Hmong New Years' celebration attracts multicultural audience Dressed in traditional Hmong attire, four-year-old Mai Thao is captivated by her surroundings during the Hmong New Year's celebration Saturday at the Neng Yee's Performance Center, 1119 N. Military Ave. (photo by Tina Gohr) By Jessica La Plante News-Chronicle To the Hmong people, celebrating the arrival of another year is more than just a holiday; it's a cultural rite and spiritual rebirth. Holding true to that theme, the Hmong New Year's celebration held in Green Bay on Saturday also featured a reincarnation of sorts as the event's organizers broadened the event's appeal this year to attract a diverse crowd of Asian and Green Bay natives alike. Vaughn Vang, chairman of the Hmong New Year's committee, said the group decided to host the annual event in a new location his year to make the celebration more accessible and visible to the general public. For the first time ever, the event was hosted outdoors, at Neng Yee's Performance Center on Military Avenue. In the past, the group has held the fall harvest festival in rented exhibition halls. But finding a hall large enough to suit the needs of several thousand gala-goers put on a strain on the committee's budget. Vang said Yee's act of donating floor space might have very well saved the New Year celebration, since it's important that all members of the community can attend free of charge. "The New Year is a time to come together and help the Hmong children and the community at large to learn about (our) culture," he said. Vang said the event accomplishes two goals: Preserving the traditional Hmong heritage while encouraging its members to become more integrated with the Green Bay community. Along those lines, local businesses and organizations were invited to set up booths at the festival, a new addition to the festival this year. Law firms and educational groups such as Northeast Wisconsin Technical College used the invitation as a chance to advertise their services to the Hmong community. Likewise, it gave the Hmong people a chance to educate the public about their culture by performing traditional dances and donning costumes whose origins date back to ancient China. Vang said the Hmong New Year's celebration falls around harvest time, during the 30th day of the 11th moon. "The New Years is very important to Hmong culture," Vang said. "The night of the 30th day, every family in every household had to take a shower, symbolizing the washing away of (everything) bad with the old year, so you can receive a new year purified." More than marking a rebirth of the individual, the holiday was a time for the Hmong people to come together and celebrate life as a unified society, he said. Vang said community is a very important aspect of Hmong life, and is reflected by the maximum "There is only one Hmong." That philosophy that is communicated by the different costumes, which distinguish the geographical origins of each member of the Hmong society while reflecting their common heritage. Early Saturday morning, Hmong performers were able to flaunt not only their costumes, but the ornate dances that accompanied them. Chue Xoing, a 13-year-old performer from Franklin Middle School, said she looks forward to the New Years celebration because it shines the spotlight on Hmong performers. A member of the Asian dance group "Us Five," Xoing said Hmong dancing is challenging because of the heavy costumes the entertainers wear. "You have to make the outfits yourself,"said, explaining that the coin-shaped spangles which bedeck the colorful gowns are actually money from the performer's native country. She said the coins serve as a memento of their Asian heritage. Hmong dancers and performers weren't the only ones strolling around in traditional costume Saturday. Some local residents, like Miranda Schuh of Appleton, used the festival as an opportunity to immerse themselves in the traditions of another culture. Schuh, who came to the event garbed in traditional Hmong costume, said she was first exposed to Hmong culture while attending a small elementary school in Appleton, where nearly half of her classmates were Asian. She said probably the most striking feature of Hmong culture is not the colorful apparel, but the unconditional warmth of the people expressed toward insiders and outsiders alike. "Even though I show up in their costumes and clothes, they accept me totally," Schuch said. "Anyone, whether they're Asian or not, would be accepted at something like this."