Can they top this?
Tag Archives: Quirky Civic Events
Feast Of Lanterns 2010 DOA
Dixie Layne began gutting the Feast Of Lanterns of it’s camp charm in 2009, declaring it was some sort of “multicultural celebration” and now has pretty much canceled the event for 2010. No week long summer celebration, no fireworks, no fun.
Like any number of Pacific Grove’s beautiful landmarks, the Feast of Lanterns needs renovating from to time. Its foundation is strong, but this beautiful old lady needs a new dress and accessories to sing a new song on a new stage to perform in her most awe inspiring tradition.
— Dixie Layne
That sounds a lot like a P.G. Remodel, where a 100 year old comfortable, small house is 99% torn down and a replica mini mansion is built in it’s place. Attracts the wine & cheese crowds ok, but offers nothing to the locals.
To Dixie Layne, our Feast Of Lanterns is just another “gig”. Got any tar & feathers?
Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist II?
Writer sets it straight.
It started as the closing celebration of the Methodist Chautauqua, before the Chinese were burned out. So it is Methodist. It became quite popular at the turn of the 20th century until World War I, more as an Obon festival, as at that time there was a Japanese tea garden at Lovers Point. So it is Japanese. Then it became a bathing beauty contest event, and after World War II it was revived as a pseudo Chinese-themed festival.
It is speculated that the Chinese were burned out by competing fishing interests, which has little to do with Pacific Grove.
So you can be offended in several different ways or you can embrace the quirky history of the festival, a charming, family-oriented affair.
Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist II?
Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist?
Every year, right on time come the letters calling the Feast Of Lanterns a celebration of fascist oppression. Followed by rebuttals. Over in Salinas it’s the same at Rodeo season with the animal huggers…
July 27, Dale writes:
I find the irony of the Festival of Lanterns too much to bear. Living on the Peninsula my whole life, I noticed that strange little festival in P.G. where people parade around in Chinese clothing. Sometimes, to me, it seemed like a “mockery” of Chinese.
July 29, Diana replies:
The festival is not about a group of people who lived on the Peninsula and were, yes, indeed persecuted. As stated at the onset of the evening festivities, the “tale” (that denotes fantasy, does it not?) takes place in ancient China, and is clearly presented as a fantasy tale, much like Cinderella or other fantasy tales.
8/1, Jeffery adds:
The letter the other day that said Pacific Grove is celebrating a tradition of an oppressed people from 100-plus years ago really made me laugh. Tell me who hasn’t been oppressed? I’m half Irish, so should I tell everyone to stop celebrating St. Patrick’s Day because the Irish were sent into slums straight off their ships from Ireland? The Irish were treated as bad as any culture in U.S. history, and they, like the Chinese Americans, have prevailed.
Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist?
Feast Of Lanterns Officially Ruined
Fire Dixie Lane. Appears that the kooks have taken over the last great funky thing in P.G.
“The whole festival represents our heritage in Pacific Grove,” said Feast of Lanterns President Dixie Lane. “It’s a fabulous little multi-cultural festival.”
This is Lane’s inaugural year to preside over the event, though she has been on the board for several years.
As a former student of history and a zealot for all things multicultural, Lane has focused on emphasizing multiculturalism and historical traditions for the 2009 Feast of Lanterns.
The Weakly Shames Pacific Grove
for not respecting cultures. Can’t even carry on traditions without being told we are all bad, bad citizens.
On the left side, a gallery celebrates the Feast of Lanterns, a P.G. tradition since 1905. Though the signs feature an Asian-inspired font and a bamboo trim, they don’t address why white P.G. high school students started enacting a “Chinese operetta” (featuring Princess Yum Yum) only a few years after P.G.’s actual Chinese-American residents were forced out of town. It doesn’t address what originally inspired the festival’s trademark Chinese lanterns, dresses and art styles. It doesn’t discuss Stanford Ph.D. student – and excavator of the Chinese village artifacts – Bryn Williams’ theory that the Feast of Lanterns tradition sprang out of a human need to romanticize, and appropriate, pieces of the very cultures we destroy.
There always was culture, and from the P.G. Chinese community – but not what the P.C. weenies at the Weakly would want . .
P.G. Tribune, 1974
It’s A Bicycle Race – Leave Your Kids And Dogs At Home
So says the barricades.
Racers will compete for a purse totaling $4,000 during nine separate hour-long races, starting at 7:30 a.m. Riders will race on a circular 0.7-mile course starting on Lighthouse Avenue, rounding the corner down Congress Avenue to Central Avenue and up Fountain Avenue back to Lighthouse.
The race is sanctioned by USA Cycling and sponsored by the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce and AT&T, in cooperation with the city of Pacific Grove.
Really, is this an advisement or advertisement? These barricades have been scattered all over downtown since Friday, and closing the street on a Sunday is hardly impacting. You could hold this event without closing the streets.
Stupid Art Galleries – Paint A New Sign, Will Ya
While Pacific Grove lays claim to many family-friendly events – the Butterfly Parade, Good Old Days and Feast of Lanterns – when the sun goes down and the grown-ups want to make merry, P.G. is reliably an early-to-bedder.
But on special Friday nights, the tide turns in the town’s favor during the aptly named Wine, Art & Music Walk.
Oh, look! There are FOUR more galleries just up the street, right?
Lessee, there’s Trott’s for one
The gallery with “Ol’ One Eye” for two, but it’s not even open..
The one with the scarves and balloons for Three
And that’s it. There is one former gallery or two. I lose count of ex galleries. Stupid artists, go back to Carmel..
Not News – Good Old Days Round Ball Challenge
Pacific Grove Good Old Days Media Challenge – Hear-old wins, sponsoring media outlet – The Weakly – that hosts event ignores it.
VS
We are disappointed, of course, that The Weekly seems to adhere to the philosophy that if you can’t say something snarky about The Herald, don’t say anything at all.
There was no mention of The Herald’s stirring and impressive victory anywhere in The Weekly’s Thursday edition. Not a peep out of Squid. No back-handed dig from the Forum.
Good Old Days In The New Century
Yah, all this is sustainable carbon neutral event. Sure.
For more than fifty years it’s been one of the largest music and arts festivals on the Central Coast. It all started with a parade down Pine Avenue Saturday morning; it features carnival rides, hundreds of entertainers, and food.
Special events include a dance competition that’s open to the public. Organizers have tabbed the Good Old Days as a carbon neutral event.
Was crowded – looks like more people in one day than in every farmers market ever held.
There was some real nice classic cars.
Food on a Stick (great name BTW. Is the line longer around 4:20?).
Your name on a a stick.
Some not-so-good old day prices for homes.
Belly Dancers!
And return of ‘climb the giant terd’.
