Cultural Crossroads Asia

Fall 2025 Newsletter

Season of Thanksgiving
Lahu Shi Women Miming Ploughing, Sowing, Tending the Harvest
New Rice Harvest Festival, Awe Szeu Ja Poi Tae Wae
Keng Tung, Myanmar

Celebrating the Bounty of Harvest
There is a primal connection between ethnic ritual life and the sun, moon, and seasons, for the movement of these celestial bodies directly influences the crops – the source of survival – that the highlanders mindfully tend. So it comes to pass, every year from the eighth lunar cycle through the harvest, ethnic villagers throughout the Golden Triangle perform rites that honor Spirits of Land, Sky, and Water; Village Guardians; and Ancestors.

Displays of gratitude come in many forms – the Akha Swing Festival, Eng Fertility Festival, Lahu New Rice Festival, Lisu Maize Festival, Karen Rice Field Ceremony, Taugnyo Harvest Festival, among many others.

Cultural Crossroads Asia has also been reaping the fruits of its labors this year. We would like to share our Living Legacy harvest with you.

Exhibition

“From Harvest to Hearth
Food Production in the Mountains of the Golden Triangle”
Photographic Display on Behalf of Cultural Crossroads Asia
by Victoria Vorreiter
Rimping Supermarket, Mae Rim
Chiang Mai, Thailand
29 August – 30 September 2025

Warmest gratitude goes to the leadership and team at Rimping Supermarket for championing Cultural Crossroads Asia by mounting in the herbs and condiments aisle a small display of photographs of Palaung, Akha, Lisu, Pa O, Inthar, Siem, Karen, Lahu, Hmong, and Iu Mien villagers. There is ‘sweet and savory’ poetic justice to this exhibition, which connects the people who work the land with the food the Rimping Market sells.

Living Legacy Project
Akha Oral Tradition School

Celebrating our Second Anniversary: July 2023 – July 2025
As Akha students and Master Teachers marked their special day, it is valuable to look back at the creative energy that has swirled over these past two years. Following is a brief overview of activities that have inspired our Akha youth to sustain their ancestral culture:

Weekly classes
Four public Concerts
Digital Story-telling Course
Museum Curatorship Course
Akha Heritage Center with Five Exhibits of Akha Culture
Creation of Nine Videos of our Master Musicians
Creation of Six Videos by our Akha Students
Cultural Crossroads Asia YouTube Channel
Craft Apprenticeship Classes

“Happy Birthday to Us!”
Students and Teachers
Celebrate Two Wonderful Years
Akha Oral Tradition School
Ban Saen Suk, Chiang Rai, Thailand
July 2023 – July 2025

New Semester – New Experiences
September 2025 – March 2026
We have new initiatives up our sleeve this semester, as we encourage our Akha youth to learn new skills to sustain their lives. Year 3, here we come!

Apa Ayii Offers First Lessons in the Ja-Eu, Mouth Harp

Concert by Students of the Akha Oral Tradition School
21st National Lanna Heritage Conference
Chiang Rai, Thailand
6 September 2025

Appearance on Thai PBS
Filmed during the Akha Swing Festival
Athu Akhahome, Chiang Rai, Thailand
14 September 2025

New Semester – New Experiences
September 2025 – March 2026
Our school needed three new drums – so why not make them ourselves! Knowing that crafting a Thang bass drum is a time- and effort-intensive endeavor, Cultural Crossroads Asia decided to sponsor a new initiative to complement our Saturday afternoon classes of songs, instrumental music, stories, dances, and martial arts.

So it came to pass that every Sunday for three months, six Akha boys from the Akha Oral Tradition School studied with Master Musical Instrument Maker Asaw Jotaw in Ban Saen Suk, Chiang Rai. In the process, they learned how to transform a tree trunk, buffalo hide, rope, metal wire, varnish, and beeswax into the most beautiful, thundering Akha bass drum, Thang.

Further sessions followed as Apa Ayii, Athu Pochear, Mawleu Jupoh, and Meedo Chemeu taught students to fashion the Chudu end-blown buffalo horn, the Yaja side-blown buffalo horn, and headdresses and trousers for Akha boys. We could not be more proud of our Akha students.

Master Akha Musicians and Craftsmen Who Teach our Akha Students

Asaw Jotaw

Mawleu Jupoh

Athu Pochear

Apa Ayii

Watch our Master Teachers perform, discuss, and make their instruments:
Cultural Crossroads Asia YouTube Channel

Thang, Bass Drum

Yaja, Side-Blown Buffalo Horn

Chudu, End-blown Buffalo Horn

Ulo Akha Boy’s Hat

Living Legacy Films on our CCA YouTube Channel
Over 7,000 Views!
Wow! In only three months, some of our Living Legacy Videos featuring Master Musicians, Storytellers, and Artisans have racked up over 7,000 views!

It was always our dream that these videos, which show our teachers performing, describing, and making their instruments, would find their way to the ethnic peoples of SE Asia, their diaspora worldwide, and an international audience thirsting to learn more about traditional customs. But we were not prepared to see so many viewers!!

See what all the excitement is about!
Cultural Crossroads Asia YouTube Channel

Gratitude to our Sponsors

The Akha Oral Tradition School is thriving thanks to the fine instruction of our Master Akha Musicians, the eagerness of our Akha students. . . and the generosity of spirit of so many individuals, organizations, and granting agencies over these past two years. The lessons in cultural identity that are shaping these young lives can never be quantified. Nor can our collective gratitude to you.

Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for helping us get to this place of promise.

Living Legacy Project – Semester 5
(September 2025 – March 2026)

Individual Donors

Scott Keesling
Bill Reichert
Laura Rose
Chris Barclay
Doug Van Tress
Olivia Hewitson
Steve Epstein
Nadya Lurey
Linda McIntosh
Tukata and Don Blankenship
Sequoia Henning
Oliver Toth
Michael Sidell
Candace Chesney
Helen Brunner
George McBride
Rebecca Leistman