Chinese New Year has passed by but that doesn’t mean the celebrating is over. There are plenty more events to ring in the lunar new year with one of the biggest events coming up next week, the annual Chinese New Year parade.

This year, for the first time ever, there will be an exhibit on the parade and the history and evolution of it. The exhibit is co-curated by Jeannie Woo, an Asian American studies professor at SF State and Irene Poon Anderson, slide curator for the art department at SF State. Both of these women are also part of the board of directors for the Chinese Historical Society of America, which is based in San Francisco.

The exhibition, which runs until Feb. 27, features photos as well as costumes and other pieces from the parade over the past century. According to Woo, it was in 1953 that the parades were officially started as a community function. Before that, it was more like small communities celebrating amongst themselves. Facts like these are only a bit of what is covered in the exhibition. Many of the photos were borrowed from the SF Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and the SF Chronicle archives.

The exhibit started this year because, according to Woo, “it happened that this year, everything clicked…the stars aligned." Though in past years the idea of an exhibit like this has been brought up, it was this year that the idea was finally taken up by sponsors.

Besides looking at the parade, this exhibit also features the history of Miss Chinatown as well as other annual events. This year the focus is on the parade, Woo said, but next year it will be on something different. Each year the theme will change.

The point of this exhibit is to educate people about the culture of the lunar New Year, said Poon Anderson. She added that people don‘t understand the parade origins.

Before, “it (the parade) was the big community event, now it is a big media event,” said Poon Anderson. The organizers of this event want to educate people both inside and outside the community about the history of the parade to show how it has evolved from the community event to the media event it is today. Poon Anderson best put it as, “from home grown to media grown.”

According to an excerpt from "In the Traditions of China and in the Freedom of America: The Making of San Francisco's Chinese New Year Festivals" by Chiou-Ling Yeh. Chinese Historical Society of America's booklet on the exhibition businessman named Henry Kwock Wong officially started the parades in 1953.

During this time was the Korean War, in which mainland China was taken over by the communist regime, and World War II in which many Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. Many Chinese people stopped going to Chinatown to make purchases or to even dine for fear of being questioned by the FBI as communist agents or as illegal immigrants.

Wong, along with those he enlisted to be a part of the parade committee received a lot of donations as well as volunteers to help out. The goal of this festivity was to create an ethnic celebration as well as attract tourists and other patrons to Chinatown.

This first celebration featured art shows, street dancing, martial arts, music, a fashion show, sports and a magnificent parade.

From this first celebration that lasted only one day, it was then extended to three days the following year. Another addition to the following year was the now famous Miss Chinatown beauty queen pageant, which goes on every year to this day.

Many of the events that occurred back then are still around today except with a lot more attractions. Coming up are a lantern-making workshop with Doris Lum of the Chinese Historical Society, the Miss Chinatown Coronation Ball, the Chinatown Community Street Fair, the Chinese Culture Center Spring Festival, an author meet and greet and the Chinese New Year parade itself.

The lantern-making workshop is on Feb. 20 and starts at 11 a.m. This workshop will teach people how to make Chinese New Year lanterns out of red envelopes. The Miss Chinatown Coronation Ball, which will be held on Feb. 18 at 6 p.m. at the Westin St. Francis will celebrate the new 2005 Miss Chinatown. The community street fair on Feb. 19 will run from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and spans from Grant Avenue ending at Stockton Avenue. The author meet and greet with Grace Young will be on Feb. 19 at 1 p.m. Young, author of “The Breath of a Wok” will talk about the wok and how it is a way of life in China. In addition, there will also be a discussion about food customs in relation to the holiday.

Despite all of the events and media hype about the lunar New Year, one thing that both Poon Anderson and Woo want people to take out of all of this is that is a cultural experience that grew from a simple community celebration.