One thing I'd like to do to kill time is bringing the picture above to people around, give the year, and see if they can tell the place & date it was taken. Many experienced travelers do. While I don't count it if he or she is an US citizen.

Indeed, Chicago river dyeing on St. Patrick's day won this none- official holiday much greater public attention worldwide than it would have otherwise, a must see event in central US. Originally a religious feast day in observance of the death of an Irish patron saint, St. Patrick's day has later on evolved into a public holiday in Ireland and now days widely recognized and celebrated among global Irish communities as well as the countries they residence, especially North America. In an immigrants formed country like US, settlers from each ethnic group usually bring in their distinct culture heritages when arrived, preserved, and kept introducing these traditions into greater american communities over generations. When enough time passed, some of these traditions have been widely accepted across various ethnic groups, and eventually became a fabric of American culture; such was St. Patrick's Day.

An interesting fact about first generation immigrants is that, many of them became more proud of their original culture heritage after landed America and even would like to work harder to promote it than in homeland; so did Irish American. In 1737, they held the first ever St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston, 166 years earlier than Ireland in 1903. In the years followed, most of the major US cities joined Boston to start holding the parade, including Chicago in 1843. A St Patrick's day parade in early days was no different from any other holidays' such as Easter Day, Labor Day, and etc; not until 1962, when a chairman of Chicago's St Patrick's parade came up an amazing idea to change the   whole thing.

Stemming from Irish tradition, people always like to green something to celebrate St Patrick's day; from wearing green clothes, launching green firework to dyeing their dogs, etc. One day when a Chicago guy Stephen Bailey was inspired by the water pollution tracing practice, that pouring green dye into sewer system to pin point where the waste was discharged in Chicago river, a great idea came into his mind about St Patrick's day parade: how about green a river?

Three months later, Chicago citizens were stunned by the beautiful Irish green river on 1962 St Patrick's day. 100 pounds of chemical was poured into the water, keep the river green for an entire week. This dyeing practice proved immediate popularity, hundreds of thousands of audiences flooded the banks to admire this cool river. Since then this dyeing tradition became an annual effort to kick off the St Patrick's Parade celebration, with the eco-friendly vegetable-dye replaced chemical originally used.

Today, Chicago river dyeing remains a beloved tradition of Chicagoan, one of the most heavily attended events in US, with hundreds of thousands tourists attracted to visit Windy City during the entire Saint Patrick's Day Celebration week. What an idea.

Being an Irish for one day and lost yourself in the crowd along side Chicago river for a river dyeing can be incredible. On March 11, 2017, a cold and sunny morning, I found myself standing among the green crowd on the river bank, chilling, and yielding when a large vessel spreading dye into the river. Few smaller boats followed closely and made a snake move to churn the water. 30 minutes later, the entire river turns into splendid shinning Irish green. Nothing quite like it.

Then it is all began. Large crowd started moving alongside the river, thrilling, talking and taking pictures; then heading east,  jammed the Grand Park, where St Patrick's Day parade occurs.

Chicago Saint Patrick's Day Parade is not much different than any other big, noisy, and crowded events, with plenty of Irish dancers, bagpipes, drum corps in tow. 

This is my third time to Chicago and every visit makes me see this city anew. First trip is all about Magnificent Mile, Millennium Park, Chicago Theater, Navy Pier; Second trip is for river dyeing, deep dish pizza, jazz, riverfront running; and in this trip I started noticed the violence side of Windy City: heavily protected convenient store cashier booth, whistling police cars, empty houses, and so on.

The rise of Chicago largely due to the first three waves of global industrialization. Over years the city consistently grew its economy into one of the major metropolitan in the world; while if you look into the driving forces of its GDP, it might more or less lacks of attractiveness: transportation, distribution, food processing, printing, publishing, manufacturing... all are the things of past. The newer, booming industries such as technology, IT are still at its infancy stage in Chicago and I imagine this city probably easy to suffer talent loss, especially young minds. Top programmers move to San Francisco today for a better future.

I believe Chicago remains one of the most important cities in the world, but no longer standing ahead of the curve. If you ever travel around the globe, you probably noticed that some newer, younger giant cities are emerging on the horizon. When it comes to architectures, people choose Dubai, Shanghai, Kular Lumpar today over Chicago to experiment their innovative designs; never say in business field. In twenty years you probably will see some taller, more stunning skylines somewhere in Asia. Chicago, and many US regions are still in the lead, but followers are narrowing down the gap, and doing so very rapidly.Within decades, when the forth wave of industrialization arrived, the fall of Chicago likely will begin.

I feel the same for States. Years ago, when first time entered US, everything looks perfect to me. Over time I became aware of the things like financial crash, occupy wall street, Obama care, Syria war, politically correct, and so on. I saw empty Detroit, and the depressing Pittsburgh. The entertaining 2016 election makes me noticed another US, not the one I saw on tier 1 cities like New York, LA, San Francisco, etc, but the one to the east of Mississippi and Ohio river, a territory of red-necks, non-college white men, people who trampled by globalization over the past decades. That's Trump's US.

Have to say, that I respect Trump's effort to deliver, but still not sure if he is able to make happens his election promises. At least for now he has underestimated the level of difficulties to do so. I can tell there is something wrong in this country, but apparently no body figured out a way to fix it. US is pretty separate now, and such separation was caused largely by technology advancement. Young and growing industries such as IT, finance, created plenty of additional job opportunities but only for well educated candidates; and mean time much larger amount of low end jobs slashed due to globalization. Consequence is that non-college Americans increasingly have difficulties to maintain their living standards in recent years. These people simply blamed the whole thing on offshoring, as well as the growing immigrates population. They stubbed in the mud, but still expecting someone else to help them out. So they took a classical US approach to work things out: Let's put it to a vote :)

See where that got them. I am not a big fan of their billionaire president, but I however do agree with some of his new policies. Take my Chicago trip for example, when I was looking for my favorite place to stop for a rest after couple of hours exhaustive driving on the highway, I am talking about a Shell station with a Tim Horton shop in Canada, or with a McDonald store in US, I couldn't help started missing the Chinese high speed trains I took in Shenzhen. It's so fast and so convenient! At that moment I think Trump was right, that US damned should spend some money on infrastructure. It already left behind.

Upper-middle class people in States still concern that Trump's trading and immigration policy is against globalization trends and in contradicting with the core value & codes of this immigrants formed country. Not surprise when watching the St. Patrick's day parade, I asked a white lady standing besides me, dressing well and seems properly educated, that how does she feel about the new president, I got a blunt and firm answer: 'Not good.'

P.S.: Few weeks ago Chinese hackers attacked my laptop and fake it as did by virus. All my 2017 Chicago St. Patrick's Day photos were gone. All, except three. That's why you see so many images in this blog were from my previous trips or internet. Two years ago, same hacker group destroyed my original Chicago travel notes posted on facebook. So I decided to come up with this new blog. It's reborn in ashes, just like Chicago.

其它游记见我的博客： http://chinadiansalmon.blogspot.ca/2017/05/chicago-st-patricks-day-2017.html