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.