Chinatown tradition reigns at Marysville's Firing of the Bombs

MARYSVILLE – As they have each spring for generations, males of Chinese descent will congregate on the afternoon of March 9 at First and C streets for the Firing of the Bombs.

It promises to be a free-for-all, another noisy melee of historic proportions. And if the pushing and shoving get out of hand, somebody on the sidelines will throw lighted firecrackers at the participants' feet.

"Sometimes it gets a little bloody out there," says Gordon Tom, who grew up in Marysville and took on all comers in his younger days.

The participants will be scrambling for bits of red ribbon thought to bring good luck.

The Firing of the Bombs is a highlight of this weekend's Bok Kai Festival, a celebration of spring set in the Chinatown district of Historic Downtown Marysville, about 40 miles north of downtown Sacramento.

The festival is believed to be the oldest in California; it has been held 128 times since the early 1850s. Among the scheduled events are a parade with marching bands, lion dancers, decorated floats and the 150-foot-long golden dragon Lung Huang (11 a.m. March 8); walking tours of Chinatown (1:15 p.m. March 8 and 9); and a lecture series both days at the Chinese American Museum of Northern California.

At a dinner March 8, Sacramentan Steve Yee will receive the museum's Pioneer Award for his efforts to establish a Chinese heritage museum in Sacramento's downtown railyards.

Immigrants from the Canton region of China came to Marysville soon after James Marshall found those storied flakes of gold in the American River in 1848. Locals boast that it's "the last Chinatown of Gold Rush California," others becoming ghost towns or plowed under long ago for development.

Luck by the numbers

This segregated settlement grew into the third-largest Chinatown in the United States, after San Francisco's and Sacramento's, says Janice Soohoo Nall, a leader in the local Chinese community. Its Chinese name is Sahm Fow, which means "third city."

The Firing of the Bombs dates to those early Chinese settlers, although no one today is certain when the first was held. Now, as always, the red and white "bombs" are made by hand, loaded with gunpowder and resemble fat firecrackers. As each bomb is fired, it carries into the air a bamboo ring, around which is wrapped red ribbon. The bomb goes up and the ribbon-ring floats toward the street.

"Each ribbon has a number," Nall says, "and each corresponds in old Chinese custom to a fortune. In the good old days, the luckiest was always No. 4, and there would be a lot of physical exertion to get it. People are diving into the pavement, scraping knees and shins. Occasionally they get carried away, and that's when we throw firecrackers into the fray. If that doesn't work, we use the assistance of the local police."

Tradition holds that all the ribbons bring good fortune, and nowadays about two-thirds of the 101 ribbons are auctioned off in advance to community elders. Many ribbons will be left at the Bok Kai Temple until next year.

Bok Kai is a water deity, and many locals believe the temple has kept Marysville safe from floods. It's the state's oldest still-active temple – the current 1880 building replaced the original 1854 structure – and will be closed for several months after the festival for extensive restoration.

"We are the only community in the whole country with a traditional Chinese celebration," says Brian Tom, a retired San Francisco attorney and the founder-director of his hometown's Chinese American Museum of Northern California. "The big parade in San Francisco for (Chinese) New Year is not a traditional Chinese celebration. It's a tourist thing."

Museum in old sprout plant

Tom has collected artifacts for 40 years, since he helped found the Asian studies program at UC Davis while a law student in 1969. His grandfather Hom Kun Foo came to California in 1851, made his fortune in the gold fields and opened a general store in Marysville. Among the museum's displays is a re-creation of that store, along with photographs of long-gone California Chinatowns and a timeline of Chinese history in America.

The museum is housed in an 1858 brick building, once the Sanfow Bean Sprout Plant. Tom remodeled the upstairs as a lecture hall where, among others, Paul Chace will discuss the Bok Kai Temple's history (3:30 p.m. Saturday), and old-time residents will share their memories of Chinatown (3 p.m. Sunday). A full schedule is posted on the museum's door.

The Bok Kai Festival originated in China, says Nall, where it celebrates the spring season of the agricultural calendar. And while the events this weekend are meant to entertain, they have special meaning for those of Chinese ancestry.

"For many of us, it's a celebration of our heritage, as we honor our ancestors, our parents and grandparents, who toiled so hard in the Marysville community," Nall says. "I was born and raised here, and we had all the gambling halls and laundries, the stereotypical things you hear about. There was always the underlying push for (the children) to work hard to get out. That was the dream all our parents worked so hard for and hoped for.

"We come back to honor them and their memory. It makes me a little teary; it means that much to us."

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