Dragon Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota

Dragonboat races aren't just for China and the coastal cities: for 12 years the Dragon Festival in St. Paul, Minnesota has been celebrating the vibrant and growing Asia-Pacific culture here in the Midwest.  This year's event took place July 12-13, right in the thick of Minnesota's festival season. The venue as always is Lake Phalen Regional Park, where a number of dragonboats are permanently stationed for practice through the warm season.

The Twin Cities area is home to a number of businesses and educational institutions with deep links to Asia, and many of them sponsor dragon racing teams, such as Wells Fargo, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Seagate, Hormel, and Target. There are also community and family groups who participate. My daughter's school, Yinghua Academy, also had a team this year!

Team booths

The racing is really a chance to get friends and family together for a day at the lake 

Many corporate sponsors also set up advertising tents. Political candidates' teams were out in force, as well as local cultural centers and gift & bookshops.

Wells Fargo makes a really strong / cute effort to tune its messaging to specific cultural audiences.  The company has also just recently opened its first office in Beijing & they brought materials used to kick things off there to show folks here in MSP.

In addition to the boat races and vendor / sponsor booths, there were also a number of stages for performances and fun-fair activities for kids.

The festival has consistently advertised and gotten PR from local media - free events are always popular but it is nice to see strong turnout from the general Twin Cities population (also helped by the diverse participation among the racing teams.)

Practice sessions took place during morning hours, and competitive heats in the afternoons.  Competitive matches would be between two teams, two races each, best time overall advancing to the next tier. There would be four boats on the water at any given time so you would get to see a race every five minutes or so; one pair racing while the other pair paddled back to the starting point and rested... 

From the shore it was easy to hear the drumming and chanting of the race teams

And plenty of excitement for each heat!

Food of course is terribly important when celebrating Asian culture! I think back to our first visit in 2006 and being disappointed at the range & quality of offerings -so was thrilled at the diversity available this year!  Food trucks are catching on in MSP & were here, as well as a half-dozen local East and SE Asian restaurants.  Two different places selling bubble tea! 

We need to get some of these guys into the Minnesota State Fair! They all certainly proved they could crank out high-quality tasty dishes for a festival crowd.

Chinatown, Manhattan, NYC

Had the opportunity to spend a few hours walking around Manhattan's Chinatown last month; here are some photos from my trip:

Easy access from Midtown on the subway; exit on Canal Street. 

The district has been steadily growing west and north - I saw signs in Chinese for blocks beyond the traditional boundary! 

Last time I was down here was in 2000; passing through to dinner in Little Italy. I distinctly remember this fishmonger's shop! Glad to see it's still there and doing well!

The vibrancy on the street and of course the signage reminds me so much of Hong Kong...

I had dinner at the Great N.Y. Noodletown on Bowery - just a come-in-sit-down place; family run for sure.  In Hong Kong style, sat at a table with three other groups!

I wanted something simple but authentic - ordered the Beef Chow Fun.  Excellent chewy rice noodles, the beef was nice and tender. Nutty smoky flavor.  Far more than I could finish and no fridge in my hotel room so no leftovers for breakfast :(

Scalding hot glass of tea in the upper left corner, just like in HK.  Plastic cup that almost burnt my hand the stuff was so hot ... but I knew the drill, hot drinks cool you off on a summer's day.  And once it cooled off a little, was a nice flavor complement to the noodles.

Try getting a giant plate of food for THAT price anywhere else on the island!

Was wishing I could have had several more dinners that night...

Shot of Starbucks taken from the front door of a Chatime - yes the corporations and franchises are all over the place but then so they are back in Asia. That makes them just as culturally appropriate as anything else!

Sadly, no NYC Chinatown insulated tumblers at Starbucks - so I didn't buy anything there.

Great family-travel destination whether you have a couple hours or a whole day; there were plenty of shops I'd have loved to look around in but most specialty stores close around 7 pm.  Groceries & eateries of course open much later.

Lovely holiday lights in Tokyo

Asian cities really "get it" when it comes to nighttime lighting, and when the winter holidays come around, there's nowhere I'd rather walk around.  Also, this is Tokyo in December 2013 and there's no snow on the ground (unlike my home of Minneapolis...)

Takeshita Dori in Harajuku, Tokyo

Another delightful video walk-through in Tokyo (love this guy's work):

"A Passage to China" at the Mall of America

For six years now in April, the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN has hosted "A Passage to China," a 2-day festival put on by Minnesota's Chinese Heritage Foundation and local newspaper China Insight. This year's festival involved over 45 organizations & businesses - some there to sell merchandise, others to talk about programs they put on, and others to grow membership.

There were demonstrations of cooking, dance, martial arts, singing, painting, calligraphy, and many other crafts - kids received a "passport" and would get a stamp at each booth they visited, then redeem the stamps for a necklace or bracelet.

It was great to see so many Asian faces and hear so much Mandarin in one place here in Minnesota - and it was heartening to see so many non-Asian faces watching the performances with interest and walking through the booths with their kids!

My dear daughter had a fine time, of course. Now that she's a little bit older and able to speak in Chinese for herself, she got a lot more out of this year's presentation:

Having the Starbucks in the background makes it more authentically Chinese ;)

Moulding-your-own Terracotta Warriors

Little Warriors for sale...  we're holding out to get a life-size one for the garden in the backyard

We stayed for a number of vocal performances and dance numbers

Paper-cutting, a traditional folk craft from Shaanxi province - it can get amazingly intricate.  (She did not pay any attention to the American Girl shop just beyond :)  )

Cherry Blossom time in Tokyo!

This videographer's work is always top-quality; I love how he takes you through the neighborhoods just as you would as a tourist.

Cherry-blossom viewing in Shinjuku, Tokyo

Here in Minnesota we are still knee-deep in snow, with the real start of Spring still weeks away. Videos like this give me hope that warm weather and the return of life to our northern tundra will actually happen!