Hmong New Year!

Promised King King I will attend the Hmong New Year festival with her one year ago, and I made it!

My friend, King King is Hmong. For those who have no idea what is Hmong......

Hmong is an indigenous people in Asia. They are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity (苗族) in China. They became a gradual 

Southwest migration in China in the 18th century due to political unrest and to escape Chinese threats. Now, they are an ethnic group of people 

who live in China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. In Laos, much Hmong sided with the opposition to the communists; after the Revolution of 

1975, more than 100,000 fled from Laos into refugee camps in Thailand, and from where they were resettled in countries including the United 

States, Canada, France, New Zealand and Australia.

The Hmong New Year starts on the same day on Thanksgiving, and it is a huge festival for them!

Because North Carolina has a big population of the Hmong people, so it draws the Hmong from across the country here for this festival.

This huge festival last for few days features dancing, sports, tournaments, crafts, and traditional cuisine. 

Not only that, the Hmong people will also attend the festival with their traditional clothing!!! 

King King took Saskia, Dinah and I to this cultural festival!

She let us tried their traditional snacks and drinks, I had pork steam bun(叉烧包) and Nava (the pink drink which has coconut milk)!!

Not only that, we tried different headpieces, how I wish we can try the traditional clothing too!!

hahahahha

Since we didn't manage to put on the traditional clothing, we decided to take pictures with people who have their traditional clothing on!

Some of the traditional clothing is similar to the Miao ethnicity from China, which looks so familiar to me!

According to King King, nowadays is hard to find Hmong traditional clothing, most of them already modernist. Hmmm.....  

Ohya, guess what?! The three guys with blue traditional clothing are actors!!!!

*I didn't know until King King told me after we took a picture with them and left....WHAT?!*

We also played ball toasting, hahaha.... 

As if asking for someone for dance, instead, they use ball tossing to ask someone to play with. 

Especially some young people wants to look for a mate or partner, so they will invite someone to play ball tossing. 

There was one guy invited me to play ball tossing with him, I was laughing so hard,

because I can't focus when playing ball tossing and talk or ask questions at the same time. 

So, in the end, King King asked most of the questions, and I focus throw ball and catch.. hahahah

We left the celebration at 12pm, brough a fun memory back with us! 

Recorded on  Nov25, 2017