[applause] [applause]. Thank you everyone. [applause] good evening. [off mic] dragon. Thats why we have special and the dragon theyre always great. [applause] [off mic] lets give a round of applause. [applause] [off mic] and welcome to this years new year celebration. I am Claudine Cheng from the the San FranciscoGeneral Hospital foundation and [off mic]. [off mic]. Particular celebration because this is the first, the first of many, many of Asian Pacific cultural celebration in the new year and family and friends getting together and wishing each other a happy and healthy new year with lots of good fortune and thats what were doing here looking out at the rotundra today. This is Diverse Communities coming together and celebrating as San Francisco family and wishing all the goodness that the year can bring, hopes, optimism, all the good things so we want to thank you for being here and i would like to say a few words in chinese. [speaking foreign language] so i justin tsai to mention and the new year is celebrated in communities and the ask pacifics and this evening we prepared a number of performances celebrating the culture of a number of ache pacific count reese and china, indonesian and the philippines and celebrations like what we have here now doesnt happen in every city in the country or in the state of california. This has become kind of a tradition for our city and because we are very lucky to have so many mayors through the years and our city officials who took every opportunity to bring communities together. We have very fortunate we have a city that embrace diversitys in the manner that we do and please welcome the host of this years celebration, mayor london breed. [applause] thank you. Lets hear it for commissioner Claudine Cheng. [applause] well first of all welcome to city hall everybody. Happy Lunar New Year. You dont seem that enthusiastic. Its the year of the dragon, progress, prosperity, courage. So many things represent the year of the dragon and what i am so excited about here in San Francisco is what this means for the future of our city. This is going to be a great year, 2024 in our city, and it has everything to do with each and every one of you joining us here tonight to kick off Lunar New Year in San Francisco. [applause] now, i wrote a new names down that i want to identify and i want to make sure they get this right, but first i want to start with my cohost tonight. You will from them in a little bit but i want to thank carmen chu, city administrator. [applause] sheriff paul mijamoto. Public defender mano raju. And our other cohost david chiu couldnt be with us here tonight but as many of you know hes everywhere so if hes want here tonight he couldnt really be here tonight and i want to thank the committee for all the work and the apa Heritage FoundationClaudine Cheng who does amazing work. Thomas lee, al perez and grace. Almost grace, almost. I want to also thank our chief of protocol marian and some of our amazing leaders, president of the chinese console baited Benevolent Association. Thank you for being here today and our pair port commissioner representing the San FranciscoChinese Chamber of commerce malcolm young. [applause] and congratulations to kevin chang who is the new chaplain for the San Francisco sheriff. [applause] and i know mary young is also here somewhere. Now we have a number of new Council Generals and i want mention the countries joining us here today, korea singapore, mongoala. Welcome to San Francisco. We also have the consul general of japan as well as other places and can they please stand up. [applause] thank you to those who are joining us here today and welcome to the new Council Generals. We look forward to welcome and you celebrating at the Lunar New Year parade this saturday as well, and we have some special guests visiting us from the district of West Vancouver including the mayor, mayor mark saiger who is joining us today. Welcome mayor. As well as your delegation from the meto vancouver transportation agency. Can you all please stand. [applause] i want to acknowledge some of the elected leaders who are joining us here today starting with supervisor rafael mandelman, matt dorsey and joel engardio. [applause]. Our assessor recorder jaking torres. Our School Board Members please stand. Our treasurer jose cisneros. [applause] and jenny lam are you still president or okay. Lanie is the president of the school board. All right. I am getting all my name exercise thingsed up but i think i took care of everything and we have some amazing Department Heads joining us here today and can you please stand, Michael Lambert from the library. Greg colfax and mary and joe and thank you all for being here. If i didnt call your name raise your hand. Just kidding. Anyway again thank you so much for joining us and as i said were kicking off the year of the dragon and prosperity, abundance, intelligence and honor. So many things represent San Francisco as a whole and when i think how amazing it is to celebrate Lunar New Year i think about the resiliency of the Asian Community, so many people immigrated here to San Francisco and made it what it is today whether its folks from the Filipino Community who immigrated to the south of market neighborhoods or japantown which is one of the best japantowns anywhere and chinatown which is one of the first and oldest anywhere in this country. We have so much incredible history with so many different communities that celebrate Lunar New Year and it is what makes San Francisco unique. When we hosted the Asian PacificEconomic Corporation what i said during that time to so many of those visiting us from 21 economies is that San Francisco is a gate way to the Asian Pacific. We represent diversity of cultures in so many ways and when you think about it people travel to different places all over the world to experience different cultures but when you come to San Francisco you can experience it all right here in our city whether its different foods or different neighborhoods or different people. We all have a unique fabric that makes San Francisco what it is today, and i appreciate being here celebrating on this momentous occasion, joy, excitement and happiness. After everything that we have been through the challenges of the pandemic, the challenges around antiasian hate were finally starting to see the representation of what the dragon means around progress with the 90 reduction in antiasian hate crimes in San Francisco and it is everything to do with all the work that we have been doing together. [applause] so again i want to welcome you to San Francisco city hall for this great celebration and really appreciate you all for coming together because after such a hard time, after so many challenges it is time to start rooting for San Francisco. It is time to start rooting for what makes us so unique and special. It is time to start celebrating and experiencing joy and happiness and excitement. Yes, San Francisco has its challenges because were a major city, but we need to start focusing on what makes us great, what makes us special, what makes us unique . And Lunar New Year with our diverse Asian Community is really an important part of what makes us special and what makes us unique. Thats the celebration that were hosting here tonight and we appreciate each and every one of you for joining us on this auspicious occasion and we hope to see you saturday at the Lunar New Year parade as well. Thank you all so much. [applause] i knew i was going to forget something so at this time i want to ask the counsel generals who are joining us today to come to the stairs so we can take a picture. Right claudine . Okay. [applause] thank you everyone and next in the program we have another treat for you. Lets welcome the gordon j. Lau Elementary School students. These students have been sacrificing all lunch breaks to practice for today so lets give them a big round of applause. Gordon lau. [applause] music [applause] i could dance by dua lipa watch me dance the night away. My heart but you wont see it. Watch me dance the night away. I still keep the party still running and when my heart breaks, when my world shakes i dont play. Dont you know about me . I could dance, i could dance. I could dance. Dance away. [applause] thank you students. I think the mayor was going to thank the students. [applause] all right everybody. Big smiles. Theyre looking great. What do you say everybody; right . [applause] i mean i wish i could dance moves like that. All right. One, two, three. You got your pictures . We want to make sure we see all these wonderful students faces in the picture. [applause] all right. Here we go. Big, big round of applause. [applause] dragon pose. Dragon pose. Serious, brave and courageous. There you go. All right. Thank you very much. Big round of applause for gordon j. Lau Elementary School performers. [applause] and of course our wonderful brian here from lion dance. Thank you. [off mic] [applause] thank you. Good job. [applause] all right. Another big round of applause. [applause] im going to invite my cohost to come up, our chair will be joining me on the stage. Good evening. My name is carmen chu and one of the cohosts today i want to welcome you all to city hall. I know many of you come from far and wide and busy schedules to join us with this wonderful celebration. As we go in the city and celebrate the Lunar New Year its important to know what the Lunar New Year celebrates. [off mic] with our family to watch all the Previous Year and celebrate and un unity and coming together and we welcome to you city hall and hope you have a wonderful time in todays performance. [speaking foreign language] and with that let me turn it over with comments from my do host. First i will start off with the sheriff. Thank you carmen. [applause] applause happy new year everyone. Its always difficult to follow carmen and dragons and Little Dragons and lions and the wonderful culture represented here tonight. Im very happy to see you here and as the mayor mentioned always welcoming people to city hall is a wonderful thing. We will have more fun on saturday at the parade and not like the one earlier but i will be under a dragon head in the parade and i look forward to that every year and i want you to be there as well because we feed off the energy of the audience and the community as we celebrate the Lunar New Year together so i will do my best right now. [speaking foreign language] wow big round of applause. Good job. [applause] its wonderful to be here today on Lunar New Year. I am the public defender and you know as a son of indian immigrants its special to see the wonderful diversity and how everyone shows their full potential. I was able to fortunately go home over the winter break and go to india and went to japan and back here in San Francisco is really beautiful. I am in a jury trial seeing the wonderful diversity on the jury and i always want to sayad public defenders and San Franciscos public defender i believe what is truly the power and potential of every individual and wonderful to see it come together here and when i need inspiration i will go to the youth here and the dragons and theyre amazing and Lunar New Year and happy new year and hope everyone enjoys the enjoy festivities. Im going to invite others up here and after the speaking the mayor to come up with a photo with the elected officials and Department Heads so come on up. Our assessor torres. I want to go before him because hes going to wow everyone with his cantonese and im going to wish everyone a happy new year and thank you so much for pulling this together. This is always an amazing amaze maze event. Claudine you do so much for the city and so much for these celebrations in city hall and to everyone that made this happen thank you and happy year dragon everybody. [applause] so did you think ho ychoy and the extend of the chinese i know and this what i look forward to every 12 years and im a baby of the dragon and along with supervisor peskin who couldnt be here and my legislative aide is also year of the dragon so were excited in the district six office. [applause] [speaking foreign language] i want to wish everyone a very happy, happy year of the dragon, auspicious, prosperous, healthy, joyful extraordinary times for all of you and your families and see you in chinatown on saturday. Thank you. [applause] all right. Hey everybody. Nobody celebrates Lunar New Year and the culture and the diversity of our Community Better than the city and county of San Francisco in the entire country. I want to wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year and look forward to see you at at parade facultysh saturday. Look forward for the book mobile. Thank you. I want to recognize my Department Heads. Michael you werent supposed to Say Something but glad you did and i want to welcome all of the Department Heads here and and mayor would you please come on up to take a photo with Department Head and other elected official and i will ask my folks to come up and stand loser closer to the lion. And please stand closer to the lion. All right. [applause] and now of course for the performances. I think as most folks know we have so many different cultures represented in San Francisco. Many folks who all celebrate the Lunar New Year so of course we want to welcome and show case some of the amazing talent here in San Francisco and so i will be introducing two dance performers that we will be starting. First is a dance performance by Parangal Dance Company a filipino and folk dance and nonprofit based here in San Francisco. We will be having two dances from them and one is sohten and thalek and see a performance from the korean culture andept representing and honoring peace and harmony. Please welcome both of these performances. [applause] dance performances [applause] beautiful. Lets give our two performances a big round of applause again. Thank you. [applause] before our third and last performance i would like to introduce two Community Speakers to the stage. We have the presiding president of the chinese consolidated console Benevolent Association and they have sponsored so many events celebrating the Chinese New Year and as well as the chamber of commerce. Welcome to both of you. [applause] honorable mayor lee, city officials, honorable guests and friends, happy new year. [applause] i am the presiding president of the chinese consolidated Benevolent Association. On behalf of the association its my honor to wish everybody a happy healthy pro perrous year of the dragon. Lunar new year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of the new year on the hundredar solar calendar. Its the most important holiday in china and celebrated for every 3,000 years. It is the time of the year to reunify the immediate and extended family. On september 29, 2022 Governor Newsom proclaimed this day as california holiday. At the end of last year the United Nations also made it a holiday. Thats big. This meaningful Celebration World wide event. Im grateful to have the opportunity to represent the chinese consul benevolent celebration to attend this celebration and continue the good working relationship with city hall. To promote the Chinese Culture and freedom and tradition. [speaking foreign language] [applause] all right good evening everybody. Im malconyoung representing the Chinese Chamber of commerce. Our preside