Soaking up some Asian culture

Today, eleven Asian cultures showcased many facets of their history at Blank Park in Des Moines. Special performers travelled in from as far as California to participate in the celebration. There was singing and dancing, gardening and cooking, martial arts demonstrations and "villages" for each of the peoples present. Linda and I bounced around between the villages, martial arts demonstrations, and the cultural performance stage.

Indian, Japanese, Tai Dam, Thai, Chinese, Burmese, Filipino, Cambodian, Nepali, Vietnamese, and Lao were present. Some of their foods or traditional costumes were familiar; some were quite new. I had not heard reference to the Tai Dam people before today. I got to speak with a woman who shared a bit of their history and explained that they are located in an area that has been known by many names over the years but is now northern Thailand.

I think that one of the benefits of festivals like today is that it helps increase awareness of the diversity and common ground that can be found around the globe. It was pretty apparent that everyone likes good food! As I mentioned above, Linda and I would watch a performance here, watch a performance there, try an egg roll here, try a dumpling there. I didn't find anything that I didn't like (no surprise there!) I'm not sure Linda was a fan of the Indian food I chose but I sure enjoyed it.

There were some excellent performances on the cultural stage. Our favorites were the Japanese drums played by three women from Nebraska and two Indian girls who's costumes and dance were wonderful. We actually got to see those girls dance twice! It was a very fun day!