Wooden dragons are on display all through The City. Here’s where to find them
For the fourth straight year, The City has installed sculptures across town that commemmorate the Chinese zodiac sign for the forthcoming Lunar New Year. The statues are based on the animal and the element — wood, fire, earth, metal, or water — associated with that year.
The new year being celebrated in 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon, so naturally, all of this year’s five dragon statues are carved from wood. In Chinese culture, dragons symbolize strength, health and good fortune, while wood represents growth, creativity and expansion. The project, hosted by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, began in 2021 as a way to bring color and life to The City’s Lunar New Year celebration in lieu of the annual parade, which was canceled that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In years past, the organization selected artists through an internal pool of candidates. But this year, the chamber’s design contest was open to the public for the first time. Its sponsors chose three winning designs, while two other dragons were designed by Stephanie Mufson, owner of Parade Guys, the company that constructs both the zodiac sculptures and all the Chinese New Year Parade floats each year. “We wanted to bring in new perspectives, new talent and make it make it a little bit more about our broader community here in the Bay Area,” Mufson told The Examiner. “I think what really is exciting about them this year that’s different than previous years is everybody brought their own aesthetic, their own sensibility and the things that they find the most important or the most valuable about the Chinese community and Lunar New Year.” The Examiner spoke to the artists about the meaning behind their designs, which will be displayed throughout The City until March 2, after which they will be auctioned for charity.As a breast-cancer survivor and volunteer at UCSF Cancer Center, Donna Lau knows the healing ability of art. She’s experienced first-hand how powerful and inspiring the heart sculptures installed around San Francisco are, some of which she designed. So, when she found out about the Chinese New Year sculpture project, she jumped at the opportunity to help heal her community. The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on San Francisco’s Chinese community. It spawned a rise in hate crimes, and the lockdown prevented people from gathering in large groups — an especially tough blow for Chinese Americans, such as Lau, who have big extended families.“She had the greatest love and passion for gathering for family, cooking food to express her love, the smells and the decorations and the sounds in our household growing up her meticulously folding crisp money in red envelopes, picking tangerines with leaves on them,” she said. Those memories are depicted on the dragon named “Ping An,” Mandarin for peace and harmony. “If could see this dragon with all the little tea cups in her togetherness tray ... I would be over the moon,” she said. Lau said she hopes her design keeps her parents’ memories alive and passes them down to her kids, 16 nieces and nephews, and 16 grandnephews and grandnieces. “I feel like this art project gave me, as an individual, a voice to the community, a voice through imagery,” she said. “I just love that I can express the hope, love and gratitude from the Chinese culture to all who will receive energy when they see my dragon.”Ex // Top Stories Salesforce, DocuSign, Okta and others laying off hundreds in SF Tech companies are cutting more than 250 workers in San Francisco, and DocuSign is cutting 400 employees globally. San Francisco leaders set new safety standards for e-bikes, scooters City leaders are wary of increasing fires caused by scooters and e-bikes Why corruption festers in San Francisco government At the root of San Francisco's corruption problem is the governmental inefficiencies and bureaucratic complexities that enable corruption to thrive Qinghui Ji said one of her enduring memories growing up in Shanghai is eating her grandpa’s homemade food out of blue-and-white porcelain bowls. Every finished meal greeted her with the image of a blue dragon painted on the bottom of the bowl, which served as a model for her sculpted dragon. Blue-and-white ceramics were popularized during medieval China, Ji said, and they were used by everyone from the emperor to everyday citizens. They remain a ubiquitous feature of Chinese homes as an inexpensive and traditional style of plateware and pottery, she said. Her dragon pays tribute to classic Chinese ceramics with traditional images such as lanterns and the Chinatown gate. Still, its cartoonish aesthetic gives it a modern twist, which Ji hoped would appeal to the younger generation. “I tried to make a design that resonated with most Chinese people,” Ji, who works in tech and has lived in the Bay Area for the last 13 years, said. “ gives me a very good memory of seeing dragon porcelain pieces. And I think a lot of Chinese people in the U.S., if they’re part of the old generation, will also recognize that.”A beloved jewel and a symbol of nobility and respect in Chinese culture, jade also plays a key role in Chinese New Year lore. The legend of the Chinese Zodiac begins with the Jade Emperor — the ruler of heaven in Chinese mythology — looking for a way to measure time. So he ordered a race between 12 animals, each of which would have a year named after them according to the order in which they finished. The Heavenly Gate Race is depicted in Stephanie Tsao’s dragon design, beginning with the last-place pig near the tail and ending with the rat at the head, who famously tricked the bull and leaped out of its ear to finish first. “I was looking at the flow of the dragon, and I realized that it works very nicely with the race,” she said. The jade color also ties into the theme of wood because green, like the leaves on a tree, represents wood in Chinese culture. Tsao added that she hopes her design passes on the story of the Heavenly Zodiac Race to younger generations of Chinese Americans. “It was very heartwarming when my kids started being able to grow up with things like seeing Asians in the media, and I wanted to be able to contribute to that education and share our beauty, culture and heritage with The City and the world,” Tsao said.In European culture, dragons are often portrayed as menacing creatures that breathe fire and wreak mayhem. But in Chinese culture, dragons are heavenly beings, representing good luck and positivity. Mufson wanted to illustrate that spirit through eye-popping colors with her Rainbow Dragon design. “I want to make it just extra vivid, extra vibrant, and something that just felt like bursting with happiness, bursting with positivity, and really felt like it was this vibrant, otherworldly kind of character,” she said. The rainbow is dominated by hallmark colors of Chinese culture — red, gold, and teal — and accented with yellow, orange and pink, which Mufson said combined to create a “juicy color palette.”The Gold Luck Dragon is centered in the heart of The City’s Chinese community. Gold is one of the most important colors in Chinese culture, representing power, longevity, wealth, prosperity and luck. It’s considered the most valuable gift someone can receive. “It’s especially prevalent on the New Year — when you’re trying to invite these things into your life for the New Year,” Mufson said.