gung hei fat choy!

I often get teased because my friends think that I say I'm Chinese only when it suits me. The truth is that my family is from Indonesia, but somewhere in our ancestry, we came from China. So, I guess that makes me Indonesian-Chinese, or "IndoChink", as me and my siblings affectionately call ourselves.

Growing up, I remember Chinese New Year being a time where we went to a parade full of dragons and firecrackers of which I was afraid. And, if we went up to my grandfather and gave him a "pi-pi" greeting, as my mom called it, he would give us a red envelope (which all Chinese know what that means!).

This is why I don't really consider myself Chinese. We don't follow Chinese traditions (or Indonesian ones, for that matter!). But that is no reason why we couldn't go down to Chinatown today and watch the New Year's parade.

We took my girlfriend's daugther, Skye, and Josh and we stood in the rain with MANY people to take part in the celebration. Josh got to see his first parade (for some reason, which I don't recall, we missed the Santa Claus parade). I was hoping he would not be afraid of the dragons, loud drums and firecrackers. As it turned out, he was completely mesmerized by it. You can see, it was hard to get his picture because he wouldn't turn around!


Josh also got to sit on his first motorcycle, courtesy of Vancouver's finest. We hope that this will be the only photo of Josh that has anything to do with VPD!


Check out the rest of our parade photos below. Gung Hei Fat Choy, everyone! We wish you a healthy and prosperous Year of the Rat!