Lunar New Year at Southeast Asia Festival

Lunar New Year vibes were felt at the Southeast Asia Festival thanks to the red lantern decor and the iconic lion dance that is very much a big component of Lunar New Year festivities. I know some people question what Lunar New Year has to do with Southeast Asia as this specific new year is often associated with East Asia by the West. The thing is Lunar New Year is celebrated by the Vietnamese (Southeast Asians) and among Southeast Asian Chinese. There’s a reason why some people opt to celebrate Lunar New Year in a Southeast Asian country, like Thailand, for example. This year aside, many mainland Chinese travel annually to Thailand for Chinese New Year.

The festivities here in the states will probably never be as great as it is in Asia but if you can enjoy something from a festivity, I suppose that is all that matters. And for me, the highlight of this event was the lion dance because I really didn’t think I’d see any this year since I knew in advance that I wouldn’t be attending Tet Festival or any other similar festival. So, I was delighted to learn that there would be a lion dance at the Southeast Asia Festival. The interesting thing is that I’d probably run into this specific lion dance group (Tyun Yee Tong) anyway if I were to attend a Tet event in Orange County.

My schedule and availability aside, I wasn’t sure what to make of the Southeast Asia Festival. I say this because I don’t really know what to make of the name of the festival. And I kind of pondered this before even attending the event. My reasoning is that I knew in advance that the dominant makeup of this event and area would be Filipino. And while Filipinos are without a doubt Southeast Asian, many Filipino Americans like to call themselves Pacific Islanders instead for whatever strange reason. Filipinos in the Philippines will say they’re Southeast Asian, though. While the Philippines is near the Pacific Islands and is a country consisting of many islands, the country is geographically in Southeast Asia and if you think about things carefully, prior to colonization, it was very much Southeast Asian. (You’ll resonate with this if you look at the arts from Mindanao.) Perhaps newer generation Filipinos in the states are no longer calling themselves Pacific Islanders? I have no clue. Anyway, enough talk on that. Back to the festival.

The performance schedule lineup was diverse but “interesting”. There’s nothing wrong with being open to having performers that reflect cultures outside of Southeast Asia but then why is it called Southeast Asia Festival in the first place? This is basically what I mean in regards to my itty bitty gripe towards the name of the festival. But it’s a free festival and it’s for the purpose of raising funds for the graduating students of Our Lady of Fatima. Thus, I can’t reasonably get upset over something so abysmal. LOL

Also, I believe this festival was supposed to be held earlier, in 2024 but it got postponed to 2025 which was best, since I don’t think I would’ve been able to attend it back in 2024.

Parking was plentiful. Bathrooms were squeaky clean. There was an intimate amount of vendors – food, merchandise and advertising. I liked how there wasn’t an overload of vendors and how most food vendors weren’t overly price gouging attendees.

A pleasant surprise of the Southeast Asia Festival was a car show that happened quietly away from everything. I was not expecting this and took the opportunity to browse unique Hondas, although there were other cars as well.

As mentioned earlier, there was a schedule of performers and I think they should’ve done a better job advertising where it was held because I don’t think many were aware of the indoor performances going on. While there was an audience present, it was rather minimal. If you’re interested in seeing some of the performers (Club Kaibigan, Tibetan dance, Loop Phishers, DJ Lindz), the lion dance and more, you can actually check out my YouTube video to see it all.

I didn’t stay until the end to see all that the festival had to offer but I’m aware it was going on until 10 pm and attendees could even try winning raffles and auctions. Whoever won must be very happy!