Explore elements representing the East Asian living spaces of people of the Hmong, Chinese, and Japanese people. How are they the same or different from your home?
The Hmong are an ethnic group of people with specific language and culture. The Hmong originally came from China, with over 4,000 years of history there! Explore Hmong story cloths, make your own flower cloth patterns using traditional Hmong design elements, and try your hand at "rice" harvesting.
China is the third largest country in area in the world, and is home to at least 55 distinct ethnic groups. Try your hand at a dinner table with giant chopsticks and "dumplings," play a board game called Wu Zi Qi, and explore a puppet shadow theater with characters from the Chinese tale, "Journey to the West."
Japan is an archipelago, or string of islands, on the eastern edge of Asia. Japanese culture has distinct traditions and practices, but also overlap with others. For example, Japanese writing uses both Chinese and Japanese characters! Sit around the dinner table to learn about the Japanese dinner experience and practice using chopsticks; roll out the Tatami, a traditional map made of rush grass and cloth; and practice drawing kanji using large stencils--draw from top to bottom and then left to write to do it the traditional way.
