But this year, before the event, a paper cutting artist who had recently returned from Wuhan, China, told the organizers she was quarantining herself at home, as a precaution of the new coronavirus. A hand puppet company similarly also pulled out, the organizers said in an interview.
After a series of these conversations, the organizers this week canceled the event — scheduled to take place this weekend in Flushing — amid mounting anxiety over the coronavirus.
While isolated cases have cropped up in other states, so far state public health authorities are unaware of a single case of the illness in New York. But that has not stopped a vigorous debate within the city’s Chinatowns about whether to proceed with Lunar New Year celebrations.
The Temple Bazaar party, which its organizers say attracted between 700 and 1,000 people last year, appears to be the highest-profile event yet canceled in the city. But other smaller local Lunar New Year celebrations and gala dinners have been canceled or postponed as well.
The cancellations are another sign of rising anxiety over the coronavirus across the city. In recent days, for instance, the sight of people wearing surgical masks in the subway has become more common. Around the city, some students have shown up to school wearing masks.
City health officials have urged New Yorkers to go about their lives. They say there is no reason for healthy people to shy away from public gatherings — even those who recently returned from Wuhan, where the mysterious illness is believed to have originated.
This week, health officials across New York have sent samples — taken by means of an oral swab, nasal swab and by asking the patient to spit — from at least 10 people to the CDC in Atlanta to be tested for the virus. The results that have come back have all been negative. A few were still pending as of the last update.
Some people on the last direct flights from Wuhan to Kennedy International Airport — before they were canceled last week — have been in self-imposed quarantine at their homes, limiting their contact with their own families.
With more than 6,000 confirmed cases of the virus in China, many local Chinese American civic and cultural leaders fear that their community will be blamed or face a stigma should the illness land in New York.
“I think the Chinese community also doesn’t want to be scapegoated,” said Amy Chin, a genealogist and cultural activist. “Those of us who know our history, there is a sensitivity.” Chin was referring to a quarantine of San Francisco’s Chinatown more than a century ago amid fears over plague.
Chin recalled how in 2003, fear over SARS, another coronavirus, led a New Jersey school to cancel a Chinese cultural program amid fears from parents that the dancers performing at the event might be carrying the illness.
“There is a lot of anxiety about how we need to work together as a community, and that we need to lower the risk,” said Ya Yun Teng, who was involved in organizing the canceled Temple Bazaar event in Flushing.
Despite the cancellation of the bazaar, many other high-profile Lunar New Year events have occurred as planned. Flushing’s largest Lunar New Year parade happened this past weekend.
“People are tough,” said John Choe, the executive director of the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce. “We are going to keep doing what we do.”
He acknowledged that parade turnout was lower this year, but also noted that it had rained. “There was lower attendance,” he said, “but we don’t know if it was rain or fears of coronavirus.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .