More information
Bok Kai Festival, Year of the Rat: Feb. 22-23, 2020. Bok Kai Temple: www.bokkaitemple.com. Bok Kai Parade: www.bokkaiparade.com. Friends of Marysville Bok Kai Temple and Historic Chinatown: www.friendsofmarysvillebokkaitemple.org.
Chinese American Museum of Northern California: www. chineseamericanmuseum.com.
Annual meeting
Friends of Marysville Bok Kai Temple and Historic Chinatown annual meeting, Saturday, July 27, 4 p.m.-6 p.m., Szechwan Restaurant , 223 First St., Marysville. RSVP by July 20. Call: 815-579-9356.
she said. “Moo Lung (the dragon head) has his own case. He did a tour in New York and Portland. I think that’s a piece that everybody is looking forward to seeing once we get done.”
An impromptu fundraiser at the Hop Sing Society dinner in 2017 – part of the Bok Kai Festival – raised $15,000 toward building a Marysville arch celebrating Chinese heritage and Fresquez said progress is being made on that as well.
“The rough design is done and we’re sourcing the types of materials that we think would work best,” she said. “We have a fundraiser that’s tentatively planned for sometime in the fall.”
Fresquez said the arch
would have the look and feel of a traditional Chinese architectural arch, or gateway, and is modeled after one in Seattle.
“It will reinvigorate the area and make a landmark that distinguishes it as Chinatown,” she said. “The arch is very ornate with dragons and lots of details.”
Fresquez said they have plans that were drafted by the designer of a similar arch in Seattle and estimates the cost at about $80,000.
“The city and Larry Booth (with Frank M. Booth) have offered their expertise to help with the project,” Fresquez said.
The preliminary location for the arch would be at the corner of Second and C streets near the Yuba County Library.
Chinese American Museum
Brian Tom, who owns the Chinese American Museum of Northern California, has been searching far and wide to find people connected to Marysville.
“We have a committee made up of a group of people from the Bay Area because there are a lot of people that had a Marysville connection at some point,” he said. “With this committee, we’re trying to connect with those people and in the coming year, we’re broadening the scope.”
He said Marysville was, at one point, one of many Northern California towns that had a thriving Chinese community and district but many of those are long gone.
“All the small Chinatowns got burned out and the only one that survived was Marysville and during that time, Marysville’s Chinatown grew,” he said. “We’re trying to create a pilgrimage for the descendants of all the people that lived in these old Chinatowns.”
Bok Kai Daydream
Ronald E. Slater of Smartsville, created a 25-foot by 80-foot mural in 2015 titled: “Bok Kai Daydream” and it was funded by the Yuba Sutter Arts through the California Arts Council as part of its Creative California Communities project.
“In the past, we had received grants to paint the big ‘Bok Kai Daydream’ mural in Chinatown,” said David Read, executive director of Yuba Sutter Arts. “One year, we got a grant to hold a Chinese Arts festival and had a number of musicians and dance groups perform in the Burrows Theater during Bok Kai weekend.”
Bird said he discovered some things in a park that adjoins the mural and has been working to recreate them.
“I do dowsing and I recognized there was something in the yard and things underground. The Chinese phoenix I found is about 170 feet and we’ve got a bunch of sculptures in the park as well,” he said.
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites and other objects and materials without the use of scientific apparatus.