A quiet town has one of the oldest Chinese temples in North America
For a brief time in the mid-1800s, one of the largest cities in California was a place you may not have heard of: Marysville, about 40 miles north of Sacramento.
Marysville was a gold rush town, which in 1860 was more populous than any other city in the state except San Francisco and Sacramento. The community, in Yuba County, was the last stop along the way for gold seekers who had come to California by steamship and headed inland to the mines.
It was also home to the state’s third-largest Chinatown, a hub for immigrants from southern Guangdong province who worked on the railways.
“I grew up hearing Marysville as Sahm Fow,” or “third city” in Cantonese, said Jon Lim, a 54-year-old resident of the city.
Today, Marysville is a quiet town with antique shops and Victorian homes, and a population that is only 7 percent Asian. Yet the legacy of the once vibrant Chinatown remains.
Built in 1880 in the center of Marysville’s Chinatown, the Bok Kai Temple has been preserved as one of the oldest Taoist temples in the United States. The temple, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, honors the water god Bok Eye, to whom locals prayed for enough rain to grow crops, but not so much that their homes would be flooded. Marysville is located at the confluence of the Yuba and Feather rivers, and its Chinese residents were banished to the lowest, most flood-prone parts.
I stopped at the temple recently and went through imposing red doors into a shrine where the air was cool and smelled of incense. An ornate wooden altar containing copper statues of gods, decorated with peacock feathers and red ribbons.
Under the eaves of the temple were surprisingly well-preserved murals from almost 150 years ago, depicting Chinese scenes. They were hidden from view for decades by layers of incense smoke, which appeared to have protected them from the elements, said Lim, president of the nonprofit Marysville Chinese Community, which owns the temple.
Lim told me that Bok Kai was built to replace previous temples in Marysville that had been destroyed by fire and vandalism. His family, who have lived in the region since the 1860s, believe the current temple has survived so long in part because the surrounding community was more tolerant of Chinese immigrants than people in other parts of the state.
(Bok Kai is not the oldest Chinese temple in California; there is one temple from 1863 in nearby Oroville and one from 1874 in Weaverville, another gold rush town, further north in Trinity County.)
Bok Kai’s great iron gates now hug a sand dike that keeps the Yuba River at bay, and the temple sits on a deserted street next to the Silver Dollar Saloon, a former brothel. With Marysville’s Chinese population now a fraction of what it once was, the temple is generally open by appointment only, with the exception of one weekend a year, which takes place next month.
The 144th annual Bok Kai Festival, billed as the longest-running parade in California, is scheduled for March 8-10. Visitors can tour the temple, watch traditional lion dances and enjoy a firecracker show. The festival celebrates Bok Eye’s birthday, which falls on the second day of the second month of the traditional Chinese calendar.
Lim told me he was trying to revive interest in the festival despite the city’s dwindling Chinese population. He hopes to keep this up for as long as possible.
“If I don’t do it, my kids won’t have it,” he said.
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And before you go: good news
A Los Gatos man, Mark Zhang, has lent portable generators to his neighbors in the South Bay who lost power this winter, including during recent heavy rains. Mercury News reports this.
His effort began a year ago, in January 2023, when Los Gatos experienced major outages after a major storm. Zhang, who is passionate about preparedness and had amassed a collection of used generators, was out of the country. But with the help of a city council member, he was able to lend his generators to neighbors who had no lights.
The generators made such a difference that Zhang decided to formalize the operation this year, giving classes to the community on how to set up the machines and teaching the city’s Community Emergency Response Team, of which he is now a member, to to use.
Zhang said he hoped to create a generator sharing program for South Bay residents to ensure the community is as prepared and resilient as possible.