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A time to rejoice

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By Milton D. Carrero Galarza

Staff Writer

January 26, 2003

When the Chinese New Year arrives Saturday, the first

thing James Zhang will do is pick up the phone and go

through a list of at least 20 people to wish them a

prosperous new year.

He'll call his family first, then everyone he can

remember, from lifelong friends to university

advisers. For Zhang, a Pembroke Pines resident who has

lived in the United States for eight years, the phone

is as close as he can get to his native land.

"Sometimes you want to talk to people, but you don't

have any reason," he said. "The new year gives you a

reason to call and give people a good wish. Some

people who are not getting along, they call and they

get along again."

Zhang is among nearly 25,000 Chinese-Americans in

South Florida who will celebrate the New Year at

various e! vents during the next two weekends. The

celebrations will feature everything from a dragon

boat race and festival along the New River in Fort

Lauderdale to acrobatics and folk music in Boynton

Beach to traditional dances at the Palm Beach Zoo at

Dreher Park.

The Chinese New Year is the most important celebration

in China. It also is known as the Spring Festival

because it marks the beginning of spring, a day most

people have longed for since the winter festival,

which marks the coldest day of the year.

"After the coldest day, the hope for spring and New

Year begins," Zhang said. "It means that spring is

coming. Life is coming back."

It's a time to rejoice. Most people in China take at

least a week off from work, giving them time to visit

all the family and friends they have not seen during

the year. Food abounds. They spend New Year's Eve

cooking dumplings, and ring in the New Year watching

trails of fireworks on the horizon. Everyone wears new

clothes! and children open rewards that are kept in a

hongbao, a red envelope used for traditional

celebrations.

"It's like Christmas here," said Jie Wu, a computer

science engineer who lives in Boca Raton.

The Chinese lunar new year dates as far back as 2600

B.C., when Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle

of the zodiac. Legend has it that the Lord Buddha

summoned all the animals to come to him before he

departed from earth. He named each year in honor of

the 12 animals that came to him.

The Chinese believe the animal ruling the year in

which a person is born has a profound influence on

personality.

This year is the year of the sheep. People who will be

born this year are believed to be charming, elegant

and artistic.

While it is often difficult for businesspeople to

adapt to the Chinese calendar, the lunar cycle has

proved invaluable for farmers in China. The 15th of

every month marks the full moon, which serves as a

guide to determine whe! n to plant crops. The months

are based on a 29.5-day cycle, which is why the New

Year always falls on a different day in relation to

the solar calendar used in western society.

Even Chester Yuan, director of the Chinese Cultural

Association of Coral Springs, sometimes has trouble

keeping up with the lunar calendar. He did not have to

think twice about it when he was growing up in Taiwan.

But after 22 years of using the solar calendar in the

United States, he has come close to missing important

Chinese celebrations.

But not the Spring Festival.

When Yuan knows the New Year is approaching, he begins

to closely watch his solar calendar. Below each date

on his western calendar, he has written the Chinese

character for the Chinese lunar date, so he is able to

track both.

Most people cannot afford to take the entire week off

from work as they would in China, and that forces

organizations to schedule activities on the weekend

after New Year's ! Day to ensure attendance.

This year, however, the New Year falls on a Saturday,

so Chinese-Americans will be celebrating at almost the

same time as their relatives and friends in China. But

there also will be activities on the following

weekend.

"We don't have the environment that we have in China,

so we have to create it by ourselves," said Monica

Shang, of West Palm Beach. "But if it were in China, I

don't think we would have the same spirit because it's

natural. I don't think it's necessary there."

In South Florida, the Chinese-American population is

low compared with such cities as Los Angeles, San

Francisco, New York, Boston or Chicago. As a result,

every New Year's activity is important. People drive

40 or 50 miles to attend an event, said Ren Xu, a

Pembroke Pines resident who is president of the

Chinese Association of Science, Economy and Culture of

South Florida.

It's one of the few times the entire community can get

together, Xu said.

It's also an opportunity for parents to teach their

American children about Chinese culture, Shang said.

"My children enjoy Christmas better than the Chinese

New Year," she said. "It takes an effort to educate

them. We want the kids to be exposed to the culture.

It's a chance for people to speak Chinese. It's good

for the kids."

Shang plans to celebrate the New Year intensely. She

will begin by eating dumplings and taking her children

to visit friends in the morning to wish them a

prosperous year. She then will perform Chinese folk

songs at two events, at 1:30 p.m. at the zoo in Dreher

Park and at a celebration scheduled for 7 p.m. at

Boynton Beach High School.

Shang will sing a song about a woman who is going back

to her mother's house for the Spring Festival after

one year of marriage. The woman is carrying a chicken

and a duck in her hands and a baby on her back. She is

happy.

But it starts raining. The makeup on the woman's face

turns i! nto mud. The chicken and duck leave and the

baby cries, and the woman wonders how she can return

home this way.

This is one of the traditional songs often performed

by Chinese-Americans in the United States during the

Spring Festival. The songs were popular in China a few

decades ago.

"The current songs we don't know," Shang said. "It

takes time for those songs to come here and for us to

learn them."

So is the case with almost every aspect of the New

Year celebration in South Florida.

"We celebrate from our memory," said Yuan, the

director of the Coral Springs-based cultural

association.

Like millions of other Chinese people, Michael Liu

will watch the traditional New Year television show

broadcast by the Chinese government. He will be

watching it from his living room in Pembroke Pines.

It's part of Liu's attempt to recreate New Year's Day

in his early childhood, when he would dress in new

clothes and get on a bus to visit family me! mbers he

hadn't seen during the year. This year, family members

are visiting from China, so it will be a warm

celebration.

Still, the environment of the traditional celebration

cannot be replicated from afar, which make these

couple of weekends all the more meaningful.

"The feeling [in South Florida] is different," Liu

said.

In the end, most Chinese-American families will have

no choice but to turn to the phone.

Some people, such as Jie Wu, a computer science

engineer who lives in Boca Raton, will wake up at 6

a.m. to call his family in Shanghai.

He knows he must call before the Chinese-American

communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco wake up.

A few hours later, and the phone lines will be jammed

with other nostalgic voices calling to wish loved ones

a year of luck and prosperity.

Milton D. Carrero Galarza can be reached at

mcarrero@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7912.

Our Community's Many Faces periodically spotlig! hts

one of the dozens of nationalities conducting South

Florida celebrations of cultural and historic

milestones.

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