Hawaii’s
Back yard
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi
Festival, parade mark isles’
largest Chinese New Year’s
celebrationLong ago, so legend goes, the Jade Emperor, ruler of the world, invited the animals in his kingdom to participate in a contest to determine which of them would represent the years in the Chinese lunar calendar. The winners would be the first to appear before him.
The race began, with all the animals using their wit, wile, strength and speed to complete the journey to the Emperor first. One by one they arrived: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. And that is how the order of the Chinese zodiac came to be.
Night in Chinatown
What: Festival and paradePlace: Maunakea Street between Beretania and King streets
Time: 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday
Admission: Free. Food, drinks, arts and crafts, and other merchandise will be available for purchase.
Unlike the solar calendar, which marks the passing of days by the Earth's movement around the sun, the lunar calendar is determined by the moon's cycles around the Earth. Chinese New Year's Day coincides with the second new moon after the winter equinox. On the lunar calendar, this is a different date every year, always falling between mid-January and mid-February.
This year, Jan. 22 is the first day of the new Year of the Monkey (see sidebar). Friends and family will greet each other with "Kung Hee Fat Choy" (a prosperous New Year), knowing they're starting it with a clean slate. All bills have been paid, grudges have been forgotten and houses have been scrubbed from top to bottom, symbolically removing every trace of misfortune from the old year.
The New Year celebration runs for 15 days, marked by feasts; gifts of li see, the red-and-gold envelopes containing money; and the burning of thousands of firecrackers with the noise believed to frighten evil spirits. Calligraphy conveying wishes for good health, peace and prosperity in the coming year is inscribed on sheets of red paper and hung throughout homes.
RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Chris Polly stood by a pig head, a Filipino delicacy for the new year, at his shop in Chinatown.
In Chinese belief, the lion is a symbol of strength, bravery and wisdom that chases bad luck and brings good fortune. One of the highlights of the Chinese New Year's festivities is the lion dance, performed by a team of agile dancers concealed beneath a stylized, elaborately decorated cloth likeness of a lion. Onlookers "feed" the lion dollar bills in exchange for its blessings.
Food also is a key part of the New Year's fete. Life is not to be taken on New Year's Day, so jai, or vegetarian monk's food, is on the menu in Chinese households. Each ingredient in this traditional dish carries special meaning. For example, long rice stands for longevity; chestnuts, unity; and gum choy (dried golden lilies), wealth.
The sweetmeats given to loved ones and served to guests also bear good thoughts: lotus root symbolizes continuing friendship; squash, a long line of descendants; carrots, wealth; coconut, a close relationship between father and son; ginger, good health; and melon seeds, a wish for many children.
And, of course, there's gao, a steamed round pudding made of rice flour and brown sugar that carries with it hopes that the coming year will be filled with the fulfillment of many dreams and goals. The round shape and stickiness of the pudding symbolizes unity. Its sweet flavor represents the "sweetness" or joy of life. Sesame seeds sprinkled on top signify an abundance of children, and the red date is an emblem of good luck.
STAR-BULLETIN / JANUARY 2003
"Night in Chinatown," a celebration of Chinese New Year, includes a parade down Hotel Street. Jason Louie as a "monk" led the procession of lion dancers.
ON SATURDAY, you can savor a taste of these and other Chinese New Year traditions at the 30th annual Night in Chinatown Festival and Parade. Maunakea Street in downtown Honolulu will be closed to vehicles from early morning until late at night for Hawaii's biggest Chinese New Year's celebration.
"We'll have food and arts and crafts booths lined up on both sides of Maunakea Street," says 84-year-old Sun Hung "Sunny" Wong, executive director of the Chinatown Merchants Association, which sponsors the annual event with the support of the City & County of Honolulu and the Honolulu Chinese Jaycees. "We'll have two entertainment stages, one at King and Maunakea, the other at Pauahi and Maunakea. It'll be a full day of festivities to welcome and kick off the New Year."
At 4 p.m., a parade will start making its way from the State Capitol grounds down Hotel to River Street. Dozens of units will be participating, among them the Royal Hawaiian Band, color guards from McKinley and Farrington High Schools, martial arts experts, lion dance groups and VIPs riding in convertibles, including the reigning Miss Chinatown Hawaii and Miss Chinatown USA and their courts.
"Other ethnic groups also will be represented in the parade," says Wong. "The Laotians, Vietnamese and others always join in the fun. We'll have close to 500 people in the parade. It'll end with a 125-foot-long dragon brought to life by 20 dancers."
According to Wong, the purpose of the Night in Chinatown Festival and Parade is to generate interest in Chinese culture and traffic for businesses in Chinatown. He has helped plan the event since its inception in 1974, and when he retired in 1977 as an administrator at Pearl Harbor's Navy Supply Center, he was able to devote more time to it.
"Many of the people who come to the event are mainland tourists," Wong says. "We get phone calls from people as far away as Georgia, saying, 'When are you having your event because we want to plan our vacation during that time.'
"A lot more people don't even know about it. I think this kind of event is important for tourism, but it doesn't get the attention that it deserves from our leaders in tourism. They're not looking this way, they're not looking over the fence. The beauty of Night in Chinatown is that it not only benefits the Chinese community, it benefits the entire state."
STAR-BULLETIN / 1996
Calligrapher Dong Sui Ming wrote the Chinese words meaning longevity, wealth and nobility on red paper as wishes for the new year.
BACK TO TOP |
The monkey personality
Monkey years: 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004Monkeys are warm, buoyant and spontaneous, often with radiant smiles and humorous and mischievous twinkles in their eyes. You cannot help but be delighted by their company. They are capable of great concentration and hard work, an,d with their superb intelligence, insightfulness and remarkable skills, they are a great asset when on your side.
This is the sign not only of the trickster and improviser, but of the motivator and inventor. With their keen insight, monkeys make excellent critics. They are clever, quick-witted, innovative, highly flexible and fast learners, able to readily absorb information and solve complex problems with ease.
STAR-BULLETIN / 2001
Chow Hop Ng, owner of Shung Chong Yuein a Chinatown bakery, showed a tray of the sweet pudding gao.
Monkeys have lively personalities and great joie de vivre. Instinctively brilliant strategists who are supremely confident in their abilities, they are undaunted by a challenge -- in fact, they delight in it. They rely on skill and mental agility rather than on brute strength. In their pursuit of money, success and power, their prowess is unmatchable.
Some famous monkeys: Milton Berle, Jacqueline Bisset, Bette Davis, Charles Dickens, Paul Gauguin, Mel Gibson, Rex Harrison, Mick Jagger, Lyndon Johnson, Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Matthau, Peter O'Toole, Nelson Rockefeller, Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman
Excerpted from "Chinese Astrology" by Damian Sharp
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based free-lance writer and Society of American Travel Writers award winner.
