RAVENSWOOD — Up a short staircase and through columns decorated simply with "Happy New Year" in Vietnamese is an introduction to a vibrant community.
Festooned with colorful banners, the Truc Lam Temple at 1521 W. Wilson celebrated Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year Sunday.
About 300 people came in and out throughout the day and enjoyed traditional music, dance, food and games in the temple's basement, prayer rooms and reception areas.
Contained inside the temple, the festival resembled a large family party: Attendees left shoes at the door. People freely prayed in front of the Avalokiteśvara icon in the prayer room. The crowded performance space in the basement accommodated music and a bingo game from the front, and cheers and yells from games and cooking in the back.
The celebration doubled as a fundraiser for the temple's extensive community programming as well as temple upkeep.
"Everything is for the children and the temple," said Dr. Phong Dang, a physician with a practice in Sterling, Ill., two hours west of Chicago. He serves as secretary to the temple's board of directors, who work with two other groups that call the temple home: The Mahayana Buddhist monks who provide religious services, and the Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Association of Illinois.
On Sundays, students in blue uniforms attend lessons in Vietnamese language and culture, Buddhist religious studies, and tutoring and mentoring.
Dang says many Vietnamese "flee the country for political" reasons, and build their lives here. As a result, their children know very little about their parent's heritage. But he says the temple steers clear of politics.
"We want a place for religion. We also want to mentor our younger members, to hopefully teach them how to be a better citizen," Dang said.
Visitors on Sunday descended a short staircase that forked at the end - one unlabeled set of stairs led to the food and games, the other to the backstage with all the performers, members of Truc Lam Temple Buddhist Youth Group.
A celebrant in a lion costume made playful appearances at children's dances with drum props or rattan hats. In between were prayers and greetings from monks and nuns, and ballads from community artists both modern and classic.
There was even a magic show with sleight-of-hand and a chain-link escape skit, a la Harry Houdini.
For a donation (many pitched $5 into the box), you can eat all the bunhue — a noodle dish with vermicelli, lettuce, collard greens, carrots, onions, garlic, beef, and generous slices of ginger — you like. There was also fried rice with eggs and carrots; a vegetable salad with bean sprouts, cauliflower, green beans, carrots and broccoli; a soy milk drink; and fried rice flour cakes garnished with sesame seeds.
There were dragon and bunny plastic balloons, darts, dice, cotton candy, and fruit juice. A bingo game broke up segments between songs and dances.
Dang said the temple holds at least two other celebrations open to the public: the Buddha's birthday in mid-May, and the female bodhisattva Quan Am's holiday in the summer.
Brian Nguyen, 24, was on his first bunhue bowl, waiting for his cousin's dance. He drives to the temple regularly for various activities from his home in suburban Bensenville.
"It's important to remember where you came from," he said.
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