CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION 
By Major Thomas Mui, Corps Officer at Chinatown Corps Community Center

On Chinese New Year Day, February 8th, the Chinatown Corps served 450 hot meals to members of the local community. This event is sponsored by Mr. Pius Lee. Mr. Lee is the Chair of the Chinatown Neighborhood Association who for 35 years, has pursued economic revitalization and cultural preservation of San Francisco’s Chinatown.  VIPs in attendance at the event included the Mayor and the First Lady, Fiona Ma, Betty Yee, the Captain of Central Police Station, the Deputy Chief of San Francisco Police Department, Supervisor Carman Chu, and several other Supervisors. 

Approximately 30 volunteers will be on hand to help serve the food and carry out the festivities. It is a great sacrifice on the part of the volunteers to work and serve others on New Year’s Day so we really appreciate our precious and committed volunteers.
 
Before the Chinese New Year, Chinatown is full of people buying food to prepare the New Year’s meal for their families. Grocery stores are allowed to extend their goods and produce to the sidewalk and even part of the road on Stockton Street.  As you can imagine, this makes driving around Chinatown quite difficult and Super Bowl Sunday is our New Year’s Eve. What a coincidence! 
 
Unless you are a football fan, the older generation of Chinese could care less about the Super Bowl. What they do care about is family gathering and visiting relatives and friends to wish them a good and blessed New Year - Year of the Monkey. Traditionally, the younger generation is supposed to visit the older generation out of respect.

The Chinese character for "year,” according to legend, is a wild and fierce beast coming out to devour people, especially children. Chinese were so afraid that eventually someone found out a way to scare the beast away – loud noise and the color red. This is why people dress up in red, beat the drums, and even set off firecrackers to scare the beast away. As they did so, people were happy to see their families survive. That is why they greet one another in this way. As the years passed, it became a Chinese New Year tradition to dress up in red, decorate one’s house in red, set off firecrackers, and give red pocket money to children to indicate that they will have a good year.