A Hmong New Year Gala will be held on Dec. 5, at the Satellite Student Union from 5-6 p.m. The Southeast Asian Student Success Center is hosting the celebration to honor the Hmong community, as they reflect on their shared journey, uplift their traditions and welcome the season ahead with hope and unity.
“This is an opportunity for Fresno State students to come together and celebrate the Hmong New Year,” said Yang Sao Xiong, professor of anthropology and Asian American Studies at Fresno State.
Xiong said that the Hmong New Year celebration, known in Hmong as Xyoo Tshiab, is actually a series of private and public festivities that bring closure to the old year and signal the beginning of the new lunar year.
“The Hmong New Year celebration has two components: a private lineage-specific event and a public community-wide event,” Xiong said.
Xiong said the private event involves meaningful rituals. During the evening of the 30th day of the 12th lunar month, Hmong heads of households perform lineage-specific rituals to connect with ancestors, seek protection, honor elders and protect their homes.
He said the private event is followed by a highly anticipated community-wide celebration known as Lub Paj Tsiah Peb Caug, which means the Festival of the 30th. This festival is held over several days, and it is the most well-known celebration.
“The Fresno Fairgrounds holds a Hmong New Year celebration every year that spans several days, which thousands of people attend,” Xiong said.
Xiong said that the Festival of the 30th provides a physical space for men and women to get together, and, more specifically, for unmarried men and women from different clans to play pov pob, a ball-toss game to break the ice. The ball is made of pieces of cloth sewn together and is about the size of a tennis ball.
Xiong said that Hmong men and women dress up in exquisite hand-sewn clothing, and there is poetry, music, singing and dancing.
“I imagine that this is what Fresno State’s Hmong New Year Gala will be like,” Xiong said. “Good food, music, singing and dancing.”
For more information, contact the Southeast Asian Student Success Center.
RSVP: Here.
