--St. Patrick's Day is here, you see.
We'll pick some shamrocks, one, two, three.
We'll count the leaves and look them over,
And maybe find a four-leafed clover.
I'll sew green buttons on my vest,
Green for St. Patrick is the best.
I'll wear a green hat, very high,
And dance a jig--at least I'll try!
Green, shamrocks and beer, these are most likely things you see in St. Patrick’s Day. As a Chinese girl who has spent her 21 years in a province in China and did not experience any foreign cultural festival before, St. Patrick’s Day is more like a big party for me than a festival with religious meaning.
Again, big celebration made crowd everywhere. When I arrived in Hyde Park at 11 o’clock, there were already lots of people standing besides the street. Most of them wore something green— a green tie, a green hat or a green makeup.
The mild wind and warm sunshine made everything brighter. As the celebration of Chinese New Year just past a month, I could not help comparing St. Patrick’s Day with the spring festival in my heart. I had to admit that I kind of envied Irish: sunshine for St. Patrick’s Day, cool rain for Spring Festival.
Walking along the street and looking for a good spot for the parade, I saw no other colours but green. Interesting is that in China green hat means adultery, so I could not help laughing to see so many green hats in the crowd. But as the saying goes “When at Rome, do as the Romans do”, I then bought one green hat for me and wore it happily. Well, it is St. Patrick’s Day; I should act like an Irish!
Quickly, it was now time for the Parade. Everybody suddenly stopped talking and waved the little green flag silently. I had never watched a Parade in my life, though it may not be as big as I imagine, it was still amazing. People in the lines dressed in various colours: red, green, white… Some of them played instruments, some of them danced.
They were just like the characters I saw in the picture book when I still was a little girl. I especially enjoyed the marching bands section; those lovely boys and girls all dressed in red uniforms, kept a neat step and then performed the music.
Nobody was as excited as me in the street except the little girls and boys, I guessed they had seen this too many times and were now quite used to it. But all the performance was so new to me. I only watched it on TV before and never expected to see it by myself.
Maybe it was the Parade or the atmosphere of the festival; I became quite happy and began to follow the music in the Parade. But I quickly found out Parade was just the beginning. When I arrived in Trafalgar Square, I was shocked by the amount of people gathering there: every corner there were people!
To me it was just like Irish style of Spring Festival; people dancing and singing, with beer bottle in their hands. With lightly Irish music playing on the stage, the whole Trafalgar Square seemed like a big party—people were not coming for the performance, they came for crowd and beer.
Happy time passed quickly. Before I realized, the celebration was quite to its end. When I was preparing to leave, the singer on the stage suddenly spoke something in Irish and the crowd followed him excitedly.
Then the singer began to sing, people followed. The peaceful music and deep voice of the singer suddenly moved me. People followed him and sang slowly.
It was in a language I did not understand but I could feel the emotion. I closed my eyes; I saw green grass, white sheep, big mountains winding, happy Irish girl singing in all her heart. At that moment my spirit flied to Ireland, to the country with shamrock and beer, to the place all in green, love and peace.
