By Penny E. Schwartz

Laguna Woods Globe Correspondent

The Lunar New Year, the most important festival of the Chinese year, was celebrated with a performance by the Rui Yun art troupe last week at the Laguna Woods Performing Arts Center.

The festive evening Saturday, Jan. 14, which was open to the public free of charge, featured numbers ranging from classical dance and Peking Opera to musical solos and ensembles and even a youthful hip-hop routine.

Solo performers played the piano, violin, and Chinese flute and gourd instruments, while a Peking Opera solo and duet were backed by a group playing a variety of Chinese instruments. Dance numbers were lavishly costumed and beautifully presented with colorful backgrounds and lively musical accompaniment. Some musical numbers on Chinese instruments were played by the Laguna Woods Blue and White ensemble.

The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, occurs on the first day of the first lunar month, which falls this year on Jan. 22, and is celebrated for 15 days. The final day is marked by a traditional Lantern Festival. The holiday is widely celebrated in areas with large Chinese populations or influence, including many countries in Southeast Asia.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a law declaring Lunar New Year a state holiday, recognizing the importance and influence of the local Chinese communities.

The holiday is traditionally a time to honor deities and ancestors and each year is assigned an animal based on the Chinese zodiac of 12 animals. The coming year will be the Year of the Rabbit, or more specifically the Water Rabbit, said to be gentle, amicable and adjustable as well as vigilant, witty and ingenious. People born in the year are seen as caring, attentive to details and likely to follow rules and are also said to be successful in their careers and good at making friends.

In Chinese folklore, the new year celebration stems from an ancient battle against a terrible beast that came every year to eat people and livestock. To scare it away, people put out red paper, burned bamboo, lit candles and wore red clothes, traditions that continue to this day.

“Chinese New Year means putting up decorations with red paper cuttings on the window and displaying red on the door,” said Irene Cheng, former longtime president of the Village’s Chinese American Club.

It also includes offering sacrifices to ancestors, eating reunion dinners with the family on New Year’s Eve, giving red envelopes to children with money inside, setting off firecrackers and fireworks, watching lion and dragon dances, and visiting families and friends, she said.

The holiday has become an occasion for feasting. Traditional foods for the Chinese New Year include longevity noodles, dumplings, rice cakes, sweet glutinous rice balls and whole steamed fish signifying abundance. Tangerines and oranges are traditional as well.

Last week, the Wine Lovers Club ate and drank its way into the  Lunar New Year with a Chinese meal and a sampling of wines that pair well with Chinese food, according to local wine consultant and club adviser Jeff Champion. He suggested California wines Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc/Viognier 2021 and DeLoach Pinot Noir Heritage Reserve 2021 as good white and red wine pairings. Village resident Ana Shu led a small troupe of dancers in a colorful presentation of numbers from various areas of China.

The Chinese American Club hosted a Chinese New Year show in the Performing Arts Center every year for more than 10 years, according to Cheng, who retired last year from the club president position to care for her husband.

This year, the Rui Yun art troupe presented the show. The performance group was founded by husband and wife Jerry Huang and Lisa Li, 10-year residents of the Village.

“They felt that they needed to start some activities to benefit the Chinese seniors in the Village so they offered Chinese singing, dancing, instrument playing and Beijing opera classes,” Cheng said. They also presented a show once a year in the Performing Arts Center.

Besides their own performers, the pair have included many outside artists to widen the scope of the show.

“Chinese new year means happiness, filled with fun, excitement  and good memories,” Cheng said. “When I was a child, my parents put new hats and new clothes on me, all red color, on New Year’s Day because red is our lucky color.”

New Year’s Eve dinner was a memorable occasion for Cheng, as all her immediate and extended family members would return home for the special meal.

“Everybody would sit around the big round table with countless best dishes on the table, eating and chatting, then pass out the red envelopes with money inside to the younger generation,” she recalled.  “Everybody was so happy.”

Cheng said her parents would always remind her not to finish the fish dish because the character for “fish” sounds exactly the same as the character for “plenty.” Having leftover fish symbolizes plenty of wealth left over for the coming year, she said.

Loud noises from firecrackers and the lion and dragon dances drive away the evil spirits, usher in good luck and ward off bad luck, according to Cheng.

For Ana Shu, who led the performance at the Wine Lovers Club, New Year’s Eve also evokes happy memories.

“Families will gather together, often around a fire, (with) a table to make dumplings in the evening, chatting, watching the TV special holiday celebration art program that is usually a variety show,” she said.

Firecrackers, meant to push away bad luck with the old year and bring in a good, fortunate, prosperous new year, are set off all evening and into the night.

“For the last few decades, the TV art program has brought together all the people in China and collected the best of the best in China for singing, dancing, comedies, local operas, you name it,” Shu said. “You will see that every household will tune to the same channel to enjoy the same New Year celebration TV program as it is the best production of the year,” she added.

The Chinese New Year’s Eve meal is the richest meal of the year in terms of variety, quality and amount.

“It is like the Thanksgiving dinner here in America that brings together the family (for a) special time,” Shu said.

For the Lantern Festival that marks the end of the celebration, typical foods are Yuanxiao (sweet dumplings eaten in a soup) and sticky rice wrapped balls with a variety of sweet fillings.

“Children hold lighted lanterns to play in the dark, chasing each other around for fun,” Shu said. Often there is more singing and dancing to help with the celebration, which can include the dragon dance as well.

“During the 15-day celebration period, parents are not supposed to say any bad words to their kids,” said Cheng. “Kids are really happy, wearing new clothes, playing with firecrackers and eating the best food. It is my best time of the year,” she said.