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Hundreds gather in Camarillo for Chinese New Year event

Sunday, February 14, 2010
BEIJING: Hundreds of people gathered at Constitution Park in Camarillo on Saturday afternoon to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

The Ventura County Chinese American Association sponsored the event, which opened with several Chinese dance performances, including the Lion Dance, the most notable of the celebration.

“For us, it’s passing down the heritage to the next generation,” said association President Lloyd Ho, 66, of Thousand Oaks.

“When my kids were little, I put them in Chinese school and they hated it,” said Ho. “But then when they got in college, they took Mandarin and Chinese history and they asked me why I didn’t force them to go.”

The event als featured booths where visitors could learn paper cutting and traditional Chinese arts like origami and painting. The Chinese Acrobats, based in Los Angeles, also performed.

“A lot of this is my own self-satisfaction,” said Irene Sy, a longtime member of the Chinese American Association and the group’s Chinese language teacher. “I want to pass on the heritage, but not just to the next generation. I want Americans who don’t know the culture to see it, too.”

Sy’s son Justin has been involved with the group for more than 10 years and speaks Mandarin and Cantonese.

The association sponsors a Chinese school from 7-9 p.m. Fridays at the former Los Primeros Structured School on Ventura Boulevard. Sy teaches a class in Chinese at Las Colinas Middle School in Camarillo as well.

Dan Stephens, 42, of Ventura, took adult education classes with Sy. “It became a passion for me,” said Stephens, who has now traveled to China and says he is 70 percent fluent in Mandarin.

Stephens, a social worker in Santa Barbara, said that on his days off he goes to Monterey Park and Alhambra to delve into the culture.

“I eat the food and I speak in Chinese,” he said. “These events are becoming really important because China is such an emerging power and so many people in the world speak Mandarin.”

Kristina London, 12, a student at Las Colinas Middle School, also takes Chinese language classes.

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