Kung Hei Fat Choi & Regicide: On 25th January 2004 I went with many thousands to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square and Chinatown. In 2001 I had commented on My London Diary “there are too many people and too many photographers at the Chinese New Year celebrations in Soho, but somehow I keep on going” but for various reasons I think the next time I photographed it was in 2004. I was back again in 2005, 2006, 2007 and in 2008 for I think the last time.
Several things finally decided me to give the celebrations a miss. First was simply the crowds with more and more people coming to watch the event which made it difficult or impossible to move around and take pictures.
Then more and more people were photographing – mainly with their phones – and largely lacking any courtesy in doing so, coming to stand in front of me as I was trying to take pictures.
And, like many events, it had become more and more organised, with crowds being controlled and held behind barriers for the more official parts of the celebration.
But I suppose the main reasons were that my interests had changed and that I thought I had done enough on this event; my pictures each year were looking increasingly the same and I needed to do something different.
Also taking place on 25th January 2004 was a parade by reenactors of the execution of King Charles I. While I’m not a puritan (as I think many of my ancestors were) I am increasingly a Republican and while I might not be calling for the public execution of our current monarchy, I do think it is well past time we got rid of them and their privilege – as well as the rest of the aristocracy.
Of course it isn’t just the monarchy I would like to see go, but our whole class system of which they are the leading edge. Its real basis is the seizure of land following the Norman conquest in 1066 and my revolution would call for land reform, with the complete ending of private ownership of land (and water) which would become community resources, with no land ownership but instead could be held in trust to the community. But of course it’s a utopia which won’t happen.
Here’s the short text – with minor corrections – which I wrote in 2004.
The Chinese New Year was celebrated in Westminster on 25th Jan, with speeches in Trafalgar Square, fireworks in Leicester Square and immense crowding in and around Soho’s Chinatown, especially where the police sealed off some of the streets.
Fortunately the speeches were short, and the main point of most was to say ‘kung hei fat choi’, with various degrees of ethnic feel.
Also on the 25th, was a parade commemorating the execution of King Charles 1, who went from St James Palace to the Banqueting House in Whitehall to be beheaded on 30th Jan 1649. It’s an event that brings out the Republican in me!
It was a rather mournful procession, drab and silent, in complete contrast to the lively scenes a few yards to the north.
A few more pictures from the day on My London Diary begin here.
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