Hong Nguyen finds the cymbidium, commonly known as boat orchids, she sells in her booth at the annual Flower Festival in Little Saigon “mesmerizing,” describing the plant’s blossoms as lips “ready to kiss you.”
Her display started as a small stall of 25 plants by the sidewalk. But in its 15 years, it has become one of the biggest booths at the Westminster festival, with the display of hundreds of orchids stretching for yards.
Every January, thousands walk by Nguyen’s booth and others’, buying orchids in hopes of bringing good fortune in the year to come. It is a tradition of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration, which falls on Jan. 25 this year.
The three-week festival in the parking lot of the Asian Garden Mall had barely opened on Friday, Jan. 3, but children were already busy snagging and throwing party snappers to the ground while hundreds strolled by dozens of booths, shopping for flowers, ornaments, toys and lì xì – the traditional red envelope adults put money in to give to children as a gift for the new year.
As shoppers walk away with her boat orchids, she warns them to tend the plants carefully. “I’m going to tell people to make it last, because we won’t see it again.”
As less and less nurseries are growing the orchids, this year may be it for the plants in her booth.
“It will not last,” she said. “Like dinosaurs.”
Nguyen’s Lunar New Year orchid business grew from her own family’s tradition of bringing one or two orchids to the home as a symbol of good fortune, richness and a luxurious lifestyle. Over time, it also became a way to remember the family’s native home of Vietnam and her grandparents.
“When you have this, it shows prosperity, that you can afford it,” she said. It is “all good energy and happiness, and so much good living.”
By the early 2000s, Nguyen and her family started setting up a booth at the festival.
The Flower Festival is a space for her community to come together, she said. She watches as grandparents in walkers take photos with their grandchildren. She has seen long-lost friends, once separated in Vietnam, reunited at the festival after years apart.
“We see happiness in the people and the Vietnamese community,” she said.
Every year, Nguyen drives hours to a nursery in Northern California to pick up hundreds of orchids. She gets up at 3:30 a.m. every day, she said, to set up her booth.
But there are fewer and fewer nurseries that grow the boat orchids, she said. They are transitioning to growing what she whispered as “you know what.” Cannabis plants.
But she knows what orchids mean for her and her community this time of year; she said she hopes to find a new nursery for next year.
“It’s a sign of a new year,” Nguyen said of the orchids. “A sign of spring.”
The Flower Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily through Jan. 23 in the Asian Garden Mall parking lot, 9200 Bolsa Ave., Westminster. Admission is free. For information, go to asiangardenmall.com.
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Orchids promise good fortune at the Flower Festival in Little Saigon - OCRegister
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