been a "big logistical challenge" in staging this year's parade with the Olympics in town.
Security at the parade was of prime concern and highly noticeable after anti-Olympics protestors had disrupted Games events in each of the past two days. On Saturday, police arrested seven people after a march by about 300 young protestors through the downtown core turned violent.
With many of the mob dressed in black and their faces covered, police, some in riot gear, battled with the crowd who had smashed a department store window, overturned mail and newspaper boxes and vandalized and spray-painted cars.
They also scuffled with pedestrians along the way in a protest billed as "Clog the arteries of capitalism".
Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu who marched in the Lunar New Year parade with his fellow officers, called the event "excellent" and said there had been no problems at all.
"It's a celebratory crowd. We're not anticipating any problems, but if there are problems we have a large police presence ready to intervene."
Chu, a 30-year veteran of the force whose parents came from Shanghai, added the parade brought back a flood of memories.
"Every year it grows a bit more and more. It's always great to see little kids. It kind of reminds me of my old times here. I grew up a couple of miles from here and I can remember coming here with my parents as a child and a lot of memories of Chinatown."
