The Chinese Festival returns Saturday, with food and events outside.
The Chinese American Community Center will offer some new foods and a look at games of chess and Go as part of its annual Chinese Festival Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 20 and 21.
The Hockessin festival will continue to keep events outdoors to guard against COVID-19. Food will be served and sold from under a tent in the parking lot, with dances and demonstrations nearby.
“This weekend seems to have pretty good weather,” said Dennis Chung, festival co-chairman. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
The forecast calls for cloudy days with highs in the low 80s and lows in the 60s.
Chinese games
In years past, the festival would borrow collections that illustrated a portion of Chinese or Taiwanese history, including kites and red lacquerware. The displays included information on how they were made, when they were used, how they were used and what they meant to the people who created them.
Because organizers wanted to avoid people having to go inside, the festival this year will focus on the games, Chung said
Chinese chess is played much as traditional chess is, he said, but with a few twists.
“Chinese Go, as you may know, has been very popular in Asia and even internationally and within the United States, but to be honest Go has been part of Chinese history for over a couple of years already,” he said.
Every few hours, an instruction will give a live lecture about the games and how to play them, he said.
This weekend’s Chinese Festival will feature a range of foods for purchase.
The food for sale will include popular items such as popcorn shrimp, spicy beef, spring rolls and steamed buns. Prices will remain the same, except for one or two items, he said.
This year’s festival will add Taiwanese passionfruit pineapple shaved ice as a nod to summer heat, and more steam buns, which had previously been limited to barbecued pork or steamed pork and scallion, he said. This year, it will add the vegetable steam buns, red bean paste buns, and pork and vegetable buns.
Demonstrations will include traditional Chinese dances, but also will include troupes featuring other nationalities such as Korean drums and Filipino and Indonesian performances, Chung said.
There is no admission, but patrons do have to pay a $5-per-vehicle parking charge. The performances and demonstrations are free.
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday at the center at 1313 Little Baltimore Road in Hockessin.
