Taste and tradition BSO helps ring in the Chinese Year of the Monkey at a Civic Center food and music festival

You may have already toasted in the new year with a glass of champagne and glitter balloons, but the holiday delights are just starting for the Chinese New Year, which begins tonight at midnight and continues for 15 days. Luckily, you don’t have to go to China or even to the Chinatowns around this country to get a taste of the Year of the Monkey celebrations. On Friday, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra will hold its own benefit Chinese New Year event 7 p.m.-midnight Friday, Jan. 23 at the Bangor Civic Center, which will be adorned with bamboo arrangements and holiday decorations.

Robinson Ballet Company will provide a Chinese Dragon Dance, Bangor High School students will give a dramatic performance of “Tale of the Monkey King,” a traditional Chinese folk tale, and Brian Nadeau’s Swing Band will offer live music for dancing. And you can count on seeing shades of red and gold, the customary colors of the holiday.

While each of these elements delivers the spirit of the event to town, there’s one other that is at the very heart and soul – and stomach – of the Asian holiday.

“Food,” said Xiao-Lu Li, music director and conductor at the BSO and a native of China. “We usually say that Chinese New Year is eat, eat, eat, friendship, friendship, friendship, and family, family, family. We are supposed to eat for 15 days. That’s the way we are!”

As part of the gustatory fun, four local restaurants will provide authentic Chinese New Year hors d’oeuvres, some of which cannot be found on area menus during the regular year.

“Everything should be round and smooth, and that’s symbolic of being perfect,” said Christine Chou, proprietor of China Wall on Stillwater Avenue in Bangor.

She will donate pork- and vegetable-filled, steamed yeast rolls to Friday’s menu. Today she will also visit Pendleton Street School in Brewer to do an annual presentation of Chinese customs for local school children.

At the restaurant, she will hold a private dinner with her employees.

“My employees are my family here,” said Chou, who comes from Taiwan. “They come from China and are away from their family. So they are my family.”

Michael Yao of Panda Garden in downtown Bangor will dish out five-spice beef, five-spice dried bean curd and egg rice noodles.

Because the unifying principles for the holiday are prosperity and wealth, food often represents more than nourishment, said all of the cooks. Oranges are eaten for wealth. For nian gao, a yeast cake, the higher it rises, the better the year ahead. A candy tray of exotic fruit – lychee nuts, red melon, kumquats, peanuts, coconut and candied fruit – all carry specific promises for good fortune.

“There are 36 provinces in China and each one has its own food tradition,” said Yao, who grew up in the northern part of China, but whose mother, from whom he learned to cook, is from the southern area. “Every province is a little different. But mostly, it’s everything to eat – just like Christmas.”

New Year’s eve is the biggest dinner of the year, Yao added. In his own household, he will serve either whole fish or whole chicken, with head, feet and tail included, as a sign of completeness. And the meal will be spicier than what he serves at the restaurant.

Serving the whole roasted animal, as with all food during the New Year, carries important symbolic meaning. The head of the animal is typically a delicacy and is directed toward the person of highest regard – such as a grandparent or parent – at the table.

Most local diners tend to be somewhat squeamish about eating whole animals, which both Yao and Chou have noticed in their eateries.

But in general, Bangor has an open mind when it comes to trying Chinese food, said Lillian Lo of Oriental Jade on Bangor Mall Boulevard.

“A lot of Bangor citizens have been in China and are encouraging Chinese studies in schools,” said Lo, who will serve fresh vegetable dumplings in a peanut sauce as well as sesame balls. “I don’t see Chinese food as being very challenging here.”

Lo, who is from Hong Kong, explained that Chinese New Year is a time of friends and family, all of whom visit each other throughout the holiday. That’s why snack food is so popular, she said. “Everyone visits throughout the day at home, and they snack all week long,” she added.

Asian Palace, on Stillwater Avenue in Bangor, will donate Peking pork and salt-and-pepper wings.

While the holiday marks an annual opportunity of out with the old and in with the new, for the BSO it is a also chance to honor Li, who has an additional post as conductor at the China National Symphony Orchestra.

“I was very touched by Bangor wanting to do this,” said Li, who was in Connecticut last week preparing for a concert with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, where he is also music director. “I am Chinese-American. I have been in Bangor for two years and this made me feel very welcomed in the community. This is sharing my world with another part of the United States. It is a very wonderful gesture that all these Chinese restaurants are willing to do this. They have sent the message that we are a community that believes in giving and helping one another.”

Li, who called the Chinese restaurants in the Bangor area better than most he goes to in other small towns, said that the first day of the New Year is for family, and the second day, which falls on Friday, is for friends and for people held in high esteem. Both, he added, describe Bangor for him.

The Bangor Symphony Orchestra will present a Chinese New Year Celebration 7 p.m.-midnight Friday, Jan. 23, at the Bangor Civic Center. The cost is $35 per person and tables are set for eight people. The Ellsworth Party Coach will be available and will depart from points in Blue Hill, Surry and Ellsworth. For information about the event or transportation, call 942-5555 or 1-800-639-3221.