kicking off hmong new year
by julie tseCelebration brings culture to surrounding cities
It’s that time of the year again— time to start over. But it’s only November; New Year in the US isn’t for another month and a half.
So whose New Year is it? Chinese? Japanese? Korean?
No, it’s Hmong New Year.
For the Hmong culture, New Year is an opportunity to fulfill religious and social functions.
The celebration overflows the senses. On every corner, you can smell barbeque chicken diffusing into the air as young adults dressed in the colors of traditional Hmong clothes watch performers on the stage playing the queej-a bamboo instrument used for cultural rituals and dances. Fairgrounds are also filled with vendors selling sticky rice with Hmong sausage and sweet drink, clothes, CDs and flowers.
Hmong New Year is a cultural tradition that takes place annually in select areas where large Hmong communities exist. The Hmong do not have an official date to celebrate the New Year because it depends on the timing of the harvesting season. New Year was recently celebrated in Chico and will be held in Stockton this weekend. The celebration lasts about three days during the months of November and December.
The three most important aspects of new years are linking young people to potential mates, religious rituals and displays of wealth.
During New Year, singles take advantage of the opportunity by searching for future potential “soul mates.” New Year is celebrated during different dates in every city so people from other cities can go to other cities’ new years. This gives singles a chance to go to other cities to meet a mate.
One activity practiced by the Hmong during the New Year is a ball-tossing game called pov pob. Single boys and girls line up across from one another and toss a ball back and forth until someone drops the ball. The one who drops it must give the other person a piece of their clothing or jewelry.
Religious rituals take place on the last day of the old year, which is called hnub peb caug, the 13TH day.
Like other cultures, the Hmong believe in a variety of good and bad spirits. They have superstitions and rituals such as calling home the spirits and sweeping the home to get rid of all the dust. “It’s like a christening thing with a baby; it’s to re-bless the family for the New Year,” said Nou Her, a junior at San Joaquin Delta College.
Wealth is revealed by clothing and all the jewelry that a family attains. In the mountains of Southeast Asia, homeland of most Hmong in the United States, the Hmong express their wealth by wearing French coins around their neck, called Xaux ncais; the more, the better. But in America, everyone is basically at the same level of wealth so everyone has the coins to show off. Traditional Hmong clothes are rich in color in creates a colorful scenes at New Year. When young boys and girls become teenagers they are to dress up and find a companion. The traditional clothing for men consists of a white or black shirt and a pair of long black trousers wrapped with a plain red band. Women's clothing is more elaborate and varies according to the family's dialect.
It is a shame though that this colorful, delicious and cultural holiday will only be of importance to no more than 60 students of the UC Berkeley population, according to junior Linda Vu, founder of Hmong Student Association at Berkeley.
This distribution of students makes Stephanie Yang, Public Relations Director of HSAB, question the word “diversity” on a campus that is known to be very diverse. “Cal has all its pictures around campus and we look like we’re diverse but the Hmong population is a very underrepresented group and is overshadowed by this term.”
With the sparse number of Hmong students, Vu and Yang have encountered peers who had not even heard of the ethnicity and have had to retell their entire history and culture in order to educate others.
“It’s disappointing but I’m not surprised because we don’t have a lot of representation here” said Vu.
Yang agrees. “Basically, the Southeast Asian population is so low, it makes me wonder why my community isn’t here and why we’re not being outreached to,” she said. “If this is the case, is Cal as diverse as it claims?”
HSAB was established in order to make a change by providing a space for Hmong students to talk and learn about the culture, history, and current issues of the Hmong people.
And along with tradition comes with changes and adaptations to the social and economic needs of the Hmong community in America.
“We’re trying to preserve (the tradition),” said Vu, “but being in America so long, we’re trying to include it with what we already have” like voting and promoting higher education. For example, Vu stated that there is a low retention rate of Hmong students pursuing higher education because “many live under poverty and go to school with few resources and role models.” So in an effort to serve as a role model and provide the necessary resources, Vu has collaborated with other Hmong organizations at other colleges and will set up a booth in the upcoming Sacramento New Year to distribute brochures and information about college. She also plans to pass out posters of Hmong college students at new years so “high school students can visually see themselves as college students and how it looks like to be in college.”
HSAB will be participating in this event. One of the activities they plan on hosting is a ball tossing activity to try to tie the younger generation to older traditions. As families extend generation to generation in America, there is an inevitable loss of culture and its customs that the younger generation causing a disconnection between the two. Nowadays, the younger generation more commonly visits New Year celebrations to socialize, see old friends and eat. With the traditional activity, HSAB hopes to bring back some of those traditional customs while providing an enjoyable social game.
As of now, HSAB is still a new organization; they are working on building a strong foundation and are slowly making their way into the Asian Pacific American Coalition community and Cal. With members now, HSAB is trying to make them welcomed, at home and increase retention.