What's happening?

Here I am back in LA - for a quick visit to hear son Eric play a cello recital and do a little research on Strauss. He died here and according to the obituary lived on Wilshire Blvd. I have to check that out! Also his burial place, if I can get a car to go see it. So it's a quiet Sunday morning, film crews are set up in a few places on the street below doing their usual Sunday morning thing. The Cathedral bells ring the start of the Spanish language service. And then I notice the shouting. I thought it was the film crews shouting directions. But eventually, as the din escalates, I go to the balcony to look out. A parade! about 4 blocks long. Heading south on Grand from somewhere north of the Disney building, past Colburn School of Performing Arts, past MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) to the plaza in front of Deloitte & Touche. Well-dressed people shouting and chanting.

It's not a parade. They are shouting angrily, they are carrying red flags and banners in Chinese. They must have marched from Chinatown, just over the 101. Some signs are in English. Something about Japan. They are angry with the Japanese. Are they part of the recent Japan bashing, harking back to WWII and China's bad treatment by the Japanese? Mounting tensions have been reported in the news. Or has there been an incident? I wish I could understand their chants, songs and rally speeches, now taking place.

Film crews are busy shooting from trucks and cherry pickers, and interviewing people in the street. Is this a real rally? or part of a movie? In LA you are never sure what's happening.