Welcoming the Dragon

As a child, May Chin celebrated the lunar new year with several other families in her village of Kaiping in the Kwong Tung province of China.

But nowadays, the Reseda resident, now 67, marks the first day of the year and the first day of spring with her Chinese American friends at Evergreen Senior Center in Northridge.

Earlier this week, the close-knit group gathered there for a holiday luncheon to celebrate 4698, the Year of the Dragon, which officially begins today.

The lunar new year is the most significant holiday in many Asian cultures. Vietnamese call it Tet Nguyen Dan, and Koreans call it Sol. Those born in Dragon years are said to be wealthy, wise, powerful and eccentric.

“In the village, we prepared for months,” Chin said. “We raised chickens, six or seven families raised a pig together, we planted and grew our own vegetables--everything was from scratch.”

But now, it’s much easier to prepare for the annual feast, Chin said. “We just go to the store and buy everything.”

Although times have changed, the elderly men and women say their desire to celebrate a common cultural bond remains strong.

And so, they crowded into a kitchen to prepare a traditional Chinese meal of glazed chicken, soup and dumplings.

Lisa Kwan of Simi Valley scooped fish paste into a hot skillet. The fried fish cakes would be added to a “unity soup” of shrimp, turnips, cabbage, green onions and parsley.

As Kwan worked the stove, half a dozen women stood at an oversized table making dumplings.

With assembly-line precision, they kneaded dough, rolled it out into small circles, spooned on a mixture of shrimp, mushrooms and bamboo shoots and folded the circles in half.

Lun Gim Wong joined Kwan at the stove and swirled the dumplings into a huge wok in which the pastries bobbed in heated oil and quickly turned golden brown.

Meanwhile, others decorated the tables with flower blossoms, tangerines, grapefruit, coconut candy, wafers, pistachio nuts and lai see, or lucky money, tucked into red and gold foil envelopes.

“Everything has symbolism,” said Nancy Cheung, the center’s program director, pointing to the table decorations.

Fresh flowers represent renewal, fruit depicts prosperity, and pistachio nuts symbolize happiness, she said.

Chinese families on both sides of the Pacific traditionally clean and paint their homes, buy new clothes and wash their hair to cleanse themselves and their surroundings of evil spirits before the lunar new year begins, Cheung said.

“Even though I came from Hong Kong to America, I still passed [the traditions] on to my children,” Cheung said. “You don’t want to lose it.”

The Rev. Johnny Chan, pastor of the Chinese Christian Alliance Church in Northridge, where the center is headquartered, sat at another table writing greetings in Chinese.

As he dipped a brush in black ink and skillfully drew the symbols onto red paper, Chan said the lunar new year celebration has its roots in a legend that ancient villagers used the color red, fire and loud drums to keep a beast from attacking them.

Today, Chan said, greetings written on red paper--known as Chinese couplets--are hung up in homes for good luck, and firecrackers are used to ward off evil spirits.

“Chinese people are very proud of their traditions,” he said. “They want the next generation to remember their traditions and heritage.”