VideoLine: Hmongtown Marketplace, A place Like Home
Kevin Obsatz |
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The
Hmongtown Marketplace, on Como Avenue near Rice Street, is the place
to find story cloths, Hmong women's headgear, Laotian fashions, videos
of water buffalo fights, Thai movies, silver jewelry, slabs of delicious
Hmong barbecue, cold pumpkin soup, medicinal plants in pots, counter
after counter of the most beautiful produce anywhere in Minnesota...and
unfathomably much more.
Ying Xiong, the general manager of the Hmongtown Marketplace, is the son
of Toua Xiong, the market's founder. In this video, Ying guides us
through Toua's realized dream: a place for the Hmong people of the Twin
Cities to come, gather, buy, sell, relax, and enjoy an ambiance that
reminds the older folks of home and gives younger Hmong a powerful sense
of the roots of their culture.
Not that the Marketplace is
anything like a sober culture-lesson--it's a vivid, fun-filled immersion
in colorful clothing from all over Asia, intense music and video, and,
above all, the sights and smells of what nourishes the Hmong: their
beautiful produce and their food.
Toua Xiong has big plans for
expanding the Marketplace and making it the center of an urban Hmong
homeland where everyone is welcome. Come along on this trip into the
heart of the Marketplace and see his dream taking shape.