Lotus Festival

Each fall, a sprawling bed of lotus plants in Echo Park Lake is cut down to below the surface of the water. "The water is really yucky and mucky and disgusting and gross," said Maile Marquand, "but in the spring, up come these beautiful green leaves and in June, July and August you get absolutely beautiful lotus flowers." In celebration of the blooming of the elegant flowers, Marquand is coordinating a free festival this weekend in Echo Park.

The Day of the Lotus might as well be called the Day of the Dead. Echo Park's famous lotus beds are nothing more than a scattering of a few sickly, brownish pads floating in foul-smelling water, a scene that in two weeks will greet about 150,000 visitors who are expected to attend the 2008 Lotus Festival. Gone are the hundreds of pink- and cream-colored flowers atop a lush green expanse of umbrella-like leaves that were once described as the largest lotus beds in the nation.

With year-round fire season and record low rainfall, Los Angeles is, without a doubt, one hot place. But memories of winter's cold snaps linger. The freezes of January that resulted in crop losses for farmers and blanketed Malibu in snow also gave the lotus plants at Echo Park cold feet.

There will be Asian and Pacific Islander artwork, music and food. There will be Chinese dragon boat races and a nighttime fireworks show set to the beat of taiko drummers. All that will be missing from this weekend's Lotus Festival are lotus blossoms. A cooler than normal winter is being blamed for causing lotus plants at Echo Park's lake north of downtown Los Angeles to grow slowly and bloom late this year. "It's not up to me.

When Rodolfo Rivademar drove from San Pedro to Echo Park Lake this week, he parked his car, bee-lined across the grass and sat down cross-legged as close as he could to the water's edge. So low to the ground, he couldn't see the downtown skyline, the sprays of the fountain, the paddleboats or the swans. All he saw was all that he'd come to see: lotus after lotus after lotus. No one's sure who brought the first lotuses to the lake, but since the 1920s, they've made a home in its northwest corner.

The 20th annual Lotus Festival will open today near the lotus flowers of Echo Park. The event seeks to promote an atmosphere of understanding, bringing together various Asian and Pacific Islander communities for two days of cultural exchange. It will feature ethnic dances, music, martial arts, drama and other forms of entertainment performed by Asian and Pacific Islander groups. Activities for children include dragon boat races, a carnival and an animal farm.

Gathering on a breezy afternoon overlooking a sprawling bed of pink lotus flowers adrift on Echo Park Lake, thousands gathered Saturday to celebrate the 20th annual Lotus Festival. The event, promoted as a cultural exchange between Asian and Pacific Islander communities, took its name from the flowers, which in some Asian cultures symbolize growth, purity and rebirth.