During Tet Festival, It’s Not-So-Little Saigon

As the 14-year-old girl with the long, dark, brown hair marched behind the lion dancers, she clashed her golden cymbals to the rhythm of wooden sticks hitting ox-skin drums.

Dressed in a white T-shirt, black pants and boots, with red sashes circling her waist and ankles like the other percussionists, Kimmy Tang Nguyen was visibly proud to be part of the parade that signaled the start of the Tet festival in Orange County’s Vietnamese community Saturday.

“I didn’t care about it last year,” said Kimmy, whose shirt bore an insignia in red, gold and black to identify her and other percussionists as being from the Hong Bang Vietnamese school. “I thought it was just old people. But I like it this year. It’s a lot of fun--a lot of people.”

In the first seven hours of the two-day event, about 100,000 people walked through the gates into the fenced-in quarter-mile-long festival grounds on Bolsa Avenue between Magnolia and Dillow streets, Westminster police said. Before the gates opened at noon, hundreds of people patiently waited in lines almost as long as the festival grounds.

The Tet festival welcomes the Year of the Golden Horse, which began Saturday in the Chinese lunar calendar. The festival is sponsored by the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce in Orange County.

This is the second year that this big-scale celebration has taken place in Westminster’s Little Saigon, known for its Vietnamese neighborhoods and businesses.

A little after noon, marching bands from Westminster and Fountain Valley high schools led the procession of dignitaries--which included Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith and Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove)--and the lion dancers to the stage at Magnolia Street and Bolsa Avenue for the opening ceremony.

Carnival operators on the other end of the celebration busied themselves with impatient children who were interested only in the colorful rides. In the center of the festival were about 150 food and game booths and art displays to attract passers-by.

The gates will again open at 10 a.m. today and the festival will end at 11 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults, $1 for children. Children under 4 feet tall can enter free.

Entertainment includes traditional dances and songs performed by several groups, six Vietnamese bands playing Eastern and Western music, demonstration of martial arts by four teams and two casts of actors performing a folk musical and a play, said Thanh Thien Tran, festival director.

Dr. Co Long Pham, president of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, said the festival’s three purposes are to remind the Vietnamese youth of their heritage, share that heritage with the Western community and help bring tourism business into Little Saigon.

Although parking arrangements were made with surrounding businesses, churches and schools up to half a mile from the area, the large crowd looking for parking spaces created unrest among the residents in the area.

“We have three cars and we can’t even park,” said 70-year-old Retina A. Chutt, looking at the rows of automobiles lined up along the sidewalks in front of her house in the 9000 block of Greenville Avenue, just north of Bolsa. “I have to go to work and I’m afraid I won’t have a parking space when I come back. It would be fine if the city and the organizers provided parking, but not in front of private homes.”

A neighbor living on the corner of Magnolia Street and Greenville Avenue agreed, but asked not to be identified.

“The city promised there would be no parking problem like last year, and it’s starting all over again,” she said as a line of cars passed her house on the small street. “I can’t even go to the market because I won’t be able to park when I come back.”

Westminster police said the whole department was on hand to try to ease traffic problems. The organizers also hired 35 security guards to patrol the area and make sure there were no trespassers. The guards also found themselves battling a strong wind in the morning, which blew down most of the barricades outside the fence surrounding the festival.

Police manned a command post at the festival until it closed Saturday night, and kept a patrol throughout the area to guard against potential vandalism or other problems. But police officials reported no serious problems and said events seemed to run smoothly.

As Kimmy Nguyen took a break from playing the cymbals, she said the Tet festival meant having fun.

“If you smile today, good things will happen to you all year,” she said. “That’s why you have to be good on this day because you don’t want your parents to yell at you.” If they yell at you on Tet, she said, “then they will yell at you the whole year.”

Kimmy, a Westminster resident who was born in Saigon and arrived in the United States six years ago, smiled and said: “They haven’t yelled at me yet.”

Staff writer James M. Gomez contributed to this story.

TET FESTIVAL IN LITTLE SAIGON

What: The Vietnamese lunar new 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: Today from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Events include six of the most popular Vietnamese local bands.

Where: Little Siagon district of Westminster and Garden Grove.