The Year of the Snake

Neal and his friend, Chris, decided to go winter camping in early February.  To me that is like the artic anti-fun.  So the kids and I gladly stayed home and took off the next morning to the Crow Asian Art Museum to expose ourselves to a little culture, especially with Chinese New Year being only a week away.  We talked about the Chinese zodiac and found out which animal's year we were each born in. 

The kids started by drawing a wish that they then enclosed into the traditional red envelope. 

Then we walked through and looked at some of the artwork. 

 Much of which was Buddhist gods that had three faces, feet stepping on small people, and in the sexual act.  Sophie thought that three faces was funny, that it was mean to step on people, and, thank goodness, was oblivious to the copulation taking place.  I explained that Buddhism was a different religion that I did not understand but that these things represented or "helped the people remember" things about their beliefs, and oh, isn't that interesting that that god has more than two arms and never mind you about the girl with her legs wrapped around his pelvis. You get the idea.  Look this one, although stomping on other figures, is not enjoying sexual relations!  Let's take a picture with that one.

Then through a hall with hundreds of awesome origami cranes dangling from above...

And we were in a yoga class!  Took Rhys a few minutes to get into it but he did.  The teacher was great and the kids and I had fun.

After a quick lunch we got good seats to watch The Lion Dance.  We were up close to the action and were some of the first to feed our red envelopes to the Lion.  They dancers did a great job and the kids were allowed to touch them and even get up and dance with them and "play" with them near the end.

It was a great way to introduce them to a bit of Asian culture.  To complete our celebration, the night before Chinese New Year we went out to eat Chinese food, cooked by Chinese people, at one of our favorite restaurants, Zen Chow.  We gave the kids red envelopes with money and left our tip in one as well. Any excuse I can find to eat Zen Chow's food is a good one.