Laos Essential Artistry

Hmong Storycloths Zoomified

In my first post I talk about Zoomify.com and the free software available to zoomify images. It works wonders for maps and I thought I would try it with some of my larger Hmong story cloths. Check out the three I zoomified below.

My first image original zoomified image was a Southeast Asia Map

The next set of images are of Hmong storycloths I have purchased in Laos.

This first image is of a smaller Hmong History Storycloth that incorporates Wat Tham Krabok. I was extremely surprised to come across this cloth and would like to talk with the woman/women who designed/embroidered this cloth to find out what motivated them to change the basic design (taken from Dia's Storycloth).

This second image is a large 41 inches by 68 inches / 84 inches by 110 inches w/border storycloth which features the three different major ethnic groupings in Laos. The Lao Soung represented by the Hmong and Mien, Lao Theung and Lao Loum. There's so much going on in this cloth, so many traditional activities represented including all aspects of rice production, and the embroidery is exquisite. The zoomified image allows one to zoom in fairly close without a loss of quality. Laos Essentail Artistry has other similar cloths, in both horizontal and vertical formats for sale.

This third image is a large, 41 by 74 inches / 63 by 96 inches w/border, storycloth based on the Hmong history storycloth seen in the children's book, Dia's Storycloth, by Dia Cha. These storycloths aren't too common, though I've seen about six or seven, and all are variations the theme. I have three of the storycloths and have zoomified the one I like best. There's great discussion material here for students and teachers...

Refugee Educators' Network Website

I would like more people to know about the REN/SEACRC website. REN stands for the Refugee Educators’ Network, a non-profit organization organized to provide education and charitable assistance to the general public by serving as a clearinghouse for information and as a place at which persons interested in these issues can meet to share resources and information and to promote the education of both refugee newcomers to the United States and the receiving communities.

The Refugee Educators' Network, Inc. began as the Education Subcommittee of the Sacramento Area Refugee Forum in the early 1980s. Since then, REN members have developed a collection of books, videos, magazines, and artifacts, have sponsored 14 conferences, and have published handbooks and 22 volumes of “Context: Newcomers in California’s Classrooms.”

REN then founded the Southeast Asian Community Resource Center as a project of the Refugee Educators' Network. The SEACRC is operated by the Folsom Cordova Unified School District (near Sacramento).

The Center was funded by conference proceeds, subscriptions, donations, and grants. The center is still used by some educators, students, and community members to learn more about the backgrounds, languages and cultures of refugees and immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (including Mien and Hmong).

The SEACRC was initiated to provide a resource center for teachers of Southeast Asian students and members of the Southeast Asian community. The SEACRC, over the years, has collected a considerable amount of reference materials, including books, magazines, maps, audio, video, scale models, posters, photographs, slides, travel books, catalogs, handbooks, manuals, and more. In addition, the SEACRC published CONTEXT: a newsletter that is designed to provide teachers (and others) information about refugees and other newcomers to America's classrooms.

Fortunately CONTEXT and other documents are available online as pdf's and are a resource that more educators should know about. Judy Lewis, currently administrator in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, was the driving force behind both REN and the SEACRC. She was the editor and chief writer for the Context newsletters and hopefully in her retirement will begin publishing Context again. Context, as a voice for REN, acknowledged and honored cultural diversity, providing a wholistic view of refugees that was a needed antidote to the education's growing one-dimensional fixation on data.

I highly encourage everyone to download the at least one Context and I think you will find them addicting. Most issues Table of Contents are listed so you can choose an issue that has articles and information that are relevant to your interests. There are over 80 issues available on line for free in pdf format.

Sample articles are: The will of the Mien people (Saephan), Cambodian alphabet for the Macintosh, Two Vietnamese artists, What language does he speak? Last name gives a clue (Iu-Mien, Hmong, Khmu, Lao, Cambodian,
Vietnamese, Overseas Chinese (Vietnam), Vietnamese Montagnard, Do the Hmong really believe in ghosts?, How were Hmong paj ntaub squares used in traditional village life in Laos?, Is it true that a lot of Indochinese have January 1 as their birthday?, Lao & Cambodian new year…

I can't but help reflect on how It is such a sad time in California with the demise of the International Studies Project, decimated by CDE budget cuts for all subject matter projects and lack of funding for non-profit organizations like REN. It’s one of the reasons Dr. Crystal and I have formed SEAIF, to provide some kind of passionate promotion of cultural awareness, especially for SEA cultures.

If you do check out the site, download an issue of Context, or even better a chapter or all the chapters of Grandmother's Path, Grandfather's Way, written by Judy Lewis and Lue Vang. It is a book rich in proverbs and stories that Lue Vang states is "About our Hmong way of life in the old days, our work, our knowledge, our customs, and the words that have been meaningful to our way of life for generations."

And if you like what you see, find something useful or inspirational, let Judy know at jlewis@fcusd.k12.ca.us

Saudi Aramco World Zoomifies!

To understand a geographical area maps are essential. But maps on the Internet are problematical because any map with enough resolution to show detail to make the map informative and interesting would be too large to display quickly and to navigate easily. This leads to

           Aramco World and Zoomified Maps

I was first introduced to the journal Aramco World when I was a K-12 Visiting Scholar during the summer of 2001 at the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley.

There were three teachers chosen, Kay Corcoran, 6th grade teacher at Del Mar School in Tiburon, California, Donna Kasprowicz, 6th grade teacher at Corte Madera Middle School, Portola Valley, California (her project was The Ramayana in Southeast Asia) and myself.

Kay’s project was Monsoon Winds to the "Land of Gold": Maritime Spice Trade from Southeast Asia to Rome.  Her FOCUS  QUESTION was : How did spices get to the Roman Empire from  Southeast Asia in ancient times? One of her research sources was Aramco World, and I still remember her excitement in pouring over the November/December 2000 issue that included an article on The Hidden History of Scented Wood, part of the Spice Island trade. As it turned out this scented wood, which goes many names including “ud” or “aloeswood” is located in all the SEA countries and I was able to track down sources in the northwestern part of Laos.

Anyways, that was my first introduction to Aramco World and over the last year I discovered that they’re now online and in fact The Web Marketing Association named Saudi Aramco World “Best Magazine Website” for 2004. I’ll second the commendation. This is a classy website, that is both interesting and informative and useful to teachers that more than meets their stated goal of broadening knowledge of the cultures, history and geography of the Arab and Muslim worlds and their connections with the West.

Which leads to my discovering the use of zoomified maps. In the July/August 2005 issue their subject focus is on “The Indian Ocean and Global Trade.” Included on the home page is a link to a trade routes map. It’s a beautiful map and being zoomified it allows you to zoom up and get a detailed perspective on any area of the map.

What does it mean to zoomify a map/image? I went to the Zoomify.com website and it states, “Zoomifyer EZ makes using high-resolution images in your Web pages easy to do and fast to view! Show the world your photos, maps, scans - whatever - with no need to down-res, on any Web server, with just a tiny Flash movie and a few lines of HTML! Perfect for any Web designer!”

Well, not being a professional website designer, I was a little skeptical, but saw some great potential and decided to try it out. There aren’t very many good maps of Southeast Asia, as my high school students would say it’s “scandalous.” But I did find a National Geographic Map, purchased it and had it scanned at Fed Ex/Kinkos (did you know educators can apply for a discount card?). I then downloaded the FREE!!! Zoomify EZ in the Mac version and followed the directions and believe it or not, it works! Here’s the link to my zoomified SEA map

My next zoomify project will be to take some of the large Hmong storycloths I have purchased in Laos (six by eight feet or so) and zoomify them.