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Click here to view our 2008 Events Calendar: explore! Multicultural Boston

 

2008 Edition

 

 

Boston’s

Asia Pacific American Heritage Month Events

2008

 

BOSTON- Greater Boston celebrates the May Asia Pacific American Heritage Month with a series of special events and exhibitions.  These events are constantly updated; please return to this site for more events:

 

2008 is an exciting year for Boston with the second Asia Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month celebration held at the historic 201 year-old Massachusetts State House.  Chinatown and several museums--the Peabody Essex Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the newly-expanded Boston Children's Museum--feature both traditional Asia Pacific American cultural exhibitions as well as contemporary Asia Pacific American artists and performers this month and this summer.

 

                                      ·       Visitors & residents are invited to join Massachusetts state legislators and leaders from all Asian communities across the region for the second Asia    
            Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration at the Massachusetts State House set for Friday, May 2, 2008. 

      

Upcoming Asian Pacific cultural events include:

 

·       The 29^th Dragon Boat Festival on the Charles River is set for June 7, 2008 The Dragon Boat Festival celebrates the story of an imperial adviser who drowned after throwing himself into a river to protest against official corruption. Local villages battled in vain to save him. Today, dragon boat races have evolved from a simple re-enactment of the villagers’ desperate efforts into a fast-paced sporting event. Races are held throughout Charles River in Cambridge.

 

·       "Films at the Gate" is a 5-night outdoor movie event in Chinatown set for August 2008.  Watch classic Chinese and kung-fu movies for free in a vacant lot south of the 26-year old Chinatown Gate, located on 10 and 12 Hudson Street.  Organized by Chinatown residents, businesses, and the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), "Films at the Gate" celebrates its third year of raising awareness of Chinatown's cultural activity and making it a family destination.  Last year's movies included Swordsman (1992), a kung-fu film choreographed by Ching Siu-tung (Shaolin Soccer, Hero) and Project A (1983) starring Jackie Chan.  For more information, visit www.filmsatthegate.org. Hudson Street, between Beach and Kneeland Streets, August 2008.

 

·       The August Moon Festival in Boston is set for August 10, 2008 Boston's Chinatown stages one of its largest events, the August Moon Festival, held annually around the Chinatown Gateway arch on Harrison Ave. According to legend, in 1368 the Chinese overthrew the Mongol Yuan dynasty with the help of messages hidden in moon cakes. These tasty disc-shaped flaky pastries, filled with sweetened bean-paste and marked on top with the symbol of the baker, have thus become the food most associated with the August Moon, or Mid-Autumn festival. The celebration is also traditionally a time for families and neighbors to gather for moon-watching parties and children to carry brightly-colored lanterns.  Beach Street, Chinatown Boston, August 10, 2008

 

·       The 21^st August Moon Festival in Quincy is set for August 17, 2008 (tentative) Quincy’s Chinese community stages it’s August Moon Festival five days later.  Quincy Avenue, August 17, 2008

 

 

Exhibitions and events in Greater Boston that celebrate the culture & treasures of Asia Pacific await the visitor this month and into 2009:

 

·       Visit China at the Peabody Essex Museum. At the Museum in Salem visitors can enter the Huang family ancestral home to gain a rare perspective on Chinese art, architecture, and culture. During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a prosperous merchant surnamed Huang built a stately sixteen-bedroom house in China’s southeastern Huizhou region, calling his home Yin Yu Tang. Among the many literary interpretations of this name is the desire for the home to shelter generations of descendants. Yin Yu Tang was home to the Huang family for more than two hundred years until 1982 when the last descendants moved from the village. Learn More

 

·       "Auspicious Wishes and Natural Beauty in Korean Art" exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum. Newly redesigned and reinstalled, the museum’s Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture features a new exhibition – Auspicious Wishes and Natural Beauty in Korean Art – exploring the use of symbols and natural materials in Korean aesthetic tradition. Drawing from PEM’s extensive collection, the exhibition features works from the 17th century to the present, many on view for the first time. Highlights from the new gallery include a pair of 5-foot tall carved stone scholars (17-18th century) created to guard the sacred space of a family tomb and an extraordinary model of the men’s quarters of an upper-class Korean home. Dating from around 1900, this 4½-foot long model is the only one of its kind known to exist. PEM's Korean collection, more than a century old, was the first of its kind in the United States and has grown to become one of the most important in the country. Learn More
 

·       The "Children of Hangzhou: Connecting with China" exhibit is coming to the Boston Children's Museum.  Join kids from Boston's sister city in China - Hangzhou, for a close up experience in China today.  Explore their school, home, theater, and a farm, all set against a beautiful backdrop of traditional Chinese paintings.  Try out some of their everyday activities: write Chinese, cook with grandmother, explore computer games, plant rice, and perform in a traditional Chinese opera!  Hangzhou combines the best of old and new, rustic countryside and modern urban center.  This unique exhibit presents China from the viewpoint of four young people. Learn More

 

·       Visit Japan at the newly-expanded-Boston Children’s Museum . An authentic Kyoto House is inside the Museum.  Walk down the street, take off your shoes, and step into an authentic two-story silk merchant’s home from Kyoto, Japan.  Explore every corner of this fully equipped Japanese House reconstructed in Boston by Japanese carpenters. Discover Japanese family life, customs, ceremonies, art, architecture and seasonal events in the fully functional 100-year-old house inside the Museum.  Monthly activities offer seasonal experiences in daily life now and long ago. Learn More

 

·       Origami Now! through June 8, 2008 at the Peabody Essex Museum. Originally developed in Asia, origami has evolved into an exciting art form explored by artists worldwide. Works in this intimately scaled exhibition in the museum’s Art and Nature Center demonstrate the breadth of origami art, ranging from depictions of nature to self-portraits and abstract forms. In addition to showing masterworks of origami, the exhibition reveals connections between origami and innovations in other disciplines, such as design, medicine and math. Interactive displays give visitors of all ages opportunities to engage in the artistic process of origami. Learn More

 

·       At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, "The Brilliance of Bird-and-Flower Painting: Gems of Asian Art" continues through June 22, 2008.  Throughout Asia birds and flowers have been cherished for their beauty, but they have carried rich symbolic messages as well. For example, the lotus—a delicate bloom born of the muck of a pond—was adopted early in India as a Buddhist metaphor for the beauty of the soul that can emerge from the mire of human existence. In China, Korea, and Japan, mandarin ducks have been emblems of marital fidelity, while hawks serve as symbols of military prowess. Paintings of native Japanese birds and flowers have been appreciated primarily for their evocation of the seasons and the traditional poetic emotions associated with them.
This exhibition, drawn from the Museum's collections, explores the distinctive visual language of bird-and-flower painting that has facilitated dialogue across Asia between man and nature. Learn More
 

·      The Peabody Essex Museum presents "Of Gods and Mortals," an exhibition of traditional Indian art.  In India, art is an integral part of daily life. The importance of paintings, sculpture, textiles and other art forms comprises two basic categories, one related to religious practices and the other to the expression of prestige and social position. This new installation of works from the Peabody Essex Museum’s collection of Indian art will feature approximately 28 pieces, principally representing the 1800’s to the present.
 

·       Explore "SUMO: Japan's Big Sport" at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts through August 3, 2008.  From its legendary prehistoric beginnings until the present day, sumô wrestling has dominated the world of traditional Japanese sport. Like Kabuki actors and noted courtesans, wrestlers were idols of the urban popular culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so appeared frequently in woodblock prints. “Sumo, Japan’s Big Sport” features not only portraits of famous wrestlers and scenes of their greatest bouts, but also views of wrestlers as celebrities in everyday life, legends and Kabuki plays featuring wrestlers as heroes, and fantasies in which animals or supernatural beings enjoy wrestling just as humans do. Learn More

 

·       Museum of Fine Arts Boston presents "Zhang Daqian: Painter, Collector, Forger" exhibition through September 14, 2008. Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) casts a long shadow over the modern history of Chinese painting. As a painter, he was known for his singular ability to mix traditional techniques and styles with contemporary ideas and currents. As a collector, he accumulated important examples from all genres of Chinese painting and left behind copious seals and inscriptions. As a forger, Zhang so mastered the art of deception that his fakes were purchased unwittingly by nearly every major art museum in the United States—the MFA included.  This exhibition focuses on all three facets of Zhang’s career and features a rich selection of works from the MFA alongside loans from private collections.

 

·       The Peabody Essex Museum presents "Stage Idols, Japanese Kabuki Theater" through January 25, 2009.   With its dramatic storylines, lush costumes and celebrity actors, kabuki was the ideal subject for Japanese print designers. Stage Idols, Japanese Kabuki Theater features a stunning selection of woodblock prints from PEM’s collection, many of which are on view for the first time. The exhibition features a rotating selection of over forty 19th-century prints — including works by famed print designer Utagawa Kunisada — as well as rare kabuki-related objects, such as costumes, photographs and sign-boards. Curated by Midori Oka, PEM curator of Japanese art and culture, Stage Idols opens Feb. 2, 2008, and runs through Jan. 25, 2009. Learn More

 

·       Explore "Chinese Aesthetics" at the Peabody Essex Museum through May 17, 2009.  Chinese culture is diverse, longstanding and ever-changing. Yet common ties unite. This exhibition offers an approach to understanding Chinese culture through a study and celebration of the aesthetics of Chinese art. Objects included reveal key aesthetic clues that define the art of China, and distinguish it from art produced by neighboring regions, or art made in China for the export market. These aesthetic standards prevailed with the passing of time and foreign influences. Ultimately they are a testament to the power of art. The exhibition features 30 objects that date from the Neolithic era to 2004 in a range of media including paintings, jade, textiles, porcelain and prints. Learn More
   

Did you know?

 

·       Boston’s Chinatown is actually built on a landfill created from tidal flats in the early 1800’s to provide additional housing for Boston's expanding middle class population.  As the area's original residents moved out of the area in the 1840’s, an influx of immigrants moved in, including Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Syrian, who converted the area's single family homes to multiple unit tenements. Commercial uses, including textiles and leather works, began at the turn of the Century with the construction of South Station and the Washington Street Trolley line.  Chinese restaurants and specialty shops fill the ground floor levels of residential buildings.
 

·       In 1885 the first Chinese moved into Oliver Place (now Ping on Alley) among resident Syrians. Chinese work for the New England Telephone Company on 50 Pearl Street and live on Beach Street, Oxford Place, and Harrison Ave. Site of first major Chinese settlement in Boston.  In 1890 approximately 200 Chinese were living in Chinatown. The Chinese Monthly News begins publication.
 

·       One of the greatest pleasures in visiting Boston is dining in Chinatown. Visit and enjoy a papaya shake, a treat from Vietnam, or the ginger on a steamed fish. Seafood is a particular specialty since many residents come from the Guangdong Province, along the South China Sea. For the adventurous eater – or those who want to sample a little of everything – there’s “Dim Sum” which translates to “little treasures.” From 9am - 3pm, women wheeling carts chant the names of dishes of steamed shrimp dumpling, rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, porcelain while noodles, and other wonders as they wander by your table.

 

·       Take something home from Chinatown markets- Boston’s chefs love Chinatown for fresh produce & spices. As Asian-influenced cuisine has grown in popularity, chef’s and would-be chefs find Chinatown’s groceries the place to buy five star spices, red bean paste, curry and other needs for even the most exotic tastes. Crackling brown duck, plump sweet buns, tanks of live lobster, and the succulent aroma of mangos entice the eye and palate. While shopping, don’t overlook the bakeries where delicately sweetened Chinese confections like sweet buns, walnut cookies, and the lightest cream or lemon-filled layer cakes await you.

 

·       Boston's 26-year-old Chinatown Gate is now a major feature of the Chinatown Gateway Park in the new Rose Kennedy Greenway. Opened in September 12, 2007, the concept for the Chinatown Park is inspired by the passage of Asian immigrants through Boston and the progression of the many families who have forged an indelible identity in the city. The Park will feature gates, stones, streams, and waterfalls build upon the ideals of Feng Shui; space must have balance and harmony among the elements. A signature feature of Chinatown Park will be the distinctive pavement pattern in front of the Chinatown Gate. Designed by California artist May Sun and patterned after a Chinese chess board, the square within a circle pattern symbolizes heaven and earth in the Chinese culture. Running through the center of the chessboard will be a "river'' of stainless steel and colored concrete, depicting a map of Boston focused on Chinatown, South Station and the Fort Point Channel. The 26-year Chinatown Gate, a three-story red-and-gilt monolith guarded by four Fu dogs at the intersection of Hudson and Beach streets, is a gift from Taiwan in honor of Chinatown's centennial. (Gate is Páifāng or Paifong (Chinese: 牌坊)

 

Boston visitor information - from updated weekend event information to special hotel offers  visit  www.BostonUSA.com ; toll free 1-888-SEE-BOSTON; e mail visitus@BostonUSA.com . Explore Multicultural Boston! Click here to view our 2008 Events Calendar: explore! Multicultural Boston.