A city glowing red

There's Valentine's Day, of course. And there's the Lunar New Year, widely and extravagantly celebrated in the Vancouver area due to our high Chinese population. And there's this international sporting event inspiring rarely-seen displays of Canadian patriotism. There are the red tents for the homeless. And there's this display about Delta and Richmond's cranberry fields:



Vancouver's very red right now.

Today, Russ and I joined my family to watch my Dad take part in a unique event. As part of the Olympic celebrations at suburban Richmond's O Zone, the Taoist Tai Chi Society that he is a part of brought North America's longest Chinese dragons across Canada from Ontario to B.C. to take place in a double dragon dance. Dad was one of the people carrying the large dragon; he was one of the people carrying the head.



Left: The smaller dragon: 75 metres / 246 feet. Right: The larger dragon: 150 meters / 492 feet (my Dad's holding the centre pole of the head; his face is obscured by the dragon's open mouth).

The dragons circled around the stadium, sweeping and twisting, then they each coiled up tight to watch a large demonstration of tai chi. Then they did a double dragon spiral, where they ended up coiled tight together. Many Pagans know how physically challenging a huge spiral dance can be - the strain of keeping up the pace while doing the sweeping curves - and can probably imagine doing that while holding a stick supporting a piece of dragon up above their head. Uncoiling was even more work - they literally ran to keep everything in one piece.

While the two dragons were spiralled together, they moved in for a kiss, bringing together the Lunar New Year at the Olympics with Valentine's Day:



Gung Hei Fat Choi!