MARYSVILLE, Calif. — One of the oldest operating Chinese temples in Northern California is opening a museum highlighting nearly 200 years of Chinese history.
The Bok Kai Temple Museum in Marysville will carry a display of 300 artifacts that were previously hidden away in storage, including what is believed to be the oldest Chinese dragon to have ever come to the United States.
“To me, if nobody saves those pieces of history, they would be in boxes and they would rot, and I had a really big problem with my culture and history rotting in boxes,” Heather Young, project manager for the museum, said.
Young has spent more than four years on the project, aiming to share centuries of Chinese history and stories in a city once known as the third largest Chinese population in California. While the population was once booming, she says the community started to dwindle around the 1950s and 60s, leaving the Chinese community scarce.
The Bok Kai Temple is one of the oldest operating Chinese temples in Northern California, with its origin stretching back to the 1850s before it was rebuilt in 1880. It was renovated more than a decade ago, and it has been carrying centuries of artifacts that had been stored away in boxes.
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Those artifacts were a big reason why Young took the project on.
“I didn’t like the fact that all of those people’s sacrifices and all of those stories and all of those moments in history would be lost if no one actually put them on display and told people about it,” Young said.
Four years ago, Young started a Kickstarter campaign to turn two rooms of the historic temple into a museum, and she ended up with double the amount she originally asked for from people. She even got help through private donations and a state grant to bring the project to life. Graduate students from San Jose State University were called to help the museum catalog and identify the hundreds of artifacts that had been brought to the temple over the years.
The museum has displays of hand-carved sedan chairs, old photographs, opium pipes, and small shoes for foot binding. When you explore the museum, it wouldn't be unusual to find a hat on display and later, find a photo with the exact same hat from another time period.
“For a while there, I wasn’t quite sure if I opened Pandora’s box or not," Young said. "I wasn’t quite sure if doing this project was a smart idea because it was just sheer massive amounts of information and massive amounts of things we needed to do in order to preserve this history."
Years later, the efforts and fundraising paid off, and the history held in the temple is nearly ready to be put on display.
The museum is preparing for its grand opening on Friday, Feb. 21, which coincides with the 140th Bok Kai Parade in Marysville, which draws thousands of visitors to the small town every year.
The museum is free to the public, but you might need to make an appointment to visit on weekdays. Otherwise, the temple and museum is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends.
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For a small city, Marysville has a lot of hallmarks. If you buy kiwi fruit at Whole Foods, they probably came from the Marysville area. John Bartell went to the largest organic kiwi farm in California, just in time for the harvest.