Photos to Digital: New Traditions
Scanning Old Photos To Digital To Celebrate Chinese New Year
One of the largest and most famous Spring Festivals anywhere in the United States, the San Francisco Chinese New Year celebration is a month-long affair, with pageants, parades, street fairs, and performances by Lion and dragon dancers. Each year, a new Miss Chinatown is crowned at the annual Pageant and Coronation Ball, and the Chinese New Year Run raises funds for the YMCA’s youth and teen programs. But for many San Franciscans, the biggest and most spectacular event is the well-known Chinese New Year Parade, which is one of the few remaining illuminated parades, and is always held at night.
The Parade was first held in 1853, when the Chinese Chamber of Commerce began it as a way to promote community education about Chinese culture. The oldest parade of its kind, San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Parade is also the largest outside Asia. Many Chinese American families celebrate the lunar new year in traditional ways. Birthdays are celebrated, and fireworks explode. Children and other young, unmarried people often receive red envelopes containing money (usually crisp, new bills), to be spent on something that will bring good fortune. And this year, one girl in Northern California is hoping to start a new tradition.
Stephanie Heng, a 17-year-old from Cupertino, CA, hopes that Chinese New Year can be a time for young people to give gifts, not just receive them.
“These days it’s easy to take your parents and grandparents for granted” she said. “But respect for elders is really important. That’s your history, your heritage. It’s where you come from.”
This year’s lunar new year marks the 50th wedding anniversary of Stephanie’s grandparents, and her grandfather Heng Li’s 70th birthday. Heng Li, who was present at San Francisco’s 100th Chinese New Year Parade in 1953 (see photo above), has attended the festivities every year sense 1961, with his wife Heng Xiaoqing. In order to commemorate their grandparents’ anniversary, Stephanie and her younger brother Andrew decided to make a video slideshow out of old family photos, to be presented as a gift on Chinese New Year. After selecting about 60 pictures from photo albums and boxes in her grandparents’ attic, Stephanie scanned the photos to digital and made a DVD slideshow using her computer.
“By converting these old photos to digital, we were able to give them new life, and tell our grandparents’ story,” she said. “Before they were just in storage, shoved in boxes and forgotten. Now the whole family can see my grandmother in her wedding dress, and my grandfather’s first trip to America.”
For more information about the San Francisco Chinese New Year Celebration, visit www.sanfranciscochinatown.com
