The diversity of our country is surreal. No matter where each culture came from, they were able to bring their home to their new home – the United States. I was completely enamored with the Vietnamese/Chinese New Year celebration at the St. Andrew Dung Lac Catholic church’s event center, which also doubled as a Catholic bible school on Saturdays. The colors, the people, the food, music, and everything gave broaden my perspectives and experiences of other cultures. It was definitely a 360 from how Americans celebrate New Years.
I came from an extremely mixed background. I am ¼ Czechoslovakian (they are split now, but my grandma never identified herself), ¼ Vietnamese, ¼ Taiwanese, and ¼ Korean. My parents never encouraged my siblings and I to engage in their cultures fully because it was not fair to each other if we wanted to follow one more than the other. I basically grew up not very educated in any other cultures other than the American culture. So when my dad’s side of the family invited me to attend this New Year event, …show more content…
It made me feel plain Jane in my jeans and blouse. Adult and children of all ages wore a traditional long-sleeve gown with slits all the way above their hips, the neck -line looked like a turtleneck style, and they wore silky white pants underneath the gown. I mainly saw the gowns in red and blue. The women wore a red gown with gold detailed flowers on them with specks of a shimmering gold thread. The men wore exactly the same thing but in blue. I also saw some ladies in different designs of that gown, and I also noticed that it was not just the adults or young children that wore them. I concluded that it might be for fashion because of the different floral designs, cartoon designs, and dragon designs on them. There was also a headdress worn. It looked like it was a rolled headdress made from the same material of the