Thousands braved the cold Saturday evening at Stone Mountain to ring in the Lunar New Year with dragon dance performances, Asian food trucks and an educational drone and light show.
Hundreds of lanterns and lights hanging overhead lit the base of Stone Mountain as kids raced through the main entrance and families took photos in front of the shimmering lights. A Happy Lunar New Year sign in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese greeted visitors as they walked toward the festivities, which included calligraphy, paper cutting and lantern-making stations as well as a small collection of food trucks selling skewers, banh mi and pho.
It’s the third annual Lunar New Year Festival at Stone Mountain hosted in partnership with the Chinese Cultural School of Atlanta, an organization that teaches and promotes the Chinese language and culture. An anticipated 40,000 to 50,000 visitors will attend the festival over the course of three weekends, said Stan Morrell, Stone Mountain Park senior vice president of entertainment and special events.
DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, who was in attendance, preached the importance of recognizing DeKalb County’s diverse community and its 47,000 Asian American residents.
“For me, this is important because we often talk about diversity, but this gives people the opportunity to experience diversity,” Cochran-Johnson said in an interview. “At a time when we see exclusion often on a federal level, what you see here in DeKalb County is inclusion. It breaks down walls and helps people understand the difference in culture and appreciate it.”