I’d like to thank this year’s sponsors again for their support. NorthWestern Energy, Jim & Mary’s RV Park, Rick’s Autobody, Thai Spicy, Missoula cultural Council, Nkauj Ntsuab Designs & Photography, and Pure Trophies. Without their support, the event wouldn’t have been possible. Visit http://hmongmissoula.com for more information on the Hmong people and our sponsors for this year’s event.
Behind the scenes; every member, whether young or old, of the Hmong Missoula community also donated $5 for the celebration. $5 goes a long way, it helped pay for the food and drinks for the event. That’s the super cool thing about any Hmong community all around the world, there’s this deep connection between everyone that draws us close to each other no matter what. On top of the donations, everyone volunteered their time in many creative ways to help make the event possible too and I’m just so grateful to be apart of such a supportive community. I will say that I had my doubts in the beginning because things weren’t getting done but a lot of that had to do with my own planning but the follow through the Hmong community was awesome.
I want to say thanks to all those who attended and made the celebration a warm and welcoming event. I will say that any event will seem dull if there are not many attendees and boy was I blown away. It was kind of cute how (yes) I assigned several Hmong teens to head up a “ball tossing crew” who had to be there in the Hmong clothing as a mandate and toss ball. And by doing so several other people showed up and joined in the ball toss games; so definitely a note worth taking down for future planners.
The food was amazing! I think my favorite unique dish this year was the pumpkin curry. I didn’t get to thank my brother-n-laws for the big game meat they donated during the ceremony but yes, I wanted to thank Lue Yang for his elk meat to make the Laj and Chia Yang for his moose meat to make the stir fry. Yum yum.
Now on to more exciting highlights about the celebration itself… Blown away by all the performances planned for this year. For those of you who didn’t stay until the fashion show and a little after – you missed out on some of the best performances. Yes, all of the performances were fun and very creative but I’d like to personally say that I enjoyed the fashion show and the Missoula Hmong Line Dancers. Those two groups were made up of older Hmong couples in the Missoula community and it was a wonderful sight to see because they definitely put a lot of effort into putting it together because they had to work around all their schedules and all their children’s schedule.
The entertainment for the evening was provided by the party people from Thai Spicy and boy I just could not thank them enough. They were really the life and backbone of the whole day with being the sound guys in the morning into being the music guys in the evening. I didn’t even have to worry about anything because they had it covered from dedications to the dj mixes for the youth and the Lao/Hmong music for the oldies.
Last but certainly not the least, Kou Moua – Art Director at the Missoula Independent was our Master of Ceremonies for the celebration and he did an amazing job. Many people think it’s an easy job to be an Emcee but not for the Hmong New Year, this person had to coordinate all that they said into a formation where both Hmong and American people could understand them. Bravo!
We ended out night a little earlier than usual but it was just perfect. The party til midnight thing that we’ve done several years in a row just got people tired and running home so this year Ber and I decided to end it at 10:30 to 11 and that was just perfect. Everyone was still there to see the close and help clean up. It was kind of like just giving them enough and having them want more!
No I will not consider running next year’s new year celebration. Thanks for asking but I have to now focus on flourishing Nkauj Ntsuab Designs & Photography, if that’s the correct way of saying it. AND I’d also want to give this great opportunity and experience to someone else.
Now – I have some tallying up to do and some last loose ends to tie before I hand it over to the hosts of next year’s event but look forward to seeing what will happen next year! *_^ tired.
