By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

“Gong Hei Fat Choi!” said Montessori and first graders Friday morning at St. Camillus Academy, marking the oncoming Chinese New Year.

The Year of the Tiger begins Sunday, they were told.

Anne Pedersen, born in Hong Kong, came with her parents to Canada when she was 12, and eventually to the Tri-County with her physician husband, Paul. She was on hand Friday to tell the students of her heritage.

Along with St. Camillus, she has for the past few years presented the program at city schools as well as Knox County’s Girdler and G.R. Hampton elementary schools and others.

She began her program with the first graders explaining the Chinese clothing she was wearing, a red silk mandarin jacket with frog closures.

“They’re called frogs because it’s like a jumping frog. It leaps over,” she explained.

Her red jacket, she said, is the lucky color of China.

Chinese New Year’s Day falls on a different date every year because it follows the lunar calendar, she told the children.

The date falls sometime during January and February.

The first graders gave rapt attention as “Miss Anne” told them the story of how the animals were chosen to represent the years of the Chinese zodiac.

It seems that the emperor in those old days decided to name the zodiac for animals.

He put out the word that a race of animals through a thick forest and across a mighty river would be held and the first 12 to finish would represent the years.

She told the story of a cat who entered the race but failed to have a year named for him.

The cat and a rat, who also wanted to enter the race, were very good friends. But how would they make it across the river?

The rat was afraid they couldn’t make it across, but the cat made arrangements with the water buffalo for them to ride across on its back.

They fell asleep and the rat awakened half-way across the river. The rat devised a way to be first at the emperor’s feet.

First he awakened the cat and convinced it to dive into the river to go after the fish. He hoodwinked the water buffalo and jumped off to get ahead. And lo and behold, the rat reached the shore and the emperor first.

The rat was followed by the water buffalo, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and number 12, the pig, but no cat.

And when the pig had crossed the finish line before the cat, which had been resting from its swim to shore, it ran up to the emperor and asked how it had finished.

The cat let out a cry and tried to pounce on the rat, got the tip of its tail and scratched it up. The rat took refuge under the emperor’s chair and that’s why to this day the cats and the rats are enemies.

After the story, the students did the traditional New Year parade dressed as the ancient Chinese perception of how a lion may have looked.

Miss Anne explained that the lion is not the real image of a lion because in those days the Chinese had never seen a lion.

She said they had heard that the lion is a “big majestic beast” and a Chinese artist decided it should be colorful with a horn and “since they didn’t know what the lion eats, they thought he’s a vegetarian,” making the students laugh.

The parade always has a masked person leading representing the Buddha, who feeds the lion lettuce.

Lettuce represents wealth and riches, she said.

After the leader was assigned to wear the lion’s head, students fell in behind beneath the lion’s tail and the others joined in behind them with musical instruments and noise makers as they paraded around the classroom.

The noise and music is to “scare away the evil spirits.”

Miss Anne also told of Chinese New Year’s eve traditions. Children are given red pajamas to be slept in only on that night because red will protect them from the evil spirits.

Red packets of money are placed beneath the children’s pillows. That money is for the monster who comes every year “to steal the children from their beds.” The children are protected, because the monster is afraid of red, she said.

And for adults, as well as children, lots of cooking and dining is done, she explained.

“When you serve a Chinese New Year’s eve banquet, you want food from the sea, fish or shrimp. You want food from the land, beef and pork and you want also food from the air like chicken. And there are the special Chinese desserts. Those are so good, red sweet cakes with lotus seeds inside,” she said.

The celebrations traditionally last for 14 days.