Homesick holidays
Of course there are always people who are just too busy with work to properly observe the Lunar New Year, and so mark the occasion simply by eating a special meal at home or perhaps a restaurant.
In fact, we spend the Lunar New Year in Silicon Valley pretty much the same way folks do it in Taiwan. The only real difference is that individual families over here have evolved certain ways of doing things to suit their own particular circumstances. The core values remain the same.
Almost all Taiwanese parents in Silicon Valley have their children start attending weekend Chinese classes when they reach school age so that they can learn about their family’s cultural roots, which spurs better communication between parents and children. Such classes combine the best aspects of Eastern and Western education, and the acquisition of a second language sharpens the children’s future competitiveness.
That’s why Chinese schools mark each lunar year by holding festivities where the students give performances, and cash envelopes are handed out to all the children. Some schools will hold a school fair where children learn to write new year’s couplets and draw traditional new year’s pictures, and traditional Taiwanese eats are served.
Such activities may not seem to have much immediate impact on a generation that is growing up in America, but the children do come away with a better understanding of their roots, and some sense of connection to the land where their parents are from.
Universities in the Silicon Valley region all have a Taiwanese student association or a Taiwanese American association that holds events from time to time where Taiwanese students can find some relief from homesickness and find mutual support among others of similar background. Such organizations always sponsor Lunar New Year performances and hold banquets on Lunar New Year’s Eve so that students stuck far from Taiwan during the holidays can feel the warmth of the season and not suffer too badly from their longing for home.
Dragons, lions, and firecrackers
San Francisco’s Chinatown is always festooned during the Lunar New Year with lanterns and other traditional ornamentation, and shops decorate in brilliant red color schemes to attract the business of Chinatown visitors. There you can shop for Lunar New Year items at old dry goods stores very reminiscent of the sort seen everywhere in Taiwan decades ago.
In addition to Chinatown, cities with a big ethnic Chinese community can be counted on to organize fairs, parades and other such events around the time of the new year. At a fair you will find booths with goods and eats peculiar to different cultures, and lots of fascinating street artists who make caramel art, edible dough figurines, and more. Parades, meanwhile, attract enthusiastic participation by local school bands, places of business, martial arts troupes, community service organizations, and the like. Even big department stores have begun this year selling clothing and accessories connected in some way with the Year of the Ram.
And some business establishments mark the first business day after the Lunar New Year by hiring a martial arts troupe to do a lion dance or a dragon dance in front of the store, and they may set off huge strings of firecrackers. In traditional Chinese culture, all of this is intended to ensure a prosperous year to come and attract customers. In America, of course, such things are a rare sight.
If you restrict your focus to Silicon Valley’s ethnic Chinese community, the Lunar New Year does indeed have a festive feel, but it’s not an American holiday, after all, so in the larger community, our celebrations are pretty much drowned out by the hubbub of the workaday routine. We just have to rely on our commitment to the culture of our birth if we are to maintain our heritage as a source of pride in the adopted homeland.
I do hope the innovative, hardworking spirit of a Silicon Valley high-tech professional will enable me to lead my life each day as though it were New Year’s Day. I hope I can overcome the obstacles that have held me back in the past. I hope I can take a new mental approach to the new year, and look upon life in all its breadth, height, and depth. Happy New Year!