▪ Female Lion Dance team hosted workshops for children in Boston’s Chinatown
▪ Chinese adoptees connected each other by celebrating Lunar New Year
Walking, sniffing, bowing and lifting with colorful Lion’s head and drum beats, a team of performers kicked off the Lunar Year Celebration in Chinatown with the Lion Dance on Feb.17, a tradition meant to bring good luck and fortune in the year ahead.
At Pao Art Center, the event was hosted by Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, an organization serves and connects Asian and new immigrants.
People could drop in a series of free family-friendly activities, including Lion Dance workshop, paper craft workshops, Chinese calligraphy demonstrations and exhibition tours of contemporary Asian artworks.
“It’s a great time in Chinatown,” said Cynthia Woo, the director of Pao Art Center. “It’s an opportunity for people to talk to each other, get to know each other and learn from each other.”
Carmen Chan, the master of the team, who has performed Lion Dance for 20 years, said Lion Dance was based on martial arts and it was not only a ritual but also a good exercise for health.
She founded a female athletic team in 2017, which is named after the mother goddess of Chinese mythology, Nüwa, who created mankind and repaired the Pillar of Heaven.
“Lion Dance used to deny women,” said Chan. She hoped the name of their team can show women’s strength and courage.
“We believe whatever men can do women can do it as well,” said Callie Dwyer, a coach of the Nüwa athletic team. She started learning Lion Dance from Chan when she was in preschool and now she is a high school student.
Chan and her partners organized three Lion Dance workshops for children at Pao Art Center and every child who attended the workshop could get a chance to wear colorful Lion’s head and learn some basic movements.
In the past, there was a monster named “Nian” who destroyed villages and hurt people around China, she started the workshop with the legend of Lion Dance while children sitting around her on the floor and parents were at the back of the ballroom.
People wore like lions, played drums and lit fireworks to scare the monster away and those things became rituals later, she continued.
After telling the legend, she and her partners made a demonstration for children and divided them into four groups based on their heights. Four coaches instructed each group individually and at the end of the workshop, the four groups gave Lion Dance performances one by one.
At another room of Pao Art Center, people were writing wishes on small pieces of paper, putting them in red envelops and hanging them on a wish tree. Those red envelopes were decorated with flowers and printed with different best wishes written in Chinese, like “Happy New Year” and “May you be prosperous.”
This was designed by FCCNE (Friends of Families with Children from China New England) and CCI (China’s Children International), two networks created to support adoptees from China.
“We do this to celebrate the Lunar New Year, meet people who are with our organization or are interested in our organization,” said Emily Curran, the president of FCCNE. The volunteers for this event were all Chinese adoptees who were over 18 years old, she said.
She said at the event she met several families with adopted Chinese kids from far away, like from New Hampshire. Those kids have few chances to access Chinese culture and have few Chinese friends, so celebrating the Lunar New Year together was a good chance to connect them.
“Chinatown in Boston is really the center of Chinese culture in this area,” she said.
Pointing at a province on the map of China, Maya Bergaamasco said, “I come from Anhui province.”
Bergaamasco was brought to the U.S. when she was six months old and grew up on a farm in Massachusetts.
“I’m one of the eight Chinese students of my entire school,” she said. “It’s a little hard cause we don’t have a lot in common.”
According to her, everyone Chinese adoptee “has a different story.” Some parents think it is important to let their kid access Chinese culture while some parents do not.
I did not get those Lunar Year rituals when I was a kid, but I like them, she said.
People could also learn how to use chopsticks, write Chinese characters and try Chinese snacks at Pao Art Center.
Grace Leung, an immigrant from Hong Kong, China, came to the event with her husband, son and daughter. She said she was happy to watch firework shows in Boston, a ritual for Lunar New Year.
Firework has been forbidden in Hong Kong for it was easy to hurt people in such a crowded place, she said.
Rogina Galasso of Northampton said, “Lion Dance is a big attraction.” She came to the event because her daughter is interested in Chinese culture.
Her daughter, Julia, who attended the Lion Dance workshop, said, “I like it a lot.”
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