San Francisco: 2013 Lunar New Year Celebration Presented by Verizon

Last Saturday, February 2nd, I was able to attend the 2013 Lunar New Year Celebration in San Francisco sponsored by Verizon, which took place in Union Square and lasted all afternoon. The event was hosted by Nicki Sun and David So (who is very funny in person as well) kicked off by a traditional lion dance then several performances by different San Francisco Bay Area, including:

• Cheung Loong Lion Dance Troupe
• Hai Yan Dance Troupe
• Morning Star Korean Cultural Center
• Pacific Wushi

I thought the female dancing drummers by the Morning Star Korean Cultural Center was the most interesting and very talented, since I had never seen any performances like that before – I’ve seen lion dances before, as well as a variety of different Asian cultural dances as well as martial arts performances.

But personally, I was most interested to see the performance by Kina Grannis, who burst on to the national stage by winning the Dorito’s Crash the Superbowl contest in 2008 since she was the only performer had ever heard of. But I guess all the “kids” – and I do mean high school and perhaps college students (mostly Asian Americans) had heard of the others – since there were plenty of screaming fans for:

• Jayne Rio
• New Heights
• Jason Chen
• Kina Grannis

For more of the cultural performances and more:

Vocally, I thought Jason Chen was the most musically talented (his vocal range is impressive and does an amazing cover of Maroon 5’s Payphone), and I think the audience most wanted to see. Chen did a shout out and asked how many folks in the audience were born in the 1990s and 1980s because he was doing a cover for one of the songs. Now did I feel old and was wondering if he was going to ask if anybody was born in the 1970s! I’ll have to ask my fellow blogger Jeff to see if his kids know any of these artists! It was interesting that these performers were called out as “YouTube Celebrities,” because I guess they don’t have quite wide mainstream appeal, but are able to garner an Asian American following on YouTube.

Overall, I thought the event was great – the beautiful warm weather in the afternoon helped a lot as well. After the break, you can see some or all of the performers performances.

Jayne Rio

New Heights

Jason Chen

I needed to conserve my camcorder’s battery, so I didn’t capture Chen’s entire performance.

Kina Grannis

Unfortunately, my camcorder’s battery died so I wasn’t able to capture Grannis’s entire performance.