Ringing in Lunar New Year at Lan Su Chinese Garden

The Old Town garden kicks off the year of the Fire Horse with a vibrant celebration

Feb 19, 2026

Join the billions of people in China, across much of Asia and all over the globe who celebrate the Lunar New Year. Every year, Portland’s Lan Su Chinese Garden at 239 NW Everett St. observes the holiday with dancing and drums, lanterns and light shows.

The festivities started Wednesday night and will continue for the next few weeks. There are daytime events as well, including a meet and greet with a real horse. Check out the full event schedule at Lan Su Chinese Garden.

Read all the news at NW Examiner.com

This is the year of the Fire Horse, which is rare, and suggests this year will be intense, transformative, and marked by rapid and sometimes volatile change The last Fire Horse year was 1966 – 60 years ago – and it marked the start of China’s Cultural Revolution. Photos by Walden Kirsch

The dragon is a symbol of Chinese culture, said to bring good luck. So, no wonder, the dragon dance was part of Wednesday night’s celebration. Dancers from the Portland Lee’s Association use poles to hold up the serpentlike dragon. They entered by the Tea House and wound their way around the garden.

Hundreds take in the beauty of the garden and magic of the night. Red signifies joy, fortune and excitement. These red lanterns were made of polyester instead of paper since one has to take into account Portland rain. Or snow?

This is also a lantern and it was made in China from paper mache, various fabrics, wire and LED lights. The sculpture tells a traditional Chinese folktale. A koi swims upstream. If it can jump over the waterfall, it will become a dragon. The message: strength and perseverance pay off.

A guest post by

Marilyn Deutsch

I direct the Oral History Program at the Clackamas County Historical Society and work with other local historical societies on similar projects. I worked as a reporter on TV and radio for roughly 40 years, most recently at KPTV in Portland.

Paul Douglas

We've been members of Lan Su for a number of years, as well as occasional supplementary donors.

Not to be negative here, but Elizabeth Nye sent out a blanket endorsement by Lan Su for Ballot Measure 20-26, the recent Portland Parks levy foisted on us by our dysfunctional City Council. When I wrote her a letter (on Nov. 1st, before the election) asking for an explanation of why Lan Su was supporting such a huge property tax increase for it's members when the Parks Bureau had demonstrably failed at following the rules in spending money for the 2020 levy, I got no response. After a long period of silence, I attempted to find out how to contact the Board of Lan Su. Guess what? Apparently there is no way to communicate with anyone on the Board about issues concerning Lan Su: only through the Executive Director can concerns be made. It was suggested that my letter may have been misplaced and I should try to email Ms Nye at elizabeth@lansugarden.org. I attached a copy of my original letter to Ms Nye on January 5th. I'm glad I didn't hold my breath waiting for a response.

In contrast, I wrote a similar letter to the Bird Alliance of Oregon questioning their uncritical endorsement of 26-20. Within a short period of time I got a phone call from the President of the Board Rich Van Buskirk, who held a 20 minute conversation with me about the reasoning (and the internal wrestling of the board) behind their decision. While I disagreed with their ultimate conclusion, I felt valued and heard. Lan Su's Executive Director clearly lives in a silo and apparently feels linking her personal political whims with the Lan Su organization without a disclaimer is okay. It is not, and we will not be renewing our membership to Lan Su next autumn. Those monies will go to partially pay for the huge property tax increase that the Park's Levy will cost us in November.

Thank you Elizabeth Nye.

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