Chinese culture highlighted in Southern California at Bowers Museum

LOS ANGELES, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Bowers Museum in Southern California hosted a special Chinese cultural event on Sunday, attracting local residents and visitors to come and participate.

The Sino Cultural Day entertained, educated and engaged audience about the Chinese art and culture through dance, musical performance and Peking Opera in full costume.

Many of the performers are America-born Chinese teenagers, growing up in the United States and practising traditional Chinese dance for years. Well-training allows them to stage professional performances at the event.

"The biggest challenge is to get them (America-born Chinese) interested in (and) not (to) lose their Chinese roots and Chinese culture," Peter C. Keller, President of Bowers Museum, told Xinhua. "Today, it is obvious what a great job this does to promote that continuation of the appreciation of the culture."

Established in 1936, Bowers Museum is one of California's finest museums. For years, the Museum has been focused on cultural exchange, with the Chinese culture involved. Not only the Museum has a Chinese gallery itself, it also hosts Chinese cultural events on holidays.

Thirteen-year old performer Michelle Chang, who has been learning Chinese dance for over 8 years, said "the Chinese dance is a little more special, versus Western (one) that most people know around the world," as the dance embodies the Chinese culture, "not everyone can learn it."

Chang told Xinhua that she enjoyed learning the Chinese dance. "There is a balance that you get when you learn it, when you achieve this balance you can technically do any dance, including the Western one."

"Sino Cultural Day is a new event we have this year with museums, it is to offer a cultural experience to local residents. We hope people from different cultural backgrounds could have the opportunity to know about, to learn about and to like Chinese culture," said Susie L. Shu, Chief Operating Officer of Sino U.S. Performing Arts Organization.

Besides enjoying the performances, visitors also participated in hands-on activities, art-making and Han-Fu costume dress-up and interaction with musicians and opera characters throughout the event.

"I think Han-Fu is really beautiful," said Jasmine Baker, a local resident who was dressing up in a Han-Fu of summer-style. "It makes me wonder a lot about what it means, what the colors represent, what people would wear it for, during what season."

As the most popular activity, Han-Fu dress-up attracted most visitors. They were keen on trying on different styles and learned knowledge about the culture and history of Han-Fu from organizer's introductions.

"I love to see other people's culture," Baker said, and "to experience it in my own country."