Lyrical greeting welcomed Lunar New Year at St. David’s

A pop-up choir of five songsters, aged six-to-nine, set the pace for a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration at St. David’s during recent widespread 16-day festival.

Parishioner Art Yu brought the youngsters together for the Sunday luncheon event and, accompanied with music from his iPhone, ‘Gong xi gong xi ni ya’ (Greeting to you, Greeting to you) got rapt attention and enthusiastic applause.

The audience was also treated to a musical performance by Linda Wei whose lithe fingers on the strings of her Gu Zheng (Chinese-plucked zither) was amazing. Still more notable was Linda’s extraordinary rendition of the hymn Amazing Grace – lyric and tune widely familiar to many across today’s world. 

Loy Yeo, leading member of the organizing team, took the microphone to highlight The Year of the Rabbit – symbolizing a ‘year of abundance’, and to explain its significance in abundant good fellowship, peace, love, joy, and prosperity. Behind the scenes, kitchen crew were rolling-out traditional pork dumplings in a steady stream of platters for the buffet table. Up to the task were volunteers Marlene Ma, Avril Wang, Jane Ho, Cookie Zhang, and Claudia Niu.

For the first time since the pandemic interrupted parish celebrations of the Lunar New Year, the fourth Chinese New Year event at St. David’s put this important occasion back on the roster. Organizers hopped about for endless hours to ensure this zodiac year of abundance began with the good luck of the legendary rabbit’s foot.    

IMAGES

• Quintet includes Maddox and Mason Lee, Allen Li, Alvin Liang and Angel Wang. Photo by Loy Yeo
• Parishioner Art Yu uses iPhone to provide music accompaniment.
• Claudia Niu rolls the dough
• Selection on Gu Zheng by guest performer Linda WeiLoy Yeo shares significance of the 2023 celebration (in body copy)
  

Photos by Mary Horton except where noted