Little Saigon Orange County

AS dragons run and dance down Bolsa Avenue in Westminster during this Saturday's Tet parade celebrating the lunar New Year, the restaurants of Little Saigon will be opening their doors to floods of revelers. Many of the thousands of Vietnamese Americans who throng to the district for the holiday carnivals, concerts and events will head for favorite places that cook the regional dishes they grew up eating.

For eight days, protesters paraded in front of one of Little Saigon's leading newspapers. They carried an effigy of Ho Chi Minh and called the editors "traitors" for running a photo they said was so offensive that it had to be the work of communist sympathizers. Two top editors at the newspaper were replaced several days later.

I remember it being unusually warm for a winter's night, but in my mind's eye now, I wonder if I'm recalling the heat from the crowd more than the temperature. What remains indelible, however, is the memory of that crowd, numbering in the low hundreds and filling the available walking and standing space at a strip mall along a stretch of Bolsa Avenue in Little Saigon.

A self-described freedom fighter whose cult-hero status grew among Vietnamese after staging a 28-day hunger strike in San Jose has found a new cause -- protesting a Little Saigon newspaper accused of communist leanings. But this time Ly Tong is eating. Tong, a former South Vietnamese Air Force pilot, joined forces Sunday afternoon with protesters who have demonstrated in front of Nguoi Viet Daily News since late January.

When Dada Ngo opened a Cajun-style crayfish restaurant in the heart of Orange County's Vietnamese enclave, she worried whether it would survive. Crayfish was popular fare along the Gulf Coast where she had lived, but the red-clawed crustaceans were alien to most West Coast Vietnamese diners. Some thought crayfish were fish. They were intimidated when what looked like tiny lobsters were brought from the kitchen in steaming plastic bags and dumped on the table.

Nhon Ky Phan sees John McCain as a brother, a man who -- much like him -- suffered through harrowing days as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. "What happened to me was what happened to him," he said in Vietnamese. "John McCain is my comrade."

In Orange County's Little Saigon, Tuesday's election didn't go quite as planned: The winning streak of Vietnamese American candidates in recent county and municipal ballots was snapped. Voters in central Orange County failed to deliver Vietnamese American candidates to the city councils of Westminster and Garden Grove, and of the handful of Vietnamese American candidates to compete for public office in Orange County, only two incumbents won.

News travels fast in Orange County's Little Saigon. So do rumors. The hottest one began coursing through the community a couple of months ago. Word was Nguyen Minh Triet would become the first president of Vietnam to visit the United States since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. He would meet President Bush at the White House in late June and travel to California. He might even stop in Little Saigon. This raised the collective blood pressure of a community where the war is still being fought.

Ten more suspects have been snared in an ongoing federal investigation into a scam involving Asians willing to pay thousands of dollars to immigrate to this country by entering into phony marriages with U.S. citizens from Vietnamese and Chinese communities in Southern California.

Three weekly events this summer have played a big role in the fortunes of the mom-and-pop businesses struggling to survive on Garden Grove's historic Main Street. Friday night's car show and Sunday's farmers market attract potential customers. But the regular Saturday protest by anti-Communists drives them away. "When they're out there, you can't hardly even walk," said real estate broker Scott Weimer, who owns a small office building on Main Street.