Bring Your Aunties and Your Homies: A Lunar New Year Party Creates New Traditions in Oakland

When Jonathan Yang was growing up, Lunar New Year was marked by elaborate feasts at his immigrant family’s Chinese restaurant. “It was hyper-focused on food — and, obviously, being on your best behavior, being a good son and getting that ultimate red envelope,” he recalls.

It also never felt like a holiday he could truly call his own, or where he could be authentic to his identity as a gay man. Instead, those New Year’s gatherings were a time of deep anxiety. “It was just like, I have to live a lie,” Yang says. “I have to field questions from the aunties and uncles asking, ‘Oh, why aren’t you married yet? Do you have a girlfriend?’ It was always wrapped up in that kind of experience for me.”

So, when Yang, co-owner of Richmond’s Laughing Gems Wine, attended a boisterous, next-generation Lunar New Year’s festival in Oakland last year that bustled with DJs, tattoo artists, tea cocktails and a DIY red envelope station, he felt so inspired, he knew he wanted to be a part of it too.

“I wanted to create a space that I felt represented all of us,” he says.

This year, Yang and his business partner, Tiffani Patton, joined forces with visual artist Hanna Chen (of the multimedia art brand Yăng Shēng) and Jenn Lui (co-owner of Asian snack shop Baba’s House in Oakland) to put on an even bigger, more ambitious party to ring in the Year of the Snake. Rebranded as Neo Lunar, the sprawling, multi-experiential event will include a night market, a fashion show, a mahjong parlor, a natural wine bar, multiple tattoo artists and art installations, and much more — all crammed into Oakstop’s two-story Uptown Oakland event space on Saturday, Feb. 1.

The event’s organizers all had different experiences with Lunar New Year as Asian Americans growing up in the diaspora, but the common thread was this sense that the holiday never really belonged to them. Lui remembers sitting in a folding stool and watching her grandparents play mahjong but not necessarily getting to play herself, and attending street parades that mostly only interested the elders in her family. And Patton, who is Black and Korean, experienced so much racism from Korean peers and family members that she never really felt like any Asian experiences were meant for her.

“Only in the past couple of years have I been able to participate in different Korean traditions,” she says. “It’s been really beautiful and affirming and heart-opening. To provide that for other people is one of the big reasons for me to do this.”

One of the obvious ways Neo Lunar’s organizers hope to connect to other second- and third-generation Asian Americans is through food — in particular, new-school pop-up shops that share their aesthetic of remixing old traditions to create something new. For instance, Lion Dance Cafe, the vegan Singaporean pop-up, will be on hand slinging mala douhua and kung pao shaobing sandwiches. Beloved Eastside San Jose pop-up Hết Sẩy will sling Mekong Delta–style Vietnamese dishes for Tết. Baba’s House will introduce a new menu of scallion pancake wraps. And Laughing Gems will curate a natural wine bar.

The food pop-ups will anchor Neo Lunar’s night market, along with more than 20 retail vendors selling everything from handmade jewelry and vintage clothing to wellness products like Asian herbal tea blends. Chen, the Yăng Shēng artist, says they wanted to capture the excitement of having a multitude of offerings packed into one physical space — “a bustling, shoulder-to-shoulder experience.” Or, as Lui puts it, “You’ll peek and wonder what’s around the corner. Who’s selling this now? What’s happening next?”

For those who find the night market vibe too hectic, there will also be a calligraphy workshop and Chinese tea served in a quiet little teahouse sanctuary tucked away in the middle of the party. And at Yăng Shēng’s immersive “Living Room” installation, partygoers can just chill on a couch that Chen made in collaboration with a local woodworker, with a Chinese-style lattice window carved into the back.

Neo Lunar is also very explicitly not just for young people. A big part of how the organizers say they’re making this New Year’s celebration their own is by making it an intergenerational affair — a party where, as they’re fond of saying, you can “bring your aunties and your homies.” While the event has a sheen of coolness (with all the tattoos and the DJs and such) that will appeal to younger folks, there’s a conscious effort to build bridges to the older generation as well.

Perhaps the best example is “Multi-Gen,” the party’s fashion show component inspired by the Chinatown Pretty photo project, which spotlighted the often bold and idiosyncratic styles of San Francisco Chinatown elders. The fashion show will start and end with drag performers, and it’ll feature a diverse lineup of amateur models, both young and old, who’ll show off looks by 10 Asian American designers. Both Yang’s and Patton’s mothers will be among those walking the runway.

“It’s really special because I think a lot of our parents who are immigrants, they’ve sacrificed a lot of their own self-identity and desires,” Chen says. “So this is an opportunity to have them feel like superstars, without asking them to be people that they’re not.”

Another attraction geared toward partygoers of all ages is the cluster of mahjong tables, which will be running games all day. Lui, who hosts regular mahjong nights at Baba’s House, says she’s found that the spirit of friendly competition that the game fosters is the perfect way to bridge the gap between young Asian Americans and elders who might not otherwise have much in common. “The younger generation wants to learn,” Lui says. “And the older generation gets surprised [by that interest]. They’re like, ‘Oh, so you want to play?’ And then they get sassy.”

The games are meant to be approachable for players of all experience levels, and Baba’s House will have coaches on hand to teach beginners.

Maybe the most important way Neo Lunar’s organizers hope to attract a multigenerational crowd? Admission for both seniors and children will be free. The party will also be a masked event, to protect vulnerable community members from COVID and other airborne illnesses.

And while the Year of the Snake sometimes gets a bad rap, compared to some of the other zodiac animals, Yang says he can’t imagine a better mascot for this year’s Neo Lunar event: “The Year of the Snake is perfect for what we’re trying to do. It’s about shedding what’s old and coming into a new identity.”

Neo Lunar will take place on Saturday, Feb. 1, 3–8 p.m. at Oakstop (2323 Broadway, Oakland). Advance tickets are sold out, but there will be a limited number of tickets available at the door.