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Even with Showers off and on, The Year of the
Rat - 2008 Tet Festival in San Francisco still
succeeds in attracting a large crowd of six to
seven thousand people.
MO S.F Weekly Magazine: Vietnamese Tet Festival usually takes place in February, right at the middle of the rainy season in Northern California. Thus, people who organize the Tet festivals in Northern California cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have to prepare the celebration with the fervent prayers wishing for no rain and sunny for the event.The estimated budget for the big festival in the Fairground in San Jose was about $200,000. The budget for the smaller one in San Francisco was about fifty or sixty thousand dollars. One bad day with heavy rain and cold weather could destroy the festival, and mean a great loss for the organizing committee. That is the reason why the Tet Festivals in San Jose Fairground and Clinton Park in Oakland did not happen in the Year of the Rat as usual. The organizing committees there did not explain the reasons. However, people know that the difficult financial situation, after several years of unfavorable weather, prevented them from organizing the event.
Vietnamese people around the Bay Area look at San Francisco and wait for the coming of the event. During the last few years, San Francisco has been so lucky to have the blessings from the weather. This year, the luck also came to us, but not as completely as in the previous years. The weather forecast predicted that we might have some showers during the day of the Tet Festival, Sunday March 2, 2008. It was true that the weather in San Francisco was bitterly cold on the day.By 2 am early in the morning, all the volunteers in the organizing committees had shown up at the Larkin Street site. We bundled ourselves with heavy jackets and started setting up the stage, more than 400 chairs on the street, more than 80 kiosks, and banners, flags and balloons. The showers came and went with cold breezes. The festival started at 11:15 am as soon as the showers halted for a short period. The firecrackers at the Tam Quan Gate brought noise and a happy welcome to the Year of the Rat. All distinguished guests and elected officials of the Vietnamese community and the American dignitaries participated in the ribbons cutting ceremony.After the solemn flag salutation ceremony the national anthems of South Viet Nam and the United States was performed by the RVN Veterans Association. Then, the members of the Vietnamese Seniors Mutual Assistance Association and the Vietnamese Women Mutual Assistance Association started the traditional praying and chanting ceremony to our ancestors.
In the opening speech, Ms. Lien Nguyen, the chairwoman of the Tet Festival, extended her gratitude to the Vietnamese compatriots and guests who came to attend the 12th Tet Festival of the Vietnamese Community in
San Francisco. She also mentioned the invasion of Chinese forces in Spratly and Paracels Islands, a portion of our beloved country’s territory. That is why the theme of this year’s Tet Festival was: “Protect our beloved country’s territory”. The entertainment program of the festival began with a dance show performed by little students of Au Co Cultural Center. Then all the distinguished guests were scheduled to give a short speech on the stage. At that moment, a strong shower fell hard at the center of the area. All the guests hurriedly stepped up to the stage to avoid getting wet. We recognized the presence of State Senator Carole Midgen, her first- time presence at the festival, the Mayor’s Chief of staff, Mr. Ed Lee, State Assemblyman Mr. Mark Leno, State Assemblywoman Ms. Fiona Ma, S.F Supervisors Aaron Perkin, Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, and Carmen Chu, and S.F Police Chief Heather Fong. Mayor Gavin Newsom came, but only visited the kiosks, and talked to people at the festival. He did not step up to the stage to give a speech. We felt lucky that it was the last shower. The weather was getting better throughout the rest of the day. It became bright, sunny and warmer. People returned to the Tet Festival in large numbers. We had a wonderful entertainment program with the orchestra of outstanding emcees such as Ms. Kim Oanh, Mr. Quang Chanh, and Mr. Nam Loc from Southern California. Our favorite singers such as Minh Tuyet, Huong Thuy, Trinh Lam, Manh Quynh, Kevin Le, Bang Tam and Nhu Thuy made the program tremendously exciting. The performances of Bach Viet Folkdance Group, The Chinese Gymnastic group Red Panda Acrobats received a huge round of applause from the audience. The lucky lottery program was carried out in between the performances of the artists. The result of winning numbers would be published in Mo San Francisco and Thoi Bao weekly magazines. The number of audience reached to its peak at about 3 pm. From the stage, we estimated about 5,000 people. Mr. Nguyen Phu Bien, a member of the organizing committee said: “If we count the number of the people leaving and returning to attend the festival, the total crowd of the day was from 6,000 to 7,000 people. I was a great success despite of the bad weather”.Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tam, the head of financial section said that: “Even the weather was not miserable in the morning, but it improved in the afternoon when the spring entertainment program began. We could say we had a moderate success in compare with the previous years, we did not lose. We were sorry that the businesses of our kiosks were not profitable like last year. However, they contributed a great deal to the success of the festival. We hope that next year, the situation will be better.”At 5:45pm, when it was getting dark, on behalf of the organizing committee, Mr. Huynh Luong Thien expressed the appreciation to our compatriots, and wished to see them in the Tet Festival for the Year of the Buffalo - 2009.
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