As a young boy, Marvin Shim remembers helping his parents ready their house for Chinese New Year. Cleaning went on for a week. Every room was thoroughly vacuumed; every item was polished, wiped or scrubbed, including windows, appliances, light fixtures and porcelain figurines.
"According to Chinese custom, New Year’s is when you should literally start off with a clean slate," said the 69-year-old Shim, a retired communication technician for Hawaiian Telcom. "Your house should be spotless; the clothes in your closet should be washed and pressed. ‘Clean slate’ also means finances; all your debts should be paid off."
Shim’s mother spent several days preparing and cooking traditional dishes with ingredients such as black mushrooms to welcome spring, noodles representing long life and dried bean curd to bring blessings. Although everyone enjoyed nibbling on candied fruits and vegetables — including kumquat, coconut, winter melon, carrot and lotus root — gao (steamed rice pudding) was and still is considered the most important confection because it represents family cohesiveness.
"I’m the gao maker in my family," Shim said. "When I was growing up, I helped my parents steam it in a large outdoor wok that was heated by fire. I fed the fire with wood every hour throughout the night. The recipe I use is more than a century old; it has been handed down in my family through the generations."
Maui’s Chinese community shares many such memories and traditions at the annual Maui Chinese New Year Festival. The Maui Chinese Club and Maui Chinese Cultural Society launched the first festival in 1999 as part of an initiative to revitalize old Wailuku town. It moved to neighboring Kahului three years later.
As president of both the Chinese Club and the Cultural Society, Shim was on the committee that planned the inaugural event. In 2003 he became chairman, a role he held for 10 years before turning over the reins to his wife, Sarah, two years ago.
IF YOU GO …
MAUI CHINESE NEW YEAR
» Where: Maui Mall, 70 E. Kaahumanu Ave., Kahului
» When: 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday
» Admission: Free; food, drinks, arts and crafts will be available for sale
» Phone: 870-8047
» Email: yukilei.sugimura@gmail.com
» Website: Plenty of free parking is available at the mall. Bring cash for purchases because most vendors will not be able to handle charge card transactions.
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They have been researching Chinese history in Hawaii for years. "The Chinese began settling on Maui in the late 1700s, about the same time as Westerners," Shim said. "Initially they were primarily poor farmers from the Guangdong province in southern China who willingly left their homeland for the chance of a better life even if it was in faraway tropical islands. Among the few things they brought with them were their cultural traditions."
The Maui Chinese New Year Festival helps preserve those precious links to the past. Offerings on the Ritual Table beside the main stage will include narcissus plants, fresh fruit and sweets such as gao, almond cookies, sesame seed candy and gin doi (doughnuts).
There will be an exhibit of children’s art revolving around a Year of the Sheep theme, and youngsters can participate in the Keiki Chinese Attire Contest, tracing New Year’s greetings in Chinese and making a paper sheep with cupcake liners.
This year’s festival will also feature lion dances, tai chi demonstrations and a cooking contest with firefighters preparing different variations of lamb stir-fry. Attendees can take pictures with an elaborate lion dance head; peruse a historical display spotlighting Chinese families on Maui; enjoy manapua, chow mein, beef broccoli, crispy gau gee and other delicious fare; and take home trinkets and treasures, including charms, dolls, puppets, jade jewelry and good-luck sayings written by a calligrapher on red paper scrolls.
"The whole community comes to celebrate Chinese New Year at the festival whether or not they’re of Chinese ancestry," Shim said.
"I’ve seen Hawaiian kupuna (elders) doing tai chi. Kids with blond hair and blue eyes have participated in the Chinese attire contest; in fact, last year’s winner was pure Italian! That’s what’s so great about living in Hawaii: ‘Local culture’ is a wonderful mixed plate. We can learn about and practice traditions from all the different ethnic groups that call Hawaii home."
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.
ABOUT CHINESE NEW YEAR
Since Chinese New Year is determined by the lunar calendar, the actual date changes every year. It usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice (i.e., sometime between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 on the more widely used Gregorian calendar).
With festivities spanning two weeks, this is the longest and most important holiday in Chinese tradition. It’s associated with the Chinese zodiac, a 12-year cycle with an animal representing each year: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep or goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. This year, Chinese New Year Day is Thursday, beginning the Year of the Sheep.
Representing good fortune and new life after winter, flowers are a key part of Chinese New Year decorations, the most popular being the sweet, delicate narcissus. It is said that if a narcissus plant blooms on New Year’s Day, it will bring prosperity to the household for the entire year.
Celebratory foods include jai, a vegetarian stew eaten on New Year’s Day; gin doi, doughnuts filled with char siu, shredded coconut or sweet black bean paste; and gao, a sticky steamed rice pudding topped with sesame seeds symbolizing fertility and a red date for good luck.
Like the loud bursts of firecrackers that are always a part of Chinese New Year’s fetes, red supposedly wards off evil spirits; hence, li see — monetary gifts to wish recipients happiness, good health, longevity and good fortune during the coming year — are always enclosed in red envelopes.
SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES
9 a.m.: Tai chi demonstration
9:30 a.m.: Tai chi
10 a.m.: Welcome by Mayor Alan Arakawa, opening blessing, firecrackers and lion dance
10:45 a.m.: Keiki Art Contest winners are announced
11 a.m.: Keiki Chinese Attire Contest
11:45 a.m.: Tai chi
Noon: Keiki Chinese Attire Contest winners are announced
12:15 p.m.: Cooking contest
12:45 p.m.: Tai chi
1:15 p.m.: Tai chi
1:30 p.m.: Live music featuring the guitar and erhu, a two-string musical instrument played with a bow
1:45 p.m.: Children’s kung fu demonstration
2 p.m.: Lion dance, firecrackers and closing blessing