Oak Tin Association

Last night was the Oak Tin Association in Chinatown. This Family association includes people with the last names Chin (and variations) Woo (and Variations) and Yuen (and variations.) Basically these three family names can trace their ancestry back to one ancestor, I think it might be an emperor but I'm not sure about that.. which is okay because my last name is Cheung anyway.
Well in Boston, this is the most powerful family association. If you know about Chinatown you will recognize the names Frank Chin or Uncle Frank, Paul Chin, or Uncle Paul, and Billy Chin, or Uncle Billy. Basically once you become Uncle to an entire community you are probably a man of influence. But if you don't recognize those names you might recognize some of the guests, namely, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Wu, and Billy Bulger. I'm not in the know enough to have recognized him but when he came in there was a an aura about him and I could tell he was important. Seeing Senator Warren there was cool, like having someone powerful and famous, but Billy Bulger being there was like someone stepping out of a history book.
Right after he walked in, Uncle Chucky Ng came in as well. He was a friend of my father's so I always try to say hi whenever I see him. An of course countless teachers (both mine and Noah's were there as well, and also friends, like Jason Chan, who I believe will be the next generation of movers and shakers.

But all this was background for me, and Noah, because we were there to do a lion dance. They used the small stage this year because they were packed in with tables at Empire Garden (is that the English name for Dai Yuen?) so there was really only space for two big heads and Jing told me we ought to edit out the small baby head. I said we should just keep the baby head off to the side because a) the kids care more about doing a dance than being seen and b) Noah will be able to do this dance easily and then David could do the dance where he actually had to Choin chiang, which was going to be right after this at China Pearl.

So we went out. I saw Michelle Wu cracking up as I held Noah back out of the way by the belt. (By the way I had seen Michelle Wu on the subway the other day but then decided I must be mistaken. But seeing her at the banquet confirmed it for me. Michelle Wu actually rides the subway to work just like the rest of us.)

The dance was good. It was weird to be kneeling on the floor next to the baby lion, while people like Senator Warren stepped into place to receive oranges. There was a dream like quality because when would you ever see people from that angle except as a four year old? And not only that, because it was during a lion dance, nobody thought it was odd that a grown man was kneeling there on the floor.

The dance ended and the guests of honor received their lettuces and oranges and Noah was crying. I thought he had been hurt. But it wasn't that. "Baba! I want an orange!" I quickly stole one from the people who had received them as tokens of good luck. That's right, to please my son, I will snatch oranges from Senators if necessary. (Actually she had already put it down. After all it's a ritual orange and nobody ever carries the thing around with them.. unless you are a kid and put real value in oranges.)

"No Baba! I want the Lion Head to get the orange!" Now, this was one of those awkward situations where actually Noah was right. He should have gotten an orange. Those are actually the traditional rules. But we did it this way just to keep things less complicated. But indeed, it wouldn;t have been that hard to tell the heads to reserve one orange for Noah, even if there wasn't space for him to have a whole plate. But I wasn't thinking in terms of what Noah would want, just what would work easiest as a plan right before the lion dance started. And Noah has to learn too that sometimes, a "not as good" order from above sometimes needs to be followed for the benefits of an event running smoothly and for the sake of the team. But also I learned that there were ways that I could have gotten what Noah wanted done without throwing a wrench in the machine.

We went over to China Pearl, where David would do the dance. I followed the heads in and sat  or knelt on the floor by the chiangs. An old coworker from Kwong Kow saw me and she was laughing. Not so much at me, but you know, at how there I was sitting on the ground in front of a baby head.

At the last moment I asked David to let Noah eat one of the oranges. It occurred to me that I had been unfair to David because Noah had done the lion dance inside the school (because it was okay to mess up there) and at Dai Yuen (because that was supposed to be easier) and now he was taking one orange from David's Chiang. But then Noah hadn't had the opportunity to have his lion eat the orange. And David didn't seem to mind. After all that there was food provided in a private room at China Pearl. Noah and David seemed to have a ball there. I guess Noah likes this Chinatown lifestyle. In fact he kept asking why we can't live in Chinatown. I explained that our house would be smaller and that it's nice to live near the park and various playgrounds and after all, it's pretty easy to get to Chinatown.