From a tiny boy clad in traditional dress to gentlemen from
Taipei
’s San Francisco Cultural Office, a crowd of 200 celebrated
Chinese New Year in Morgan Hill last Friday with feasting, music,
dance and three teenaged yo-yo experts.
From a tiny boy clad in traditional dress to gentlemen from Taipei’s San Francisco Cultural Office, a crowd of 200 celebrated Chinese New Year in Morgan Hill last Friday with feasting, music, dance and three teenaged yo-yo experts.
The Year of the Monkey started off with a bang – though without firecrackers – offering the South Valley Asian community the chance to party locally instead of going to the larger cities’ celebrations and, often, to dress in colorful embroidered silks.
“Lots of old time residents (of South Valley) go elsewhere to celebrate the New Year,” said Rosemary Kamei, a member of Asians for a Better Community (ABC). “We wanted them to be able to celebrate here, so we just decided to do it now.”
Kamei and her ABC “fellows,” Christine Yank Fisk, Rosemary Chen, Susan Fan and Yan Xia, reserved the community center’s largest room, hired the caterer, booked the entertainment and got the word out, all in a very short while. So short, Kamei said, that all the dragons were rented.
“Next year we’ll have more time to plan and we will have a dragon,” Kamei said.
Yang Fisk began her act as mistress of ceremonies by holding up a sign in English lettering.
“We will first say everything in Chinese,” Fisk said. Then she held up a sign in Chinese characters.
“Then we will translate it into English,” she said. And they did. Councilwoman Hedy Chang, who is from Taiwan herself, welcomed the unexpectedly large crowd in both languages.
The first order of business was teaching everyone, including the non-Chinese guests, how to say Happy New Year in the Mandarin dialect.
“Gong Xi Fa Cai” sounds a bit like the more familiar, “Gung Hay Fat Choy” that one hears in San Francisco.
“Gung Hay Fat Choy is Cantonese,” Chang said.
After a buffet dinner, several dozen children gathered in front at the edge of the dance floor to watch the performances. Howard Yin’s three Chinese Yo-Yo students delighted the crowd – especially the children – with Yo-Yo acrobatics.
The wooden spools were followed by Hsu-Fang Fu’s Academy of Chinese Harp – five young women playing wistfully traditionally songs. Dozens of little hands flew to cover little ears when a loud and metallic band from Fantasia Performing Arts Center began serenading the crowd with drum, cymbals and gong.
When the musician din faded away, Fantasia students began a series of traditional dances with descriptive names: longsleeve, ribbon, silver plate and Kung-Fu.
The evening concluded with a Line Dance including Assemblyman John Laird, Mayor Dennis Kennedy – karaoke and raffles.
Mark Liao, deputy director general, and Albert Lin, division director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in San Francisco, drove down to help the community usher in the New Year and the spring season, considered a time of renewed hope for a successful life. Both were dressed in sober black suits.
Kevin Bui, 15-months, was not. The Morgan Hill boy accompanied by his parents showed off his red and gold embroidered silk jacket and pants, complete with cap with a suspended (artificial) queue.
ABC at P.O. Box 1043, Morgan Hill, CA 95038, e-mail to ab********@***oo.com or call 202-0855.
