By Assunta Ng
The Hop Sing Tong Banquet at the House of Hong on Jan. 27. (Photo by Rebecca Ip/SCP)
Last Monday, Hop Sing Tong, Chinatown’s private club, organized its Lunar New Year party at the House of Hong.
This year isn’t a hot election year. However, the highest-ranking elected officials showed up anyway. Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, King County Executive Dow Constantine, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, Deputy Mayor Hyeok Kim, and King County Assessor Lloyd Hara were present.
This was the first time for the new Seattle mayor to get the gist of what a Chinatown Lunar New Year banquet was about. Never mind that many of the speeches were in Chinese. The best part of the evening for our mayor was from a San Francisco Hop Sing Tong official, who unexpectedly congratulated Mayor Murray on the Seahawks’ championship, beating the 49ers. Also, he wished the Seahawks luck in beating the Denver Broncos. Wow! How gracious!
Perhaps, what the mainstream politicians didn’t notice was that no Chinese officials attended the party, just Taiwan officials.
Hop Sing Tong is one of the few Seattle Chinese community organizations that still support Taiwan. Chinese officials are not invited. (end)