By Alexander Dworkowitz
When Chinese dragons march down Flushing’s Main Street on Feb. 9 in this year’s Lunar New Year Festival, they will be accompanied not only by men and women from Taiwan, China and Korea, but Bahamians dancing, beating drums and wearing bright paper costumes.
“It will be warm enough for the costumes,” said James Turner, who is organizing the parade’s Bahamians as district manager of the Grand Bahama Island Tourism Board, “as long as it doesn’t snow.”
As part of an effort to make the grand Lunar New Year Festival even more popular, the organizers of the parade have invited members of Flushing’s diverse ethnic groups, from the Indian to the Bahamian population, to participate in the event. These are groups who traditionally have no connection to the Lunar New Year celebration.
“We want it more of a Flushing holiday, not a Chinese holiday,” said Fred Fu, president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association, one of the event’s organizers.
The invitation extended to other ethnic groups is just the most recent changes to the Lunar New Year Festival, a magnificent event with a turbulent history. This year’s parade, the seventh in Flushing’s history, honors the year 4700 on the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Horse.
The hourlong parade will begin at 11 a.m. on Main Street and 37th Avenue and end at the Flushing Mall on 39th Avenue off College Point Boulevard. After the march, Chinese groups will hold a ceremony within the mall, while Korean groups will host an event at Flushing HS on Union Street.
Last year the fight for control of the parade almost canceled the event. With one former organizer still upset about his group’s lack of participation in the event, this year’s celebration is not without its own controversy.
In the early 1990s, the Lunar New Year was celebrated indoors and dominated by participants from Taiwan as well as mainland China. But as the Korean population of Flushing increased, many Korean-Americans, led by Chun Soo Pyun, then president of the Korean American Association of Flushing, pushed for Koreans to join the celebration.
Other members of KAAF did not advocate Korean involvement as much as Pyun and in 1991 he quit the association.
In 1996, a parade celebrating the festival, then called the Chinese New Year, began and FCBA became the main organizer of the event. Two years later Korean groups marched with Chinese groups in the parade for the first time. But the two groups began the tradition of holding separate events at the end of the march, which is still true today.
In 1999 and 2000, Korean-Americans who had worked on the 1998 event, including Pyun, joined together with the FCBA to organize the parade.
But two separate groups vied for the 2001 parade. After the parade was nearly called off, the FCBA’s group of mostly Taiwanese ran the parade and Pyun’s group of Koreans and mainland Chinese were left sitting on the sidelines.
Unlike last year, the fate of this year’s parade is not in jeopardy. But Pyun, who has formed the Korean American Cultural Heritage of Greater New York, still unsuccessfully tried to obtain the permit for this year’s parade.
“They took it away from us,” said Pyun. “It’s shameful.”
Pyun said he will not try to disrupt the parade but will hold an alternative celebration at Queens College Feb. 17.
Although upset about his lack of involvement in the official event, Pyun supported opening up the parade to other ethnic groups besides Koreans and Chinese.
Members of the invited ethnic groups said they will gladly take part in the parade, although they know little about it.
Abdul Chowdhury Shahin, chairman of Queens Borough Patrol North-Advisory board, is organizing Bangladeshis in the parade.
“This is not actually part of Bangladeshi culture, but we want to join together,” said Shahin.
According to Fu, members of the persecuted and controversial Chinese sect Falun Gong also will be allowed to march in the parade, with the stipulation that they cannot perform religious services during the march.
“Falun Gong, shouting gong, any kind of gong can join together, but it must be a celebration. It cannot promote a religion,” said Fu.
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 141.
