Flowers, food, folklore usher in Year of Rooster

The yellow flowers were fake and the branches were pruned from birch trees in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, but as Thu-Van Nguyen watched children making miniature bouquets at the Seattle Center House yesterday, she was still reminded of Vietnam.

She was still reminded of home.

"In Vietnamese, this flower is called bong mai," said Nguyen, 51, who immigrated from Vietnam 30 years ago and works as an interpreter for local hospitals. "Growing up as a kid, every time I saw this flower blooming, I knew Tet was coming — the new year."

Hundreds of people traded in Super Bowl Sunday for a different kind of annual festivity: the local Vietnamese community's annual Lunar New Year celebration. This year's theme was Vietnamese Legends and Folklore.

MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES Sharon Huynh, 9, successfully spells the Vietnamese word for "beautiful" during a spelling bee that was part of the Lunar New Year festival yesterday at Seattle Center.

Firecrackers, lion dances, martial-arts displays, cooking exhibitions and Nguyen's floral craft table packed yesterday's schedule.

Many women wore colorful ao dai, the bright, flowing traditional Vietnamese long dresses.

The festival lasted all weekend with Saturday's highlight being Vietnamese folk opera that paid tribute to the country's ancient heroes and kings.

A parade is scheduled to begin today at noon at the Neighborhood House, 905 Spruce St., two blocks south of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Andy Mo Nguyen, 35, an Intel engineer and the festival's executive director, said the celebrations are a chance to promote the positive aspects of Vietnamese culture.

For so long in the United States, Vietnam was associated primarily with a disastrous war.

"Maybe 10 years ago, you couldn't find pho anywhere," he said, referring to traditional Vietnamese soup.

"Now you can go to any corner and find it. My interpretation of that is we've become more accepted, part of this melting pot. Finally."

But he and other organizers also hoped the older generations could share their memories and stories with the younger ones, especially those born in America or with little memory of Vietnam.

Don Le jumps over six members of his team during a martial-arts demonstration, part of festivities marking Lunar New Year. The weekend festival highlighted Vietnam's legends and folklore.

To that end, the children participated in spelling bees, where they pondered hard Vietnamese words, and team knowledge bowls, where they answered questions such as: Who was Vietnam's founding father? (King Hung Vuong) What did he originally call the country? (Van Lang) And what is the honorific name given to the father-in-law? (nhac gia).

"Of course, you can not make them fully Vietnamese. That's not the goal," said Thu-Van Nguyen, as she put together another bong mai bouquet.

"The goal is to help them figure out who they are, and where they came from."

Michael Ko: 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com