Hello. My name is Alinda Sue Harrison. My family and I live in Tacoma, Washington, USA.
I've lived many places over the years, but I keep coming back to Tacoma. It's one of my favorites!

A Little About Tacoma
Tacoma sits about 30 miles (roughly 50km) south of Seattle in Washington state in the northwest corner of the contiguous United States.  It's a port city, jutting out into the Puget Sound, a body of water that pokes inland from the Pacific Ocean. To the east of us, we can see the Cascade Mountains. The most prominent of those is Mt. Rainier. Tacoma is the closest major city to Mt. Rainier National Park. A little more distant, looking to the northwest, we can see the Olympic mountain range.

Washington is "The Evergreen State" and Tacoma is the epitome of that. Tacoma is very much a city, but everywhere you'll find trees - even downtown between the skyscrapers. The population of the city, not counting the many suburbs is about 200,000. The people here are mostly an ethnically diverse mix of working class (blue-collar workers),

Lincoln International District
The area of town that I live in is the Lincoln International District. The community is so called because many of the stores are owned by immigrant families. Most prominent are the Vietnamese shops and restaurants, but there are also Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, and Mexican shops - and a recently added Japanese restaurant - as well as the normal stores found throughout all American communities.

Every year, several of the main streets in the community are blocked off for the Vietnamese/Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. The sound of the drums and fireworks that accompany the lion dance can be heard for blocks in any direction! After, they have a cultural presentation with speakers and dancers. Lots of fun!

The picture at left was in our local newspaper, The News Tribune, on February 2, 2003. The event was called a "lion dance", although I have also heard it referred to as a "dragon dance". Personally, I think the creatures look like a little bit of both. This year, there were four of them. Inside the creatures making them move are some very energetic youths from a local martial arts group. Even in mid-winter here, you can see them sweating as they come out from under. It's a lot of hard work! I took some pictures of my own at the event, but they didn't turn out. Hopefully my daughter's did.... more coming (I hope!) when they are developed.

  more coming...

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