A Time When Businesses Can Cash In on Tradition

For Chinese New Year, N.B.C. Seafood Restaurant in Monterey Park serves dinner combinations with names like “good business,” “good fortune” and “money come in.”

Hong Kong Supermarket stocks up on oranges, whose name in Mandarin sounds like the word for wealth, and dumplings, whose boatlike shape resembles Chinese gold bullion.

These items--meant to attract prosperity in the coming year--have more than symbolic significance for the establishments that sell them. The New Year’s celebration is a windfall for Chinese businesses much as Christmas is to department stores and malls.

Elaborate holiday feasts boost sales for markets and restaurants. Phone lines are jammed and flights to Asia booked as celebrants reunite with family and friends. And Asian bankers profit from increased transactions, as people withdraw money to meet expenses, settle old debts or embark on new investments.

Dangling brilliantly near the entrance of the Hong Kong Supermarket are red scrolls and firecrackers, a paper dragon and gold-colored coin banks. Displays of holiday nuts and mushrooms are heaped in front of the aisles.

To ensure good fortune in the new year, many Chinese people dine on foods like oranges, peanuts or pineapples, whose names in the various Chinese dialects sound like words for wealth or money, store manager Philip Pan said. And there has to be plenty of everything.

“On that traditional New Year’s eve dinner, you have to prepare a lot of food,” he said. “More than enough for everybody. The more you have left over, that means the more wealth, the more savings you have for next year.”

Sales pick up rapidly in the weeks before the holiday, he said, and more than double on New Year’s eve.

Celebrations are often held at restaurants. N.B.C. Seafood manager William Lee said business picks up by about 50% in the two weeks before New Year’s when companies hold banquets, and in the weeks afterward, when families gather for feasts.

A red Buddhist shrine with offerings of oranges and incense to the gods of property and business marks the entrance of Chinese American Live Poultry in Rosemead. Here, customers choose from a variety of fowl--pheasants, squab, ducks, geese and, most importantly, chicken. The back room is stacked to the ceiling with cages of birds that are butchered fresh and sold with the heads and feet still attached.

Sales leap to three times the normal rate in the days around the holiday, and customers sometimes wait more than an hour in lines that stretch down the block, owner Quan Phu said. And while fresh chicken is an important New Year’s dish for any Chinese family, it’s especially crucial to Buddhists, who sacrifice it to their ancestors on that day, he added.

“They don’t want chicken without wings or head or feet,” he explained. “They want a whole chicken, a perfect one.”

The holiday is an opportunity for celebrants to visit with family and friends they may not have seen all year, and many take that opportunity to travel home to Asia. Helen Koo, owner of America Asia Travel Center in Monterey Park, said flights to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China increase about 45% or more over the holidays. Sales have jumped from 600 in December to 1,000 this month, she said.

Travelers from the opposite direction boost local real estate firms, said James Chou, vice president of George Realty Group in Alhambra.

“In Taiwan, China, everybody has a vacation, so a lot of people plan to travel, maybe a month, looking for some property,” he explained.

In the eight years that George Realty has operated, Chou said, the company has seen sales increase 15% to 30% in the weeks around New Year’s, as Asian investors seek business deals and recent immigrants purchase homes.

And those who can’t make it across the Pacific can always phone home. Sprint spokeswoman Juanada Teas said calls to Asia increase 20% to 30% over normal levels during the period from New Year’s Day through the following weekend. AT & T has no similar statistics available, spokeswoman Lorraine Wong said, but the company’s Chinese-speaking operators are working six-day weeks to meet the increased demand.

New Year’s customs can be a mixed blessing for business, said John Hou, president of the Asian Pacific Bancorp. and member of the Monterey Park planning commission. Because arguments are forbidden during the 15-day holiday, he explained, bankers and other businessmen scramble to collect outstanding debts before New Year’s Day.

In general, bankers come out ahead, though, said Philip Ma, manager of Cathay Bank’s main branch in Chinatown.

“You see a lot of transactions going on because people see it as a time of prosperity, to celebrate what you’ve accomplished in the past year,” he said. “You see more activity among people who like to invest.”

This year--the year of the dog--bodes well for business, he added.

“The dog’s nature is very loyal,” he said. “So it should be a conservative, growing year, (although) I wouldn’t expect a big jump.”