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By Ray M. Wong
August 25, 2010 (City Heights) -- Phong Huynh came to the U.S. as a refugee with his family from Vietnam in 1990 at age 12. One of his fondest memories of the country where he spent most of his childhood is the Mid-Autumn Festival called “Tet Trung Thu” celebrated every year.
He recalls the joy of tasting sweet mooncakes referred to as “Banh,” constructing a lantern in the shape of a dragon, fish or other animal with a bamboo stick frame and wrapping it with a clear-coated colored plastic material along the outside, positioning a lit candle in the holder of the lantern’s interior and going around his neighborhood to greet other kids brandishing their own fashioned lanterns.
“Typically, the lantern festival is hosted during a full moon. That always sticks in my mind, even today,” Huynh said. “Whenever there’s a full moon, I close my eyes and remember the full moon, lantern festival. You would carry that lantern and walk around, and usually it’s all dark. Everywhere you’d walk, there’d be another kid with a cool-looking lantern. To a kid, that’s really cool.”
Huynh, now 32, wants to bring some of that magic to the children in San Diego. As a business advisory board member for the Little Saigon Foundation, a nonprofit intent on officially naming a City Heights business section of El Cajon Boulevard between Highland and Euclid Avenue the “Little Saigon District,” Huynh and the other members of his foundation are presenting a “Lantern Festival” from August 27 to 29 at Hoover High School.
The multicultural festivities include lion dancers, hip hop performances, a lantern parade, band music and singers, carnival rides, food vendors, a beauty pageant, martial arts exhibitions and competitions, an outdoor screening of Bruce Lee’s film classic “Enter the Dragon” co-sponsored by the San Diego Asian Film Festival and even a snowy August winter wonderland for kids to play in.
According to Frank Vuong, the cofounder of the Little Saigon Foundation, the three-day event is commemorating the second biggest holiday in Vietnam – the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The most important holiday, the Lunar New Year called Tet, is usually celebrated in early spring and the Mid-Autumn Festival is traditionally held in the fall to recognize the hard work associated with the completion of the harvest season.
The Foundation held a one-day trial run of the Lantern Festival at Hoover High School in October 2009, but due to logistical problems with conducting a huge celebration at a school while it was in session, they decided to move it to August to form a three-day event and give students a chance to get involved in putting it together. They hope to draw 10,000 people this year.
For Vuong, there is a connection between the Lantern Festival and his foundation’s efforts to recognize a local business area as the Little Saigon District. “The idea of the lantern is very attractive,” he said. “We feel like the Little Saigon’s introduction into the community is kind of like bringing a light into the world. That’s the idea of the lantern -- to introduce light and to shine it into the world.”
Su Nguyen, founder of the Little Saigon Foundation, conveyed why his nonprofit is organizing the Lantern Festival. “We try to promote the Vietnamese culture through the lantern,” he said. “For us, the lantern is very meaningful. The lantern provides us guidance and makes us remember Vietnam. The lantern makes people come together, like the family sitting around the lantern in a circle and (it represents) unity.”
Ray M. Wong is a freelance writer in San Diego. He can be contacted by e-mail at Ray@raywong.info or through his website: www.raywong.info.
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