Out with the rat, in with the ox: Chinese-American community celebrates new year
by Jennifer Escalona
Metro Atlanta’s Chinese-American community is celebrating the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year this month by spending time with family and friends, eating traditional foods and participating in customary festivities such as the lion dance and the giving and receiving of money in decorative red envelopes.
Greetings of “Happy New Year” filled the Canton House Restaurant on Buford Highway on Saturday, where DeKalb County State Court Judge Alvin Wong served as master of ceremonies at a banquet hosted by the National Association of Chinese Americans’ (NACA) Atlanta chapter. There, members of metro Atlanta’s Chinese-American community gathered with friends and colleagues – from local business leaders to Miss Georgia USA Kimberly Ann Gittings – to ring in the Year of the Ox.
Yu Boren, deputy consul general of the People’s Republic of China, spoke at the banquet. He explained that the Year of the Ox represents “prosperity, fortitude, and hard work.” Several attendees expressed their wish that the new year would bode better than the previous Year of the Rat, which is sometimes regarded as unlucky in Chinese culture.
Wearing a traditional Chinese hand-embroidered dress she bought in Beijing, Lei Shan, a senior vice president at Merill Lynch, praised Atlanta’s Chinese New Year festivities. After leaving her home in Xian, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors, Shan lived in two American cities with no Chinese New Year celebration. “I am happy to have found such a wonderful celebration in Atlanta,” she said.
But while Chinese New Year here in metro Atlanta is a lavish affair, with banquets, parties and festivities at the Chinese Culture Center in Chamblee, it can’t hold a candle (or fireworks) to the celebration back home. “In China, New Year is like [American] Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year all rolled into one,” remarked banquet attendee and NACA Board Member Steven Gu. “There are so many fireworks you find yourself driving under them.”
NACA Vice President Jian Ouyang detailed some of the traditions that occur in the 15 days of festivities. “It is traditional to eat fish,” he explained, “because in Chinese the word for fish sounds like the word for ‘extra.’”
Much like the American tradition of eating black eyed-peas and collards on New Year’s Day, Chinese celebrants, too, search for luck in traditional dishes. Ouyang also explained why New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is a favorite of younger generations. “When they say ‘Happy new year’ to the older generation, they often receive envelopes full of money.”
These red envelopes, decorated with gold characters symbolizing good luck, made an appearance at the banquet in the traditional lion dance. Two athletic young men dressed in over-sized, richly colored lion costumes cavorted around the dance floor to the sound of fast-beating drums.
Under the guidance of a kung fu instructor, they acrobatically mimicked a lion’s movements, coming together and retreating, posing majestically and sometimes approaching audience members who proffered those lucky red envelopes. The spectacle won loud cheers from the audience, as did the ladies of the Cathay Atlantic Art Ensemble after performing a traditional Chinese dance.
The Atlanta Chinese New Year celebration promises to grow in popularity and draw metro Atlanta’s Chinese American community back year after year. Said Wei Hu, a NACA past president, “Let’s put it this way, I first attended this celebration in 1997, and I haven’t missed a year since.”
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