Cultural events

Whoever said Greensboro, NC isn’t a city of culture? Well, I sure did back in the day. Over the years, as UNCG expanded and the city of Greensboro launched major initiatives to revitalize downtown Greensboro, more and more cultural events and activities have started to take place, making Greensboro a truly happening place…or at least off to a good start. There was an urban art show opening at the Greensboro Center for Visual Arts that showed work from local Greensboro artists. It was great to see so many people out. We were particularly surprised to see so many young and hip looking people.

Ksah and Helen at the graffiti exhibit.

Miss cutie Camo is defintiely a piece of art ;).

Carrie, Camo, and I bewildered about how "hip and trendy" Greensboro has become.

I also went to a Cambodian wedding, which I can now add on to the French, American, and German-ish weddings I’ve already been to this summer. Camo was a doll and came along with. It was a bit like a blast from the past because I saw many faces I hadn’t seen in a pretty long time. After a 15 minute detour (thanks to my amazing directions giving skills), we finally plugged in the GPS and found our way there.

Camo and I in our pretty dresses and ready for the wedding !

The beautiful wedded couple in traditional Khmer wedding dress

My mother immediately took us under her wing, sat us down, and fed us. We were served a yummy soup of lettuce, mushrooms, shrimp, meatballs, and pork skins, accompanied by fried rice and loc lac, which is basically stir fried beef served with fresh onions, served on a bed of lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes and dipped in a sauce consisting of lime juice and black pepper. For more info on Khmer cuisine, click here.

A somewhat spontaneous gathering of musicians occured and traditional Khmer music was played. This is also known as a Cambodian pinpeat ensemble, which is a court ensemble used to accompany classical dance for ritual occasions or theatrical events. The pinpeat is primarily made up of percussion instruments: the roneat ek (lead xylophone), roneat thung (low bamboo xylophone), kong vong touch and kong vong thom (small and large sets of tuned gongs), sampho (two-sided drum), skor thom (two large drums), and sralai (quadruple-reed instrument).

We looked for the fortune teller woman from the other day who read my palm, but apparently she was too drunk to “see clearly”…

Finally, no trip to Greensboro would be complete without eating my mum’s home-cooked Cambodian meals, nor without a visit to Jan’s house (a 24 hour diner). Although both experiences are completely different in nature, both definitely qualify as a cultural event ;).

Mom's chicken soup for the soul with lots of yummy fresh herbs from the garden

Burgers and home fries !