Vietnamese Culture to Be Featured at Lotus Festival

Each fall, a sprawling bed of lotus plants in Echo Park Lake is cut down to below the surface of the water.

“The water is really yucky and mucky and disgusting and gross,” said Maile Marquand, “but in the spring, up come these beautiful green leaves and in June, July and August you get absolutely beautiful lotus flowers.”

In celebration of the blooming of the elegant flowers, Marquand is coordinating a free festival this weekend in Echo Park.

“Lotus plants are very special to Asian culture,” Marquand said. “They signify beauty, purity, rebirth and growth.”

As much a trademark of the lake as the spouting fountains, the lotus plants have flourished in the murky waters for decades and have been the focus of a nearly annual festival that dates to 1972.

Some volunteers from a group called the Council of Oriental Organizations approached the city’s department of recreation and parks to put on a festival to “promote an awareness and understanding of the contributions to our culture by the Asian and Pacific Islander people,” officials said.

The 19th annual Lotus Festival will bring together Americans of different Asian backgrounds, including Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Hmong, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Malaysian, Samoan, Thai, Tongan and Vietnamese.

This year the festival will feature Vietnamese American culture, said Larry Phan, who is overseeing the activities. Dancing, music and a pavilion filled with photographs and cultural items from Vietnam will be featured.

Among the highlights of the fair will be dragon boat races, loosely modeled after an ancient Chinese tradition.

They will be raced by local politicians and community groups to raise money for scholarships for students in the Los Angeles Unified, Alhambra and Long Beach school districts, Marquand said.

Vendors also will be touting Asian foods, from barbecued beef and chicken on skewers to more unusual dishes such as lu pulu, a Tongan dish made from taro leaves with corned beef, tomatoes, onions and coconut milk, and sha balib, a deep-fried Tibetan dish of ground beef with onions and other spices stuffed inside a doughy bread.

The Lotus Festival will take place at Echo Park on Glendale Boulevard just north of the Hollywood Freeway, on Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m.