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HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!
GUNG HAY FAT CHOY! Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!
羊 yáng
In spired as always by my adventures
in photographing for my long-term photographic project, FINDING
CHINATOWN: AN AMERICAN STORY, I conducted my annual visit to the greater
Southern California Chinatowns to photograph the Lunar New Year. The
dates of this 15 day celebration, the Spring Festival, vary each year as the Chinese calendar directs the start and finish of this holiday, the last day known as the Lantern Festival. That festival just ended and we are now officially in the
Chinese calendar year, 4713.
I am in the 15th year of my FINDING CHINATOWN: AN AMERICAN STORY
photographic project, one that I do not pursue as actively as before
nevertheless the Lunar New Year each year reminds me of the strong
story the Chinatowns reveal that is meaningful to all of us here in
North America and certainly beyond. That story is about our continuing
social and cultural evolution, especially in this past 100 years with
the greater opportunities for travel, combined with recognition of the
very many communities in our nations. Photographing in the greater
Southern California Chinatowns reminds us of the wealth of diversity
that influences what we eat, what we learn and how we approach one
another. Combined with the joy and tradition of a New Year, it is a
joyous moment.
The zodiac animal of this year's celebration is a bit inexact: THE
[wood] GOAT or THE RAM or THE SHEEP. Various websites offer different
interpretations of the animal symbol for this year but this one, from ChinaHighlights.com explains it well:
 "Is It the Year of the Sheep, Goat, or Ram?
Actually,
Chinese people are also not quite sure about that. In Chinese the word 羊
(yáng) is a generic term, and can refer to a sheep (绵羊), goat (山羊),
ram/buck (公羊 male sheep or goat), 羚羊 (antelope), etc. There is a lack of
clear definition on the zodiac "Goat" in Chinese history.
However, most
Chinese people and experts on folklore believe that the Chinese zodiac
animal is the Goat, not the Sheep, and they have some evidence to
support their idea...
... the
Chinese zodiac is an invention of the Han Nationality, and goats were
widely raised by the Han people (unlike sheep), so the zodiac animal is
more likely to refer to a goat.
... a Goat image often appears on Chinese zodiac stamps, New Year paper cuttings, and New Year paintings (not a sheep).
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The majority of the evening was spent at Waken Temple, a Buddhist temple on Lower Azusa Road in El Monte. According
to tradition is it important to pray on the Eve, from around 10pm to
midnight, the "first hour" of the New Year. As distinct from many of
the "family" temples, Waken offers a more substantive spiritual
experience, including a lecture by the Master - here in Chinese and
following in English - that exhorted us to understand not only the
blessings but the mistakes and failures one encounters. We sat on
cushions, having shed our shoes at the entrance. As the New Year is
approached, incense candles are lit and deposited at the smoky altar
outside the entrance and worshippers line up before the Master for a
palm leaf blessing of luck and prosperity for the New Year. Within the
serene interior, simply and elegantly organized altars and images of the
buddha, here the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva; it certainly became a moment to pray.
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Far
from Thien Hau's traditional midnight fireworks display in downtown LA,
we left Waken Temple before midnight to again honor the New Year at the
Hai Nam Association of Southern California,
noted for their electrified lion dancers. It is an association I have
been visiting for many years, first in downtown LA and since 2010 in
their new building in El Monte. Modeled on historic
structures similar to the early Chinese temples, it is full of
celebrants moving from one buddha's altar to another, lighting incense,
bowing and praying before each Buddha, shaking sticks and other devices
to advance lucky chances for the next year. By this time of the night,
the scent and smoke from the incense candles can be overpowering while
enhancing the mysticism of these symbolic rituals. Right after midnight,
we enjoyed the first soup of the year, vegetarian as are all meals on
the New Year day.
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On
New Year's Day I returned to the downtown Los Angeles Chinatown to
wander and, as always, to visit the Thien Hau Temple, the building of
their new building in 2005 an event that convinced me to continue with
my FINDING CHINATOWN project. Not yet understanding enough then about
why I was so interested in photographing the Chinatowns of the US &
Canada, Thien Hau helped reveal to me not only the history of my home
Chinatown but also became symbolic of the very American story that I was
capturing: the continuing and changing immigration patterns to this
country of promise that drew so many of our families here. Here is
living history of the Americas, a tale of early traditions, immigration,
exclusion, then inclusion (somewhat) and a gradual weaving of many
strands that comprise a continually evolving fabric of our populations.
Specifically in the Chinatowns, first populated primarily by people arriving from the Guangdong
province/Cantonese, then in the last 30+ years or so many from Taiwan
and Hong Kong and then again, even as later generations of the early
Cantonese speakers moved out into the general national population,
others from Asia and Southeast Asia arrived, taking over buildings and
neighborhoods. This is a typical immigration pattern also experienced by
earlier religious and ethnic groups who upon first arrival and for a
generation or two gathered together in like-speaking neighborhoods,
voluntarily and not-so-voluntarily, then moved on into the general
population.
Thien Hau is a Los Angeles example of a second or third phase of
change. Its founding congregants were ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, part
of the "boat people." Ten/eleven years ago, when I first visited,
the large new temple was in construction, based upon an original temple
in China's Camau district and built with imported materials from China
by imported-for-this-project Chinese craftsmen. Its construction
signaled a new fresh approach to the aging Downtown Chinatown and where,
in typical California fashion, the old building that housed ThienHau
transitioned over time from a small Italian Baptist church to a Mandarin
Baptist one to ultimately the small older Thien Hau Temple. In 2005,
the old temple was destroyed in very typical American fashion, t o make way for a parking lot for the new temple. There I photographed its last days.
Now, ten years later more change in coming into the downtown Chinatown
as more temples have been built by ethnic Chinese from Cambodia, and
yet, even as these rise, the Chinatown itself is mirroring Los Angeles
downtown's residential boom with the greater population, the cost of
living is rising and many of the older or the newer immigrant families
have left and another city change is coming. Such is the nature of our
US cities. Nevertheless, the New Year's day is full of good will.
Families arrive here from all over Southern California, often outfitted
in traditional clothing, much of it red for good luck, coming to the
temple for prayers, for vegetarian meals, for introducing their often
American-born children to the traditional ways, and the Spring Festival
begins.
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As
noted, the downtown LA Chinatown is in great flux today. This
Chinatown - created when the early 20th century population was evicted
from on of their first neighborhoods where Union Station now stands and
moving several times to this more northwestern block, originally
Italian-ethnic - again tells a history of civic transition as the recent
cycle of gentrification encompassed first the mix of contemporary art
galleries alongside several generational Chinese tourist emporiums, best
represented by the stores and buildings on Chung King Road. Now,
change is occurring again as the art galleries and lofts that had
replaced several street level shops are themselves being replaced by a
wealthier, younger even more trendy demographic that is returning to
downtown LA and filling it up with architecture studios, entrepreneurs,
coffee shops and all the accoutrements of today.
I spent a moment with Alex Cheung, owner of the Alex Cheung Company
(est. 1971), the last emporium to remain on Chung King Road. When Alex
retires it will be over and Chinatown, albeit created intentionally as a
tourist attraction in the '30s, will represent another world. While
the great temples, Thien Hau among them, as well as the Chinatown Plaza
will no doubt remain, many who lived and worked here have moved on into
the greater fabric of the region or moved at the least into the greater
modern "chinatowns" of the San Gabriel Valley. The SGV is as well, is
now the place where tourists from the Mainland go.
My annual Lunar New Year visit helps me again experience this story of
our world today, and not only in the Americas, for we are in a world of
change with populations fitting not always perfectly but ultimately
finding themselves together, acknowledging and best, enjoying the gifts
we all bring each other. It strengthens and enriches who we are and
ultimately we all become our country's "nationals," not without our own
distinct history if we choose but with it plus the experiences we gain
in our new lands. That is the story of who we are and in the
Chinatowns, it is vibrant every day.
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
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Photographic Project Updates!
PHOTO LA 2015, SarahLeePROJECTS booth: The event in January was
wonderful and busy. I exhibited with other LA-based photographers,
Aline Smithson, Ann Mitchell and Martin Cox. Sarah Lee did an impressive
job of curating and installing us.
Thanks to all who came out.
Opening in New York City on 26 March at the Museum of Chinese in America WATER TO PAPER: PAINT TO SKY, the
traveling retrospective of 104 year old artist, Tyrus Wong. This
exhibition originated in 2013 at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San
Francisco. In the Maya Lin-designed building at MOCA/NYC, I am sure it
will be terrific. The exhibition contains 10 large prints of mine
capturing Tyrus, his family and friends at the Santa Monica Beach where
for the last 40+ years he has come to fly his hand-designed/made kites.
I will be there for the opening and if you are in the New York area, I
recommend you make a trip. The exhibit will be up through 13 September.
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Previewing at ParisPhotoLA in early May is the Metropolis Books/D.A.P. book: BOTH SIDES OF SUNSET: PHOTOGRAPHING LOS ANGELES.
I will have several images in the book of Carmageddon on the 405 from
my GRIDLOCK project. I am privileged to be among a host of master
photographers included in this publication.
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Excited as well about the potential opportunity to create the first exhibit my ongoing DETROIT:DEFINITION project in Europe this coming Fall. News to follow but excited about this now!
I will photographing again in Detroit at the end of this month. If you are there, let me know.
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As always, my thanks to members of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel
Valley Chinatown communities for extending their welcome to me as I go
about the New Years.
Sara Jane Boyers, March 2015
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