Countywide : Food, Games, Events Mark Tet Festival

With eyes open wide, Lisa Cao, 10, leaned forward for a better view of the colorful dragon that thrashed and danced its way through the elementary school assembly room. She smiled as two boys, cloaked beneath the dragon costume, danced past her in a celebration of Tet, the lunar New Year that falls this year on Feb. 10.

Seated on the floor at Andrew Jackson Elementary School in Santa Ana, Lisa was one of hundreds of students who watched an assembly Friday focusing on the new year holiday, which is observed in China and Vietnam.

Inside an auditorium festooned with paper lanterns and dragons, student groups performed traditional dances and songs from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and displayed authentic silk robes and costumes.

Afterward, Lisa said the assembly provided students with a better understanding of other cultures and an appreciation for diversity.

“We’re all living together, so we should all know what our differences are. It helps us learn about each other and about how to get along,” she said.

Besides, she added, “it’s fun.”

The upcoming Tet will mark the beginning of the Year of the Dog. Local events celebrating the occasion will include cultural festivals at Golden West College in Huntington Beach and Asian Village Mall in Westminster.

The Golden West College festival will be held Feb. 5 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Feb. 6 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. More than 50,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will include traditional dances, firecracker ceremonies and authentic cuisine. The events will be held on the campus athletic field, at Gothard Street and McFadden Avenue, said spokeswoman Lori Thomas.

In Westminster’s Little Saigon, the three-day cultural festival will begin on Feb. 11. Events will be held from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily at the Asian Village Mall, in the 9100 block of Bolsa Avenue at Magnolia Street. Spokesman Van T. Tran said festivities will include martial arts demonstrations, carnival rides and hundreds of game and food booths.