Embarking on the Year of the Dog : Asian Residents Celebrate Start of the Lunar Calendar

Elder sister, shall I marry spring

And light firecrackers to perfume my wine

--From a Vietnamese poem

Thi Pham sat with her grandson on the three-wheel “cyclo cab” set in front of a painted backdrop of a historic Saigon market building, and smiled for the cameras.

“It’s like really going to the Ben Thanh market at home,” Pham said after paying a photographer $5 for copies of the picture. “I go to the festival every year to be closer to home.”

The Garden Grove resident and her 7-year-old grandson were among about 1,000 people who helped open the Little Saigon Tet Festival ’94 on Bolsa Avenue on Friday afternoon. The three-day celebration is part of weeklong festivities to welcome the Lunar Year of the Dog, which began Thursday.

Organizers expect that 100,000 fair-goers will be drawn by sunny weather to the weekend festival, held in the Asian Village Mall. Tickets cost $3 each.

Kim Hoang, 16, of Orange was at the celebration on a weekday because schools were out for Lincoln’s Birthday. She said she wished there were fewer American-style game booths at the festival and more displays of Asian crafts.

“It is an Asian New Year so I prefer to see more Asian things here,” Hoang said. “The only Vietnamese thing here is the food.”

The first day of the lunar New Year usually falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19. The lunar calendar was shaped by Chinese legend, which told of Buddha inviting all the animals to visit him. But only 12 arrived.

The deity then rewarded the animals by naming years after them in the order of their arrival: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the cat, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the boar.

The lunar New Year is celebrated by many Asian cultures, and the Vietnamese festival was not the only celebration held Friday.

Members of the Chinese Assn. of Orange County performed dragon and lion dances at Valencia Elementary School in Laguna Hills. According to tradition, the dances scare away evil spirits and ensure good luck for the new year.

The dances were arranged by Laguna Hills resident Chui Ho, who had been looking for a way for her children’s classmates to learn about Chinese culture and tradition.

Ho contacted the Chinese Assn. of Orange County and arranged for the dancers to come to the school.

“Every Chinese New Year they have the lion dance to celebrate,” Ho said. “I don’t think the students from that school have ever seen a live one, maybe only on television.”

In addition to performing and involving children in the dances, members of the association talked with the pupils about the history of the Chinese New Year.

Although such celebrations traditionally are loud--including clanging cymbals and exploding firecrackers to scare away monsters and demons--the demonstration in the school’s multipurpose room took place without explosives.

Ho, who has two children at Valencia, said some teachers prepared their pupils for the demonstration by talking about the Chinese New Year and decorating their classrooms with dragon cutouts and Chinese characters.

“We thought it would be an interesting cultural thing to do,” said the school’s principal, Don Snyder.

Next year, Ho said, she hopes to introduce a similar show to older students.

“Hopefully, next year, I will bring it to a high school,” she said. “It’s fun to see.”