Hot Springs residents celebrate Chinese New Year
Hot Springs residents celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade and potluck. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Hot Springs residents celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade and potluck. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Hot Springs residents celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade and potluck. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Hot Springs residents celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade and potluck. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Hot Springs residents celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade and potluck. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Kyle Henry as Babe the Blue Ox, and David Max as Paul Bunyan. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Jim Arestad as a chicken in the Chinese New Year parade in Hot Springs. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Kathy Lelsa participates in a Chinese New Year parade in Hot Springs. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Linny Gibson as a rat in the Chinese New Year parade in Hot Springs. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
The residents of Hot Springs braved the wind and cold to put on another community parade last weekend to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the year of the tiger.
One would ask, why would a small town in Montana put on an event to celebrate a Chinese holiday?
The community is quick to respond: To have fun, to break up the hum drum of a Montana winter, and to come together and enjoy the company of each other.
And what an event it was, with Main Atreet lined up with hundreds of people.
Tied to the Lunar calendar the holiday is celebrated in the far east, including China, Vietnam and Korea among others. The holiday is based on 12 animals, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
The parade was followed by a pot luck dinner at the Senior Citizen Center in Hot Springs.
