by Ardeana Hamlin
of The Weekly Staff
Lilian Lo, who with her husband, Victor, is co-owner of the Oriental Jade restaurant and bar in Bangor, is looking forward welcoming a new year on Feb. 19 — Chinese New Year, a celebration that says hello to the new and goodbye to the old. It’s the year of the goat and the Chinese year 4713, she said.
The focus of Chinese New Year, Lo said, is year-end dinners, family reunions and entertaining important guests. Drums and gongs are sounded and the lion dance and dragon dance takes place to scare away evil spirits. The Oriental Jade will have a New Year’s banquet Feb. 19-21, the first three days of the New Year celebration, which lasts 15 days.
For the second year, Chinese New Year parade ceremonies, co-ordinated by the Maine China Network, will take place Thursday, Feb. 19, in the Bangor Mall. Registration is 2:15-3:10 p.m., line-up at 3:10 p.m., opening speech at 3:25 p.m. and the parade 3:30-4 p.m.
The Oriental Jade, area restaurants, businesses and Asian students will take part in the parade, which will feature the Lion Dance and the Dragon Dance. “There will be [someone dressed as] a panda and a goat,” Lo said.
Lo estimated that there are as many as 400 Asian boarding high school students in the Bangor area and beyond to whom Chinese New Year is an important celebration. “I know 100 families in the Bangor area who will attend our celebration,” she said. “There are many multi-cultural families who live in the Bangor area, families who have adopted Chinese children.”
“Each year we want to make it better,” she said. “The kitchen god goes away for a little while, then comes back at the New Year.”
The kitchen god will have a lot to preside over since food is an important aspect of Chinese New Year. Many special foods will be eaten during the celebration. “No meat [is eaten] the first morning of Chinese New Year,” Lo said. “[Dishes contain] ingredients symbolic of good fortune, wealth and health. Lotus seeds symbolize offspring, bamboo shoots ensure that all will be well, dry bean curd is eaten to ensure the fulfillment of wealth and happiness. Whole fish and whole chicken to symbolize completeness. Rising cakes mean rising to the next level, spiritually and in other ways.”
Then there are the dumplings, which symbolize family unity. Families get together to make them from scratch.
The dominant color of Chinese New Year is red. “It’s important to wear red,” Lo said.
During the celebration, red packets containing a gold or silver coin are handed out to younger, unmarried people, which they save and open the next Chinese New Year. “These are called laisee or hong bai,” Lo said.
“New Year is the biggest festival of the Chinese people, the most important,” Lo said. “It also is called the Spring Festival. It’s based on the lunar calendar.”
As it has for many years, the Oriental Jade will host a party for patrons who have been frequent visitors to the restaurant in the past year.
“I am looking forward to the New Year,” Lo said. “I am hoping everyone will be renewed and refreshed.”
For information, go to orientaljade.com.