Vietnamese Lunar New Year Celebration
• Presented by Vietnamese Community of Clark County
• Learn more at www.vnccc.org
Children wearing silky red and yellow long tunics called ao dai beat cymbals, drums and gongs on the stage to begin the Lion Dance.
Two lions, one red and one yellow, rose and began dancing around the stage. Each lion was propelled by a youthful dancer at the head and tail. When the lions wandered through the crowd, squealing children ran toward them. Some offered the lions red envelopes for good luck in the new year.
Hundreds of people from the Vietnamese American community gathered at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School on Saturday afternoon to celebrate the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, also known as Tet. The Vietnamese Community of Clark County has been hosting this event for 40 years, but in the last 15 it’s become more elaborate, said Minh Pham, the organization’s president.
“It’s a way to celebrate our cultural heritage and to share the Vietnamese culture with the community,” Pham said.
It was the first year Jacquelynne Vu of Washougal and her children, Kit Nguyen, 10 and Kaden Nguyen, 5 had attended the festival. In years past, they’ve attended a larger festival in Portland.
“It’s nice to bring the kids here to learn traditional and cultural things,” said Vu.
Vu’s family will visit her children’s grandparents on Vietnamese New Year, which begins Thursday. Traditionally, grandparents give their grandchildren red envelopes with money “for good health, wealth and happiness,” said Vu, whose family emigrated from Vietnam in 1982 when she was 9.
While an adult chorus sang “Vietnam, Vietnam,” dancers Nhi Ly and Angel Bui held oversize woven bamboo hats called lua and waited to perform. Ly, 15, who attends Heritage High School, and Bui, 19, a Clark College student, were born in the U.S. Their parents emigrated from Vietnam.
On stage the god of the kitchen read a long report to heaven about both the good and bad things families had done in the past year, explained Hoa Ly, one of the event organizers.
Backstage, little girls wearing bright dresses prepared to enter the stage for their dance. On Sundays they attend a Vietnamese school in Portland to learn the Vietnamese language, culture and customs.
Although some wiggled in anticipation, when their teacher asked a question, all of them sang in unison in Vietnamese.
After the performances, guests lined up for a traditional New Years dinner which included banh chung, square cakes made with sticky rice, mung beans and pork, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed overnight over a fire.
