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Arts & Entertainment

Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit This Weekend

The San Leandro Public Library is celebrating the Lunar New Year this Saturday with a multicultural Asian celebration.

Catch cultural dance groups, a 10-year-old acclaimed Chinese opera singer and a magician named Chin-Chin at a Lunar New Year celebration at the this Saturday, Feb. 5. This year is the Year of the Rabbit.

The library is holding the free event as part of its activities for , which focuses on the book The Joy Luck Club as part of an effort to get the community reading.

The Lunar New Year, which lands on Feb. 3 this year, marks the start of the lunar calendar and is celebrated by a number of Asian American communities, including Chinese, Japanese Korean, Vietnamese, Tibetan and Mongolian.

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At one time, Americans only knew it as "Chinese New Year," because some of the earliest celebrations going back to the Gold Rush were held by Chinese. But with the Bay Area's markedly changed demographics, the new year according to the lunar calendar can be known in many different ways in many languages.

Whether you call it Seolnal, Tet, Sun Neen, Xin Nian, or just the New Year, the festivities reflect a great celebration for visiting family and friends, big, celebratory meals, new clothes, and getting off on the right foot to set the tone for the entire year ahead. 

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San Leandro is incorporating traditions from multiple Asian cultures at its Lunar New Year event this Saturday. Activities include cultural dances, Asian arts and crafts, martial arts demonstrations, traditional food and beverage and more.

The event runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the library's Karp and Estudillo rooms.

Lion Dancers, martial arts demonstrators and Vietnamese cultural dancers will perform between 11 a.m. and noon.

At noon, a storyteller will read aloud parts of Amy Tan's Moon Lady.

In the afternoon, performers include the Young Swallows Youth Orchestra of the ; Flora Hui, an acclaimed 10-year-old Chinese opera singer; Ms. Wei’s  Children Dancers of the ; and world-famous magician Chin-Chin.

The celebration will end with a performance by the Thai Classical Dancers of the Wat Buddhapradeep Temple in San Bruno.

Throughout the day, the Asian Community Cultural Association of San Leandro will be providing arts and crafts activities for children.

Traditional Asian food and drink will also be available for purchase. 

Year of the Rabbit

People born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented and ambitious, according to the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. They are said to be lucky with money, knowledgeable in business and to seldom lose their temper.

The last Year of the Rabbit was 1999.

Even though 2011 is most commonly mentioned as the Year of the Rabbit, in the related Vietnamese New Year it is celebrated as the Year of the Cat.

There are many other Lunar New Year celebrations around the Bay Area. Here are some you might want to check out. 

Chinese dances and parade in Albany: Thursday Feb. 3, the Community Center will  that includes singing, dancing, martial arts demonstrations, dragon dancers and gift bags for children. Learn about the history of the Chinese Zodiac and Lunar New Year traditions.

Catch free dance and acrobatic performances Sunday, Feb. 6, at the . Among the festivities are a performance by SF Circus, a lion dance and martial arts demonstration by Golden Lion, Chinese dances performed by members of Ah-Lan Dance and music courtesy of Wind Chinese Music Academy. Performances are from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by a parade that has an open invitation for all to join, noon to 1 p.m. More information can be found at www.solanostroll.org, or call 510-527-5358.

Oakland Lunar New Year's Festival: The Oakland Asian Cultural Center will include elements of Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Vietnamese and Filipino cultures in its celebration of Lunar New Year's at 388 Ninth St., Suite 290, second floor, Feb. 12, 12-4 p.m. The free event will present demonstrations of fruit carving, Chinese calligraphy and brush painting as well as performances by the center's teachers and their students. For program details, click here.

Chinese New Year's Festival and Parade in San Francisco: The San Francico parade started in the 1860s and has grown into the largest celebration of Asian culture outside of Asia.

This year over 100 units will present colorful floats, elaborate costumes, ferocious lion dances and exploding firecrackers. The newly crowned Miss Chinatown U.S.A. will show up with her court. It is one of the few remaining illuminated nighttime parades in America.

If you find it interesting but don't feel like driving all the way to San Francisco, you can watch it on KTVU Fox 2 or KTSF Channel 26 on Feb. 19, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Chinatown Community Street Fair: San Francisco Chinatown will hold a street fair on the weekend of the parade, Feb. 19 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Feb. 20 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Attendance at the two-day fair has averaged 500,000 and is estimated to be on the same scale this year. The fair will feature lantern and kite making, calligraphy, fine arts demonstrations, folk dance, and puppet shows. All the activities will take place on Grant Avenue from Clay to Broadway, on Pacific Avenue from Kearny to Stockton, and on Jackson Street from Kearny to Stockton.

Vietnamese Tet Festival in San Jose: Tet means "new year" in Vietnamese. Lunar New Year's originated in China but is a Vietnamese holiday as well. Both Chinese and Vietnamese calendars have 12 animals that take turns representing a year, and they share 11 animals, but the Chinese Year of the Rabbit is the Vietnamese Year of the Cat this year.

A grand festival celebrating the cat year will take place at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, 344 Tully Road, San Jose, on Feb. 5 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m and Feb. 6 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. This is the largest overseas Vietnamese annual event worldwide. It presents over 100 programs and draws 40,000 to 70,000 attendees every year. For detailed information about its programs, click here

Foster City's "Temple Fair": Foster City will host a free Lunar New Year's festival at Lagoon Room of the Recreation Center, 650 Shell Blvd., Feb. 6, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Based on the Chinese tradition of having holiday celebrations on temple grounds, the event is themed "Temple Fair." It will spotlight a Chinese American re-creation of a village street fair, where there will be musical, acrobatic and lion dance performances, tea ceremonies, demonstrations of ancient martial arts, calligraphy and brush painting, art exhibitions, Chinese opera-style face painting, and animated storytelling in Chinese and English.

Participants will also see the 12 Chinese zodiac animal characters and can snap photos with them. More details are available online.

Acrobats of China at Flint Center in Cupertino: A world-class performance by the acclaimed Guangzhou Acrobatic Troupe of China begins at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 11. The awe-inspiring troupe is a top award-winning group and has snagged France's President's Prize for the Tomorrow Acrobatics Festival, the Golden Clown Award for the Monte Carlo Circus Festival and first prize for the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships. Learn more here.

Lantern Festival in Santa Clara: The 15th day of Lunar New Year's marks the first full moon of the lunar year, and the Chinese traditionally celebrate it with exhibitions of lanterns that make the full-moon night even brighter.

Lantern festivals are rarely seen outside of China and Taiwan, but there will be one at Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara Feb. 12 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m, sponsored by the South Bay Taiwanese Association.

During an exhibition of colorful lanterns, there will be dance performances as well as a demonstration of how to make a rabbit-shaped lantern in celebration of the Year of the Rabbit.

There will also be teachers showing children how to make sweet rice balls, the quintessential dessert for the Lantern Festival, from scratch. The hotel kitchen staff will cook the sweet rice balls for all participants of the event. The dessert will follow a buffet lunch, both included in the ticket prices, $25 per adult and $5 per child in advance, or $35 per adult and $15 per child at door. To purchase tickets, e-mail pishun8@yahoo.com.


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