Brief History of the Lotus Festival

2006 Festival Photo via LA Taco

Since we didn’t publish our usual “Flashback Friday” history post yesterday, with the Lotus Festival going on I thought it’d be a good opportunity to do a quick history of the Fest.

"Lotus Festival in the 1970s." Flickr photo by La Angelena

The Lotus Festival started out being called “The Day of the Lotus,” and debuted at Echo Park Lake in 1972 thanks to the Department of Recreation and Parks and members of the Council of Oriental Organizations (COO). Each festival takes place in July, timed for the blooming of the lotus flowers. Starting out as one-day affairs, the Day of the Lotus was designed to promote awareness of the contributions by Asian Americans to our culture and communities. The festival focuses on a different Asian ethnicity each year, this year they will showcase the Chinese culture.

The Festival was renamed “Lotus Festival” in 1990, and include the theme: “The Peoples and Culture of the Pacific Rim.” In 1991 the Lotus Advisory Board was developed, and included representatives from various Asian and Pacific Island communities.

"Lotus Festival in the 1970s." Flickr photo by La Angelena

I’m not sure when the dragon boat races began exactly, but the Dragon Boat website says it started when “the festival had a Chinese opening day ceremony.”

The origin of the lotus themselves are murky. Possible mentions of the lotus bed goes back as early as 1891, when development of the actual park first began (fun fact – it was first a reservoir and cost $5,637.00 to fill the newly formed lake with city water). However, that is not confirmed, and it’s more likely they showed up in 1923 or 1924. I have also read accounts of there maybe being two beds of lotus plants in the lake instead of just one.

Though there are rumors about the origins of the plants themselves (including that the Angeles Temple missionaries planted them using seeds from China), noone knows really where they came from or when. According the LA Parks website, the existing lotus plants in the lake are assumed to be “biologically linked to the original plants” as they are unaware of any supplemental planting since the original bed was created.

Even though the lotus flowers in Echo Park Lake were often considered the largest outside of Asia, the Echo Park Historical Society notes it’s only the largest in the Western U.S., citing larger beds in “the Carolinas, Hawaii and possibly Florida.”

The last couple of years have been difficult for the Lotus Festival. In 2007, the Lotus bed seemed to be dying off, and now are completely gone probably due to pollution and temperature changes. Last year the Lotus Festival was canceled due to city budget cuts, instead the community held the Echo Park Community Festival. When the city rebuilds Echo Park Lake, starting construction in April 2011, the Lotus bed will be a part of the rehab. You can also read a fact sheet from the Dept. of Parks and Rec about why the lotus went in decline  and what they’re doing about by clicking here (for instance, they planted nine tubers this year to see if they will grow).

Thank you to “La Angelena” of LAHistory on Twitter for the photos – it’s been hard finding pictures of the early days of the Lotus Festival!

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    Visit http://WWW.BIBLEFREEDOM.COM to see proof for these things and why the Bible truly is the word of God!

    If you haven’t already, it is time to seek God with all your heart. Jesus loves you more than you could imagine. He wants to have a relationship with you and redeem you from your sins. Turn to Him and repent while there is still hope! This is forever…God bless!

    “EITHER HUMAN INTELLIGENCE ULTIMATELY OWES ITS ORIGIN TO MINDLESS MATTER OR THERE IS A CREATOR…” – JOHN LENNOX

    We all know God exists. Why? Because without Him, we couldn’t prove anything at all. Do we live our lives as if we cannot know anything? No. So why is God necessary? In order to know anything for certain, you would have to know everything, or have revelation from somebody who does. Who is capable of knowing everything? God. So to know anything, you would have to be God, or know God.

    A worldview without God cannot account for the uniformity and intelligibility of nature. And why is it that we can even reason that God is the best explanation for this if there is no God? We are given reason to know or reject God, but never to know that He does not exist.

    It has been calculated by Roger Penrose that the odds of the initial conditions for the big bang to produce the universe that we see to be a number so big, that we could put a zero on every particle in the universe, and even that would not be enough to use every zero. What are the odds that God created the universe? Odds are no such thing. Who of you would gamble your life on one coin flip?

    Is there evidence that the Bible is the truth? Yes. Did you know that the creation accounts listed in the book of Genesis are not only all correct, but are also in the correct chronological order? That the Bible doesn’t say the Earth was formed in six 24-hour days but rather six long but finite periods of time? That the Bible makes 10 times more creation claims than all major “holy” books combined with no contradictions, while these other books have errors in them? The Bible stood alone by concurring with the big bang saying, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1); and says our universe is expanding, thousands of years before scientists discovered these things. Watch a potential life-changing video on the website listed below with Astronomer(PhD) Hugh Ross explaining all these facts based on published scientific data. He has authored many books, backed even by atheist scientists.

    Jesus came to pay a debt that we could not; to be our legal justifier to reconcile us back to a Holy God; only if we are willing to receive Him: “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).

    God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten son, so that whoever believes in Him, through faith, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus says if we wish to enter into life to keep the commands! The two greatest commands are to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and your neighbor as yourself. All the law hang on these commands. We must be born of and lead by the Holy Spirit, to be called children of God, to inherit the kingdom. If we are willing to humble ourselves in prayer to Jesus, to confess and forsake our sins, He is willing to give the Holy Spirit to those who keep asking of Him; giving us a new heart, leading us into all truth!

    Jesus came to free us from the bondage of sin. The everlasting fire was prepared for the devil and his angels due to disobedience to God’s law. If we do the same, what makes us any different than the devil? Jesus says unless we repent, we shall perish. For sin is the transgression of the law. We must walk in the Spirit so we may not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, being hatred, fornication, drunkenness and the like. Whoever practices such things will not inherit the kingdom (Galatians 5:16-26). If we sin, we may come before Jesus to ask for forgiveness (1 John 2:1-2). Evil thoughts are not sins, but rather temptations. It is not until these thoughts conceive and give birth by our own desires that they become sin (James 1:12-15). When we sin, we become in the likeness of the devil’s image, for he who sins is of the devil (1 John 3:8); but if we obey Jesus, in the image of God. For without holiness, we shall not see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

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