Tag Archives: Feast Of Lanterns

Feast Of Lanterns Fate Is Sealed (hint: it’s 90% canceled)

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Destiny being fulfilled. Bankrupt the events that are the heart & soul of what’s fun about P.G. then turn it into some preachy politically correct show that no one really wants to go to. Finally bring it back all sanitized. About as genuine as a Victorian retreat house torn down, re-constructed with zero original material and awarded a historical artifact sign.

Empty FOL beach

But hey, without the cost of putting on the week long summer festival, we can pay for a new website, city slogan and a tourist trolley, right?

There will still be a Queen Topaz and her court, but no fireworks. The pageant will take place in the middle school auditorium, not at the Lovers Point Pier. The festival will run two days, rather than a full week.

“Some events are being dropped,” said Feast of Lanterns president Sue Renz, “and others restructured.”

Feast Of Lanterns Fate Is Sealed (hint: it’s 90% canceled)

Racists Burned Down Chinatown, Celebrate Every Year

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“Historian” says Feast Of Lanterns being multicultural is egg-foo-young in the face. Feast of Lanterns does an about face and plays down the whole multicultural thing.

They fished for squid using lighted boats on moonless nights, Lydon said. The lights of the boats on the bay were a tourist attraction, “like Christmas decorations on the ocean.”

Those lighted boats may well have inspired Pacific Grove’s annual Feast of Lanterns at Lovers Point, where an ersatz Chinese pageant is re-enacted.

Racists Burned Down Chinatown, Celebrate Every Year

Feast Of Lanterns Is Celebration Of Burning Down Chinese Camp

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Words from Sandy Lydon, elitist historian.

The May 17, 1906 blaze that swept through most of the Chinese village at Point Alones seared not only the landscape of the Monterey Peninsula, but the memories and histories of its people. The fire continues to loom as some kind of Original Sin whenever there are discussions about this remarkable Chinese village tucked into the cove on Pacific Grove’s eastern boundary.

What emerged was a festival that replicated the lights of the squid boats that had been driven away. Some members of the Chinese community find the resulting festival offensive. The Feast of Lanterns folks respond that their event has nothing to do with the Chinese village.

Feast Of Lanterns Is Celebration Of Burning Down Chinese Camp

Lisa “Bare It” Bennett Asks To De-fund Those “Quirky Civic Events”

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Where would $25,000 be better spent, Feast Of Lanterns support or a new slogan to attract tourists?
Lisa is going out with a bang, too. Article states that Bennett is not planning to run for council this year.

Pacific Grove Councilwoman Lisa Bennett took aim this week at city sponsorship of two annual events she termed sacred cows, saying the city should not automatically underwrite them as it has in the past.

The annual Good Old Days festival and the Feast of Lanterns cost the city more than $40,000 through added police and fire protection as well as other city staff services, she said.

Lisa “Bare It” Bennett Asks To Defund Those “Quirky Civic Events”

Let’s Spend $$ On A New Slogan To Attract More Tourists?

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While library hours dwindle.

I wonder what the approval % would be like if there was a vote to spend revenues on attracting tourists.

Pacific Grove has an identity crisis, city leaders say. Butterfly Town USA, America’s Last Hometown and other catch phrases have left P.G. with an amorphous identity that fails even to hint at the city’s greatest attraction: its stunning coastline.

The city also has a calendar of quirky civic celebrations such as the Feast of Lanterns and the Good Old Days that make it a hard place to pin down. And that’s made it difficult to market Pacific Grove to tourists, the city contends. A recent study even suggested visitors are not aware of Pacific Grove and the attractions it offers.

Anyway – the best slogan is the truth – “Pacific Grove, For The Newly Wed & The Nearly Dead”

Let’s Spend $$ On A New Slogan To Attract More Tourists?

Feast Of Lanterns 2010 DOA

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Dixie Layne began gutting the Feast Of Lanterns of it’s camp charm in 2009, declaring it was some sort of “multicultural celebration” and now has pretty much canceled the event for 2010. No week long summer celebration, no fireworks, no fun.

Like any number of Pacific Grove’s beautiful landmarks, the Feast of Lanterns needs renovating from to time. Its foundation is strong, but this beautiful old lady needs a new dress and accessories to sing a new song on a new stage to perform in her most awe inspiring tradition.
— Dixie Layne

That sounds a lot like a P.G. Remodel, where a 100 year old comfortable, small house is 99% torn down and a replica mini mansion is built in it’s place. Attracts the wine & cheese crowds ok, but offers nothing to the locals.

Dixie Layne

To Dixie Layne, our Feast Of Lanterns is just another “gig”. Got any tar & feathers?

Feast Of Lanterns 2010 DOA

Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist II?

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Writer sets it straight.

It started as the closing celebration of the Methodist Chautauqua, before the Chinese were burned out. So it is Methodist. It became quite popular at the turn of the 20th century until World War I, more as an Obon festival, as at that time there was a Japanese tea garden at Lovers Point. So it is Japanese. Then it became a bathing beauty contest event, and after World War II it was revived as a pseudo Chinese-themed festival.

It is speculated that the Chinese were burned out by competing fishing interests, which has little to do with Pacific Grove.

So you can be offended in several different ways or you can embrace the quirky history of the festival, a charming, family-oriented affair.

Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist II?

Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist?

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Every year, right on time come the letters calling the Feast Of Lanterns a celebration of fascist oppression. Followed by rebuttals. Over in Salinas it’s the same at Rodeo season with the animal huggers…

Fo l2002 Belly Dancers

July 27, Dale writes:

I find the irony of the Festival of Lanterns too much to bear. Living on the Peninsula my whole life, I noticed that strange little festival in P.G. where people parade around in Chinese clothing. Sometimes, to me, it seemed like a “mockery” of Chinese.

July 29, Diana replies:

The festival is not about a group of people who lived on the Peninsula and were, yes, indeed persecuted. As stated at the onset of the evening festivities, the “tale” (that denotes fantasy, does it not?) takes place in ancient China, and is clearly presented as a fantasy tale, much like Cinderella or other fantasy tales.

8/1, Jeffery adds:

The letter the other day that said Pacific Grove is celebrating a tradition of an oppressed people from 100-plus years ago really made me laugh. Tell me who hasn’t been oppressed? I’m half Irish, so should I tell everyone to stop celebrating St. Patrick’s Day because the Irish were sent into slums straight off their ships from Ireland? The Irish were treated as bad as any culture in U.S. history, and they, like the Chinese Americans, have prevailed.

Letters From The Editor – Feast Of Lanterns – Fun Or Racist?

Feast Of Lanterns Officially Ruined

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Fire Dixie Lane. Appears that the kooks have taken over the last great funky thing in P.G.

“The whole festival represents our heritage in Pacific Grove,” said Feast of Lanterns President Dixie Lane. “It’s a fabulous little multi-cultural festival.”

This is Lane’s inaugural year to preside over the event, though she has been on the board for several years.

As a former student of history and a zealot for all things multicultural, Lane has focused on emphasizing multiculturalism and historical traditions for the 2009 Feast of Lanterns.

Feast Of Lanterns Beach Reserve Sign

Feast Of Lanterns Officially Ruined

The Weakly Shames Pacific Grove

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for not respecting cultures. Can’t even carry on traditions without being told we are all bad, bad citizens.

Coast Weakly

On the left side, a gallery celebrates the Feast of Lanterns, a P.G. tradition since 1905. Though the signs feature an Asian-inspired font and a bamboo trim, they don’t address why white P.G. high school students started enacting a “Chinese operetta” (featuring Princess Yum Yum) only a few years after P.G.’s actual Chinese-American residents were forced out of town. It doesn’t address what originally inspired the festival’s trademark Chinese lanterns, dresses and art styles. It doesn’t discuss Stanford Ph.D. student – and excavator of the Chinese village artifacts – Bryn Williams’ theory that the Feast of Lanterns tradition sprang out of a human need to romanticize, and appropriate, pieces of the very cultures we destroy.

There always was culture, and from the P.G. Chinese community – but not what the P.C. weenies at the Weakly would want . .
Toms Cafe Tribune 750101
P.G. Tribune, 1974

The Weakly Shames Pacific Grove