Background Information
New Year's Celebrations: China
Rituals and traditions of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Please note: Special public hours – 10 AM to 5 PM – on Thursday, May 9
Background Information
Rituals and traditions of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Activity
Students will create their own books and stamps, and can inscribe poetry or good wishes on each others books. They will then take their books with them on a pilgrimage to the Asian Art Museum, the Japanese tea garden, or the beach, and record their impressions.
Background Information
For more than a thousand years Indonesians have used wayang theater as a method of addressing the conundrums of life. The lively puppet traditions of South and Southeast Asia have portrayed epic stories that shrank the cosmos down to a miniature world. The vast expanse of the earth could symbolically be reduced to the few feet of a puppet stage. The puppeteer’s lamp became the sun, throwing light on myriad creatures who, in their nobility or baseness, make up the world.
Background Information
Lesson
Students will: 1.) analyze the role of the puppet master (dalang) in Indonesian rod puppet theater (wayang golek). 2.) Read a summary of the Ramayana or a scene from this Hindu epic. 3.) Identify the different puppet character types. 4.) construct a rod puppet of a character from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.
Artwork
Hermit in landscape, approx. 1618–1652, Chen Hongshou (1598-1652). China; Ming dynasty (1368–1644) or Qing dynasty (1644-1912). Hanging Scroll; ink and colors on silk. Museum purchase, B79D8.
Background Information
The first record of tea drinking in Japan occurs early in the Heian period (794–1185) whenit was introduced to the Japanese aristocracy by scholar-monks returning from Tang dynasty China. Learn more.
Background Information
Learn more about the various formats of Chinese painting.
Video
Asian Art Museum Storyteller Miriam Mills tells a story about a gecko from Bali.
Video
Learn about samurai castles.