Kung Hei Fat Choy!

I have no memory of the last time being in the marvelous mecca of entertainment known as Radio City Music Hall. It may be fifty or more years ago.

In any case, it was a lot of fun last week celebrating the Lunar New Year with a large group of Chinese Americans. The show was an extravaganza but anticlimactic. I had already had my big thrill for the day just getting inside the theater. I felt like I was in a cathedral. It was awesome.

I have faded memories of luxurious facilities in the theater. They were brought back to life when I walked down to the rest room. Note the unexpected scale figure who walked into the picture. The men’s lounge was the men’s smoking lounge back in 1932 when it opened just a year before my birth. Of course, smoking by glamorous actors was a part of mainstream life in the golden age of movies. I too started smoking at a very early age. Oh my have times changed.

I clicked my little point and shoot camera many times inside the theater but none of the photos could do justice to what I saw. Oh for an SLR and tripod. The seats were unfilled because I was very early, I took the picture from my seat which was not far from the stage.

The show was spectacular but perhaps more evocative of The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins than a Lunar New Year celebration. I must admit dozing several times. Perhaps you can get an idea from this promotional video including the rather trite viewer raves. The show had no content like anything I remember from running all those Firecracker 10K runs in Los Angeles Chinatown. For sure, I wasn’t expecting to be propagandized at this show. The video too is high quality propaganda.

I found this review on the web. The writer expressed my thoughts far better than I could. He read my mind.

By bmesc on 1/16/2008

Make no mistake: This is a fulan gong show and it is not subtle. 50% of the pieces are directly referencing fulan gong and its teachings. The MCs say “fulan gong,” the song lyrics directly reference fulan gong, dance pieces glorify fulan gong teachings and the scene depicting police (with a big red communist symbol on their backs) killing a fulan gong follower is too graphic for children. If the title of the show was, correctly, a Fulan Gong New Year Spectacular, would you go? They marketed this show in a misleading way. I know a bit about Chinese culture, being married to a Chinese born wife. To be fair, she thought half the show was good, and the scenery is spectacular, but she, as I, could not believe how overtly they preached their beliefs. The sad thing is, if you do not know much about Chinese tradition, this show does not really represent it. They seem say that China of long ago, when religious beliefs were prevalent is how it should be. My wife and I thought we’d see a big production of the types of shows you can see during various San Diego Chinese New Years’ events, but there are no traditional songs in this show and they use traditional Chinese dance to tell their own stories glorifying what fulan gong teaches. This is not a Chinese New Year celebration per se. The most well known aspect, the dragon dance, is absent. If you did not know this was the year of the rat, you would not know it after the show, either. They didn’t mention it. I had no opinion of fulan gong before I went to this show, and I’m not for or against fulan gong or the Chinese government, but after seeing this show, it is hard not to believe the fulan gong is a politically motivated religious group. (To be clear, my rating is 1-Star but my preview incorrectly indicated 5)

Earlier in the day, I became an official “New York Senior Citizen” when I applied for and got my senior discount MetroCard. With it, I can now ride the subways and buses all day and all night for only $38 a month. What a deal! The experience was very much like getting a passport by the way.

The MetroCard center happened to be just around the corner from my old IBM office at 2 Broadway. I well remember those long (2 hr each way) trips to and from East Windsor, N.J. via the Penn Central at Princeton Junction. I particularly remember the walk through the grounds of Trinity Church. I have little or no memory of the mural so prominent at the entrance to 2 Broadway. It’s a hint as to where my mind was in those days. Note the Starbucks next door. I sat there for a while and watched the passing parade of people on the street outside. People watching in New York is so much fun.

This is a sample nearby at the well known bull sculpture.

I thought seriously about going to the Giant’s ticker tape parade the day before but decided not to when I got up and saw the weather. You can see some of the paper debris on a building across from 2 Broadway. I certainly have earned a lifetime membership in the Giant’s fan club from those days long ago rooting for the likes of Charlie Connerly, Y.A. Tittle, Fran Tarkington, Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote and Frank Summerall. This is a team however for younger fans and I was just a bystander to this miraculous victory.

This fun day ended with an interesting vignette. I walked  a couple of blocks to the R train entrance, went down a flight of stairs to find that I was on the uptown side. As I was standing there scanning the signs, I heard a woman’s voice (with a slight Spanish accent) ask which direction I was going. When I answered Brooklyn, she said I was on the wrong side of the street and then gave me detailed directions. With that she asked if I’d like an elevator back up to the street level then proceeded to walk over and press the button for an elevator. She obviously noticed me staring at the signs and quickly sized up the situation. You’ve heard New Yorkers are always in a hurry with no time for courtesy? Fuggedaboutit! I’ve been shown more courtesy and respect as a senior on the subway and streets of New York these past months than all the years driving around Southern California in my little “glass bubble”, even with the top down.