2026 Lunar New Year Celebration

The Chinese Lunar New Year is a traditional holiday in China marking the beginning of a new year based on the lunar calendar. Each year is linked to one of 12 Chinese zodiac animals. 2026 is the Year of the Horse. The Horse symbolizes energy, strength, and perseverance with themes of change, ambition, and forward momentum.

In our area, the Southern Oregon Chinese Cultural Association hosted a Lunar New Year celebration. Numerous cultural activities, booths, food, and lectures were available to community to take part in this celebration and highlight the Chinese culture.

Kevin Yeh performed living painting displaying the Horse.

Chinese students from St. Mary's demonstrated Chinese ink rolling art.

Martial arts performances highlighted the popular styles including Karate, Jiu-Jitsu, and Taekwondo.

Ted Gong gave a lecture on his ancestorial genealogical book. He explained how records are kept, how to read them and their importance to family and community.

My favorite part of the celebration was learning from Mr. Gong. He emphasized the Confucian obligation to honor one's ancestors. He used his own family's experiences as a lens to examine broader Chinese traditions, the migration of Chinese Americans, the challenges of maintaining ancestral rites across continents and generations.

Mr. Gong focuses on their family’s genealogy, using a family record book (族譜 "zupu") as a primary source. The book lists names and brief notes for each generation, tracing lineage back to 2200 BC. The record includes significant family events, such as moves, marriages, and honors granted by emperors.

The front of the book features a Confucian saying from the Han Dynasty, emphasizing the duty to care for family and, by extension, society. Mr. Gong traces their family from the first ancestor, Yuan Zong, and follows the line down to their own children and grandchildren, noting how names and stories are preserved in the record. He shared maps and village photos illustrate the ancestral home and traditions, such as his wife participating in rites under a significant tree before their marriage.

The Importance of Ancestral Rites

Honoring ancestors is a central Confucian value, expressed through rituals like 清明 (Qingming), when families visit and tend to graves. The family maintained these traditions even after migration, with ceremonies at ancestral graves and efforts to preserve memory.

Mr. Gong describes ceremonies at their ancestral village and the impact of the Cultural Revolution, which saw tombstones repurposed as paving stones.

A major theme is the tradition of returning the bones of Chinese immigrants to their ancestral villages. Associations (like family and district societies) organized the collection, cleaning, and shipping of remains, even paying bounties for found bones. This practice persisted until wars and political upheaval in the 1930s made repatriation impossible, leaving many remains in North America. For example, detailed instructions were issued for exhuming remains, and bones were packed in tin cans for shipping. Newspaper notices announced collection drives, and associations kept meticulous records.

With the end of repatriation, Chinese communities established new rituals, such as annual Qingming ceremonies at American cemeteries. Many old cemeteries and graves are now lost or forgotten; efforts like those of the 1882 Foundation seek to recover and honor these sites. Memorial plaques and ceremonies now serve to fulfill the ancient obligation to honor ancestors, even when names are lost. Mr. Gong mentions memorials in Washington, DC, and the absence of Chinese faces in historical photos, underscoring the need to tell these stories and preserve sites.

The talk highlighted the enduring importance of genealogy and ancestral obligations in Chinese culture, the adaptations required by migration, and the ongoing work to remember and honor those who came before. Mr. Gong's personal narrative, supported by family records, photographs, and historical context, illustrated both the challenges and the resilience of these traditions.