PLANET CHOCKO – art/music/movies/beyond

(Rockits)

(Norman Chin’s Jook Lum Southern Praying Mantis)

The Lunar New Year celebrations in New York’s Chinatown marched on with tradition as Kung Fu schools, Youth organizations, Benevolent Associations, Community Organizations, & Dance troupes in the New York city area all came out to perform traditional Lion Dances in the streets going from storefront to storefront to welcome in the new year and to wish prosperity & health to all the businesses. Each Lion Dance organization would dance in front of the establishment and then slowly prance into the store to collect their “red envelope” fortune for their good luck drum beat & Lion prance routines. This festive day is known as “Super Saturday” dubbed by NYPDs 5th precinct as the local police officers would help organize this special day with the community as they block city streets & enforce the rules & procedures to the Lion Dance teams who were chosen to perform through an application process. For those that think what’s the big deal with performing on the streets, think again. There are traditional customs and signs of respect between two Lion Dance associations as to not cross each other and interrupt each others performance. Traditional Lion Dancing in the past between schools & organizations were a very competitive & territorial situation so careful timing and organizing of the routes for each school are imperative. Remember that these Lion dance teams were basically local Kung Fu schools that want to show their bravado. Of course, 2015 is not as volatile as the days of the late 70s to the early 90s when gangs and territorial struggles were abundant.

(Canal Street & Essex)

I’m not sure what it was but I found yesterday’s Super Saturday showing not as crazed and festive as in years past. Maybe it was the nippy weather or maybe not as many organizations took part as in years past or it could be the teams were spread out more across manhattan’s chinatown so I didn’t get the congested feeling of associations running back to back to each other. Also Chinatowns in Brooklyn & Flushing,Queens are probably getting some attention too. I normally comb the chinatown streets from Mott on both sides of Canal from Hester Street to Bayard and work my way to Elizabeth. Either way, I always have a good time and there are plenty of great photo ops!

(My super saturday got started right right at the glorious Doughnut Plant on Grand Street)

(One of my favorites – Peanut Butter & Banana Creme filling!)

(Welcome to Chinatown!)

(Norman Chin’s Jook Lum Southern Praying Mantis performing in front of Fong Inn Too on Mott St)

(Wing Hong Yip’s Dragon style Kung Fu School)

(Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Institute)

(United East)

(NY United Lion Dance Troupe)

(Norman Chin’s Jook Lum Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu)

(Baby Lion dancers!)

(Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Institute)

(Rockits – skateboard on hand!)

(Staten Island Lions)

(Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Institute)

(Time to defrost at Spicy Village on Forsyth Street!)

(pancake w/ pork)

(Big tray Chicken w/ hand pulled noodles)

Spicy Village serving up some delicious Henan style spicy fare in the outskirts of Chinatown!

Spicy Village
68 Forsyth St #B
New York, NY 10002

After a bit of strolling around to work off a strand of that spicy village chicken, we ended up at Shu Jiao Fu Zhou for some of their dumplings and noodles. All for a glorious price of $5! I also recommend their fish balls (stuffed w/ ground meat) and their wontons. Their diminuitive wontons are fuzhou style which means they use a thin – transparent wonton wrapper in contrast to the HK cantonese style wontons.

(Shui Jiao otherwise known as “water dumplings”)

(Egg noodles with peanut sauce)

Of course the day didn’t end there as we stomped across to the other side of Delancey Street to our old stomping grounds of ABC No Rio for some good ol’ crusty Saturday matinee hardcore punk music! ABC No Rio is a community based organization comprised of local artists & international folks alike. ABC NO RIO is the little engine that could, the underdog, & the under-appreciated fighting for the rights of the under-privileged & outcasts not fitting the mold. The ABC DIY space includes an art gallery performance space & Zine library with over 12,000 items! “ABC No Rio is a place where people share resources and ideas to impact society, culture, and community. We believe that art and activism should be for everyone, not just the professionals, experts, and cognoscenti. Our dream is a cadres of actively aware artists and artfully aware activists.” -ABC NO RIO

Thanks to Chocko for taping some of the afternoon punk matinee at ABC No Rio last Saturday including performances by an NYC Filipino Hardcore band – Namatay Sa Ingay; Lakras – high energy Latino hardcore, & Tin Vulva, an experimental – alternative band from Brooklyn. Last Saturday’s performances at ABC No Rio was a benefit show for the Workers Justice Project – Proyecto Justicia Laboral! Let’s stand together in unity to help others and to continue to fight for the working class!

(Lakras – Latino hardcore – video by Chocko)

(Namatay Sa Ingay – a Filipino hardcore punk band performing at ABC NO RIO on Sat 2/28/15 – Video by Chocko)

(Tin Vulva – an alternative,experimental band from Brooklyn – video by chocko)

(Punk Matinee at ABC NO RIO on Sat 2/28)

ABC NO RIO
156 Rivington Street
NY,NY