Christmas in Oriental Colony
Pretty Celebration Planned
CHINESE GIRL TO BE MARSHALESE.
Japanese and Celestials Will Join Hands With White Neighbors in Procession to Site of Great Yuletide Tree.
It's a long way from Orient to Occident, but on Christmas eve Japanese and Chinese residents south of Yesler Way will join with their white neighbors and form a procession to pass down the streets singing English songs of Christmas cheer. Japanese lanterns borne aloft on bamboo poles by the marchers will light the way and lend a picturesque effect.
Miss Fanny Eng, a Chinese girl, has been chosen as "marshalese" and besides helping to route the way, she will lend her lovely voice in the singing. The marshal is M. Oda also chosen by people living in the neighborhood.
Groups of school children will be led by their teachers and Chinese and Japanese Boy Scouts will be there to see that everything "goes off right," just as white scouts are wont to do at a parade.
A great Christmas tree lighted by many electric bulbs will be the objective and will be placed at the most convenient point on Jackson Street. Here at 7:15 the singers will come to a halt and listen to the solos come to a halt and listen to the solos of two Chinese women. Then everybody, those who sang in the procession and those who did not, will join the jolly crowd at the Christmas tree.
For presents? It may be only a few words of good cheer, or just a smile.
The section south of Yesler Way is only one of the districts in Seattle that will celebrate Christmas eve with song and cheer. The idea is "popping" all over the city, and all because the Community Service people thought it would be a fine plan to bring the people of every neighborhood together on that joyous eve.
The Chinese and Japanese are enthusiastic over the idea and they understand as well as anyone why the singing of carols suggests the love and good will that should prevail on the glad Christmas day. They talked all this over at a meeting last Wednesday night, when they elected the marshal and the "marshelese."