Little Saigon Pulls Out the Stops : Year of the Horse to Gallop In Saturday

The altars on Monday were buried in chrysanthemums--even more than the usual amount for a weekly service at the Chua Phat Giao Viet Nam tai Orange County, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple here. In the temple’s yard, workers were putting the finishing touches on a platform in front of a gigantic statue of the Buddha of Compassion, to whom worshipers will be asking for new year’s blessings.

At the Vietnam Associates offices in Midway City, a scenery crew was busy with wood, paint, metals, cloth materials and custom lighting--all to make backgrounds depicting various themes for the Tet festival scheduled to take place this weekend in Little Saigon.

“All the volunteers are trying to work as quickly as possible because it’s getting so close to the deadline,” said Khang Quy Pham, one of the workers. “These are not ordinary backdrops; they’re very elaborate. We have had to customize everything to fit the special needs of the numerous acts that people will see.”

About 250,000 people are expected to attend the two-day Tet festival welcoming the Year of the Horse, which begins Saturday according to the Chinese lunar calendar. The Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce in Orange County, sponsor of the event, has been preparing for this weekend since last March.

The festival will open with a colorful parade along Bolsa Avenue--the main street of Little Saigon--and feature carnival rides, food booths, game booths and art displays.

Entertainment director Thanh Thien Tran said groups will perform traditional dances and songs, Vietnamese bands will play Eastern and Western numbers, four martial arts teams will demonstrate their skills, and two casts of actors will perform a folk musical and a play.

Admission is $3 for adults and $1 for children. Children under four feet tall can enter free.

Over the past 14 years, the Little Saigon commercial district along Bolsa Avenue in Westminster and Garden Grove--designated a tourist zone in 1988--has gained a reputation as the vibrant heart of Vietnamese business and culture in Southern California.

But this will be only the second year of such a full-scale celebration. Last year’s festival drew hundreds of thousands but was considered only a qualified success.

“We had many problems last year because we had only about six weeks to get everything done,” said Dr. Co Long Pham, the chamber’s president and an obstetrician and gynecologist in Fountain Valley. “Our fences and gates (surrounding last year’s festival) were of flimsy materials so we had people coming in without paying. We were in the hole from the loss of money. This year, we have gone to a commercial fencing company and we have hired 35 security guards to make sure there are not trespassers.”

Bolsa Avenue will be closed from Magnolia to Dillow streets from 7 p.m. Friday until early Monday morning, when the area will be reopened to automobile traffic.

After the organizers set up the stages, booths and fences Friday night, the gates will open at 10 a.m. Saturday. The parade will begin at noon at Bolsa and Dillow and end with a formal ceremony in front of a stage at Bolsa and Magnolia.

For many of the 120,000 Vietnamese residents in Orange County, the eve of the new year will be spent giving traditional offerings to the God of Prosperity.

The area’s Buddhist temples will be open. And many Buddhists who have altars at home will set out meatless and sweet dishes to enable their ancestors or deceased family members to share in the new year’s promise of good luck.

The Chinese lunar calendar, on which Tet is based, has a 12-year cycle. Within this cycle, the 20th Century began with the Year of the Rat. Next came the Year of the Ox, then the Tiger, the Hare, the Dragon, the Snake, the Horse, the Sheep, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Dog and the Wild Boar. Each of the 12 animals traditionally has both positive and negative qualities.

The Vietnamese New Year celebration begins at the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius. The day annually falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19.

Pham said the festival’s three purposes are to remind Vietnamese youth of their heritage, to share that heritage with the Western community and to help bring tourists to Little Saigon.

“The way Tet is celebrated here is different from the way we celebrated it in Vietnam,” Pham said. “It was normal to take a whole month off to really celebrate the holiday. Life here only allows us to celebrate it from two to three days.

“The main difference is that like Christmas, we have had to commercialize Tet here. We still want to preserve the beauty of our culture and make our children proud of our roots. But the commercialization advertises about our culture and helps us to intermingle with the American society. And the bigger we make it, the more attention it will bring to Little Saigon.”

The Vietnamese merchants along Bolsa Avenue have been bombarded with customers around the holiday for the past 10 years. Even without the festival, tourists from all over the country habitually pour into Little Saigon because it provides an authentic Vietnamese-cultural atmosphere, said Huong Thi Nguyen, a giftshop owner.

Tet in Little Saigon What: The Vietnamese lunar year: a celebration combining the qualities of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. Vietnamese dress in their best clothes, feast and decorate their homes with red-colored chinese characters expressing wishes for happiness, prosperity and longevity. When: Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. The opening ceremony at noon Saturday includes a parade along Bolsa Avenue from Dillow to Magnolia streets. Sunday events include six of the most popular Vietnamese local bands. Where: Little Saigon district of Westminister and Garden Grove.