Our guide to 2018 Delaware Chinese Festival, which features duck wraps, karaoke and medical displays

Something fun (karaoke) and something serious (medicine) are new at the Delaware Chinese Festival, a tradition since 1992 at the Chinese American Community Center.

Here’s our guide to the 2018 installment:

Go to it: It’s 5-9 p.m. June 22, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. June 23, noon-6 p.m. June 24 at the center, 1313 Little Baltimore Road, North Star. Admission is free; parking is $5. Details: www.chinesefestival.org.

Go slow: “Slow down to appreciate the harmony of Chinese life,” said Naxin Cai, festival chairman. Slowing down will also help you enjoy the festival because it takes time to take in the displays, participate in and watch the entertainment and savor the food.

Singalong: Karaoke machines were developed around 1970 in Japan (the term is often translated as “empty orchestra”), but Cai said the tradition of asking for music to sing to goes back hundreds of years in China, under the term ge wu. The center’s karaoke system has 50,000 songs, with 9,000 in English and the rest mostly in Chinese, with some in other Southeast Asian languages. His favorite is “Cheng Du,” a folk song about a city and love. “Chinese people are shy, slow to open up,” he said, so the action might be jump-started with members of the center’s karaoke club. A guitarist (Greg Silber, whose wife Barbara chairs the center’s board) and a singer (Albert Shen) are around for lulls.

To your health: Five learning stations fill a room devoted to classic medical practices, with trained specialists and knowledgeable individuals conducting demonstrations and fielding questions.

“No. 1 is food,” said Ying Liu Ko of Global Inno Health & Wellness in Wilmington. “If you don’t eat right, you’re not in balance.” A media preview generated agreement on the importance of balance in food, easily demonstrated when dining out, with groups making sure their family-style order goes well together. “Everything is about balance — you, nature and the universe,” Barbara Silber said.

The second station covers acupuncture and moxibustion (burning of mugwort or moxa), which stimulate channels in the body and restore balance. Both are on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The third is about cupping, which uses suction to pull blood to various areas, and includes a photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps sporting reddish rings after a treatment.

The fourth focuses on gua sha, which Lee Deug has been studying for decades. He uses oddly shaped instruments (and even a jar lid) to scrape the body in a very intense massage.

And the fifth displays a few dozen medicinal herbs, mostly turned into drinks.

Food court: Featured dishes this year are Peking duck mini-wraps, crispy tofu with Taiwanese pickles, Taiwanese-style sausage and grilled chicken wings. Peking duck is time-consuming to prepare, including a delicate, highly choreographed carving into 120 pieces, according to carver Henry Ward, who’s trained in both culinary arts and archaeology. The dish goes back hundreds of years. By contrast, the recipe for the grilled chicken wings includes Coke, said Juliana Soo, who chose this year’s featured items and is teaching cooking classes on wontons, spring egg rolls and dumplings.

Writing, sculpture, painting: New in the arts classroom is Rose Mao, a retired DuPont biochemist, sharing her knowledge of “5,000 years of history in painting” via her swift and sure strokes with just the right brush (she has 30 to choose from) and just the right amount of black ink. The first lessons involve bamboo, plum flowers, chrysanthemums and orchards, which represent the four seasons.

She’s joined by Shanghai native George C. Hsiao, a University of Delaware professor emeritus, back with instruction on writing Chinese characters. Also returning is Chun Lan Lee Lin with playful dough figurines, some to show and some to sell. Visitors can make their own for $5 to $10 with a dough she imports from Taiwan. It dries to an amazingly bounce and vibrancy.

More traditions: The festival, as usual, promises Chinese performances and instruments; dragon, lion and folk dances; tai chi and kung fu; and children’s activities. The featured performer is Yang Xiao Di, a Chinese circus performer and master juggler. “It’s where west meets east,” Silber said.

MORE FUN:

Jazz Fest performances start on Father's Day

Delawarean to perform with The Who in Philadelphia