Missoula’s Chinamen Plan a Great New Year’s Celebration

The Chinese of this city are not bothered with the century question. With them the old year ends with the 29th of this month and the new one begins with the 30th, and they are preparing for a grand celebration of that important day. They are going to usher the new year in with drums and cymbals and their buildings on Front street will vibrate with the noise of their instruments, and the choir of nasal-toned voices will make night hideous.

Firecrackers, China gin, ill-smelling punk sticks and the beloved game of fantan will combine to make the heathen yellow man think of dear old China and help to free his mind of the smells of the wash house. The opium pipe may help him to dream away the watch night, or the Mongolian national beverage fire him with such a spirit of wakefulness that not even the soothing opiate will calm his disturbed and tumultuous soul.

When the celestial is full of gin, sea-weed, birds’ nests, dried snakes, lizards and centipedes, there is no telling what may happen, and that is just what the Mongolian is preparing to feast upon. One who can trace his ancestors back to the Puritan fathers may not relish such a repast, but the shipment of Chinese goods to Missoula has been very large of late and the articles mentioned above have comprised a considerable part of the assignment. Among the goods to be used in connection with the celebration of the Chinese New Year are large quantities of firecrackers without which the celebration would fall flat; also large shipments of Chinese liquors, provisions and delicacies, including canned fruits, sharks’ fins, seaweed, edible birds’ nests, beche de mer, preserved eggs, etc., and for desert a full stock of Chinese medicines, including boluses as large as golf balls, dried snake, lizards, centipedes, etc., which are intended to overcome the deleterious effects of over indulgence in the above mentioned delicacies.

The above article is from the Jan. 20th, 1900 Daily Democrat-Messenger, a short- lived alternative Missoula newspaper.