By April Fong
Around the world, people are celebrating the beginning of the lunar calendar – the Chinese year of the pig – which began on Feb. 18.
It is a tradition that often lasts for two weeks, with dynamic dance performances, flamboyant parades, food and flower markets, and even fireworks.
But in Ottawa, Chinese New Year is a different story. There are few events uniting the Chinese community or celebrations that gain attention from the whole city.
Wendy Tang wrote to her mother in China about how she didn’t really feel Chinese New Year was arriving this month in Ottawa.
“I just don’t know why there are not many events,” says Tang, who has lived in the city for eight years. She is now a settlement worker at the Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre.
While activities are organized by some Asian cultural associations in Ottawa, she says, they “happen on their own.” Chinese New Year does not seem to be observed city-wide.
Marilla Lo, vice-chair of the Somerset-Chinatown Business Improvement Association says there is not much celebration in Ottawa’s Chinatown either.
“We have a lion dance on Somerset. That’s about it,” she says. “We would like to see more.”
In recent years, the BIA has not organized any events for Chinese New Year in Chinatown.
“We haven’t had any festivals or main activity because the Chinese culture associations have their own,” says the BIA’s chair Ken Kwan.
In the past, the Somerset-Chinatown BIA organized Chinese New Year celebrations with cultural associations, Kwan says. He remembers going to small gatherings at St. Luke’s Anglican Church on Somerset Street while growing up in Ottawa.
But Ottawa’s Chinese population outgrew the small venue and there are no halls or spaces big enough in Chinatown for a large and unifying community celebration. It’s also too cold to hold outdoor events in the city, Kwan says.
In contrast, the Chinese New Year parade in Vancouver’s Chinatown draws more than 50,000 people from across the city.
With 2,000 participants in the parade and a Chinese population of more than 340,000 people, Vancouver holds the biggest celebration in Canada.
“It’s a major event in Vancouver,” says Syrus Lee, charter president of the Vancouver Chinatown BIA Society.
Parades and events like this, Lee says, help place Chinese New Year in Vancouver’s mainstream.
“In the beginning, people didn’t care,” Lee says, describing how the parade began nine years ago.
“But now they care. Everyone comes out, and the politicians even wear the traditional Chinese cheng sam (long dress).”
In Ottawa, the Chinese population of about 30,000 is the second largest visible minority group in the city, according to the 2001 Statistics Canada census.
“We don’t have a huge Chinese community like in Toronto or Vancouver,” says Ethel Li, program manager at the Gracious Light Christian Centre, a Chinese church on Somerset.
Rather than having one large celebration in Ottawa, Li says, people celebrate in different parts of the city.
On Feb. 18, Gracious Light held a cultural show at the McNabb Community Centre on Percy Street, hoping to attract about 600 people to their new celebration, which includes performances by the Valiant Dancing Club, Tai Chi Fan & Sword and a Peking opera group.
In Ottawa’s south end at Tudor Hall, the Chinese Community Association of Ottawa held a celebration on the eve of Chinese New Year.
The association is also currently fundraising in hopes of someday establishing a cultural centre in Centretown, Kwan says.
This would also help bring its Chinese New Year celebrations closer to the Somerset-Chinatown area.
As part of its Chinatown revitalization project, the Somerset-Chinatown BIA could also hold future events in a proposed five-storey building on the corner of LeBreton and Somerset.
Chinese New Year celebrations held in Ottawa’s Chinatown would help promote and bring more activity to the area, Lo says.
“It would be better for business. It’s as simple as that. And we need to be drumming up business.”