This Monday night's session was once again a surprising experience. Seexeng Lee came in and told about Hmong art. Lee spoke full of pride of his culture and the development of Hmong art. In such a passionate manner Lee spoke generally about artists, but also his own struggle. Lee is now a teacher of art, but still has his own projects or works of art. Lee shared with us that the most common form of art in the Hmong culture is Paj Ntaub, which is an embroidered piece of cloth that is done by women. These clothes are depictions of Hmong history, but are very useful. These cloths originated in a refugee camp and were intended for a specific function. These would be used as baby carriers, among other uses. Lee then spoke his own story and history. He was born in a refugee camp, but when he came to America he struggled. His father worked very hard for his family and when Lee decided to be an artist his father could not understand why he would do that. On top of struggling to be American and living the Hmong lifestyle, Lee was faced with the challenge of his career. Lee had many great insights that kept the class interested.
Seexeng Lee definitely connects to the other Hmong speakers, and also the books we have read on immigration and the Hmong culture. Lee took this a new direction though and gave the perspective of the arts behind the history. The instruments that are used and the cloths that are used in every day Hmong culture are all handmade and have great significance. All of the history that we have previously heard about Hmong culture was very prevalent in art that Lee showed and spoke about throughout his presentation. I found that his experience was similar to that of Kao Kalia Yang, who was from the same generation of Hmong people.
I was quite surprised at the amount of significance art plays into the Hmong culture. It was very interesting to see how all of the cultural history aspects play into much Hmong art. One thing that I found interesting was that the most prominent medium of art in Hmong culture was the Paj Ntaub, which is done by woman. This is interesting to me because woman do not seem to have a very high place in Hmong society, but this seems to prove that wrong to an extent. Also, I found it interesting that Lee's mother, when asked why she never said "I love you" to her son, that she shows her love every day. She stated that any person could say that, it seemed shallow to her. This changed my perspective on the way in which the Hmong interpret love because it seemed that that was not something said, but there is a purpose for that.
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