Weave Your Imagination: Hmong New Year 2012-2013 Fresno

I came back from a visit to Fresno's Hmong New Year today and decided to share some of the pictures I took. Maybe I'm getting older but every year, this event becomes redundant and less and less interesting/exciting. Everything is always the same, with people preaching Hmong traditions and values but the vast majority straying away from it.

For me personally, I believe that the event will be more exciting if we try to embrace or return to some of the more rustic traditions and values of the past, including those that may still be adhered to by the Miao/Hmong people of China. I believe that simplicity is more meaningful and beautiful. But then again, that nostalgic past is the way it was because village life required young men and women to help their families with chores and farmwork and so New Year became the sole time for them to court one another in open daylight. So the New Year's Festival, in my opinion, was more precious and had more value in the old days.

Anyways, enough with my rambling. Here are some pictures for those of you who couldn't make it.

(I randomly clicked my camera to take this picture while being blinded by sunlight, and didn't realize I captured my baby sister, who left us and wondered off, in it--she's the one with the bright red sash on the right)

(Some young girls in bright yellow border outfits tossing balls)

(These girls are sporting clothes from the Province of XiengKhouang, Laos)

(These young ladies are wearing clothes from the Province of Luang Prabang, Laos)

(Some young Hmong men tossing balls to either their girlfriends, or girls they met at the New Year's ground)

(This picture and the one below are the REAL "[h]laus nkauj and [h]laus nraug" [this is Hmong pun, not meant to be offensive] of Hmong New Year...they are tossing balls to one another, in matching blue and black outfits...very nice and classy)