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Chinese welcome New Year
Chinese New Year
Video
Gene Huang, whose family owns Girard Wok, explains a tradition associated with Chinese New Year.
GIRARD
The Nian was a horrible beast in the night, with the head of a dragon, the body of a giant lion and enormous claws and teeth.
It first wreaked havoc in China about 4,000 years ago at this time of year.
“Stomping on crops, taking away livestock, taking down houses,” said Gene Huang at the Girard Wok, his parents’ restaurant, Wednesday afternoon.
“But then once, someone threw a piece of bamboo in the fire, and it exploded,” he explained.
The beast ran away, and so by accident, the Chinese discovered they could chase it off with loud noises.
Guo Nian. New Year. Its literal translation, Huang said, is “cast out the beast.”
Every year though, the beast comes back. So the Chinese chase it away again, about this time, when the Lunar calendar dictates the date. Chinese New Year will always fall sometime in January or February, he said. This year, it is today — the year of the sheep begins.
Wednesday, Chinese families began gathering to welcome it in. They eat traditional foods, and yes, throw firecrackers to scare the mythical Nian.
It is the biggest holiday for the Chinese, said Huang, 27, who lives on the West Coast but came back to spend it with his mom, Sue Zhang, and dad, Xin Zheng.
They were expecting about 30 people at their restaurant at 9 p.m. to begin a celebration with “30 or 40 different dishes,” he said.
“New Year cake — and weird, like seaweed, which is considered prosperous,” he said.
“Roasted chicken, roasted pork, greens — every dish we eat has got to mean something,” he added.
“We eat fish,” he said, “for prosperity.”
“‘Nian nian you yu,’ it means, ‘You will prosper every year, [if you eat fish.]” Yu, he said, is the same word for abundance and fish in Chinese.
“It’s a pun!” he said. “We don’t eat anything here because of puns. Over there, they love their puns, man.”
Huang left China for the U.S. when he was 13, and he can well remember what New Year celebrations were like in a small town in China “back in the day.”
Children get red envelopes for gifts of “lucky money.”
“You sleep with money under your pillow, and it gets rid of bad dreams,” he said.
“The night before — there’s so much to eat, and fireworks and red lamps everywhere. It’s so safe, and everyone goes out.”
“The next day,” he continued, everyone goes visiting and says, ‘happy New Year.’”
In China, the New Year celebration is in the middle of a 15-day spring festival that ends with a street celebration.
At other Chinese establishments in the Valley contacted by The Vindicator, Wednesday night was work as usual.
Some said absent family members were the reason why celebrations weren’t planned.
Wei He, whose parent Wong He and Wendy Pam own Chinatown in Boardman, also can remember New Year’s in China. He left there when he was 16.
He and his family were planning a traditional meal, and they would watch the celebration show in China on the Internet.
“In China, it was much more fun,” he said.
Joyce Chen, who retired five years ago from the Girard Library, was planning to attend the dinner at the Girard Wok.
She has been a friend of the family’s since they came to the Youngstown area and helped them learn English.
Born in Singapore, she has been in the U.S. since 1958 and raised her family here.
It’s a tradition, she said, for families to reunite on New Year’s.
“Here in Youngstown, we don’t have too many Chinese families,” she said.
So families from other areas in Ohio and western Pennsylvania gathered Sunday at the Royal Grill Buffet in Boardman.
“Any Chinese family who wanted to get together” did so, she said. She attended with her son, grandson and daughter-in-law. About 140 people were there.
There was a lion dance, which is a tradition to scare away the Nian; and food with meaning.
There would be plenty to eat at the Girard Wok, and a lion dance, too.
Then what? “We eat,” said Chen, “and say goodbye.”
Huang said he had one more tradition left to follow: He would throw a string of firecrackers out the front door, just in case the Nian was still around.