New Year is no exception. I celebrated new year recently with a friend for whom sour cream and cheddar chips are an integral part of the evening. He also cooked us a Chinese roast duck; much closer to my ideal celebration.

We spoke to a couple of Bay Area experts about two specialties that are close to us at the museum: Japanese mochi and Buddha hands.

Last weekend, we celebrated the new year here at the museum with mochitsuki (mochi pounding). Local Japanese teacher Yoko Hara writes:

I am from Tokyo, but I’ve never seen mochitsuki there. We bought freshly made big square mochi (Tokyo style) and my father used to cut it into small rectangular pieces. So mochitsuki by Kagamikai was a surprise and delight.
We used to live pretty close to the old site of Asian Art Museum so when my children were still young, we used to enjoy the mochitsuki with Taiko drumming every year. Being a Japanese Teacher, I now spread the word about this lovely event to all my students and friends.

Buddha’s hand has become a common sight at Heart of the City Farmers’ Market, which takes place on Wednesdays and Sundays right behind the museum. Former curator Terese Bartholomew, now a board member of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, shares her knowledge of this funny-looking cousin of the lemon:

One interesting citrus that has appeared in the farmers’ markets in recent years is the Buddha’s hand citron (Citrus medica ‘Sarcodactylis’). This yellow citron with wavy tentacles takes its common name from the shape of its fruit, which resembles the idealized fingers of the Buddha. This fragrant fruit is used as an altar offering during Chinese New Year. The fruit runs completely to rind, and is not edible unless preserved with salt or sugar. Sliced into pieces, the fruit can be prepared the same way as candied citron; dipped in chocolate, these make a most delicious snack. The Buddha’s hand citron is beloved by the Chinese because its name, foshou, puns with blessings and longevity.

Tell us what’s on your Lunar New Year table – or share your recipes for Buddha’s hands.

A few days ago, I received a holiday card from an AsiaAlive alumnus, Japanese bamboo artist Tanaka Kyokusho. He also sent me a photo of his latest work, a fifty-foot-long dragon made entirely from bamboo.

Tanaka's bamboo dragon display in Tokyo.

Another Japanese artist, Paris-based artist Natsusaka Shinichiro, recently sent us the new year’s netsuke he created specially for the museum. This is his third year designing netsukes for our education programs; he previously created netsukes for the year of the tiger and the year of the rabbit.

Natsusaka's dragon netsuke is about an inch tall.

Unlike Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities, Japanese people celebrate the new year on January 1. This change from the lunar calendar was made during the Meiji Restoration Period, in 1873. Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese new year starts on January 23, 2012 (it changes every year according to the lunar calendar), so you will have three extra weeks to make new year’s resolutions.

Next Saturday, December 31, museum visitors can ring the new year in with our annual Japanese bell ringing ceremony, make their own netsukes at our family art activity, and welcome the Year of the Dragon in style.

Although you might guess that things around the Museum are winding down–we’ve less than a month of the Bali exhibition left–think again.

The rare opportunity to see noted puppet master I Wayan Wija brings an added benefit: Wija has brought a number of his puppets and miniatures, several of which will be available in the Museum Store through his Asia Alive residency, which runs until August 28th.

Current favorites include the frogs and lion (with wagging tail), and quite a few of the miniatures, which are essentially small, unmounted paintings done in the style of the wayang (puppets).

Ratih, the Balinese goddess of romantic love, lust, & everlasting pleasure

And then there’s my personal favorite:

If you can’t make one of the performances or talks, stop by the Museum Store to see the work of one of the world’s greatest living masters.

But thanks to the Bali exhibition, tigers are still making a strong showing.

If you, like me, can’t get enough of the bared fangs and bugged eyes of Bali’s critters, don’t miss a rare opportunity to see an open rehearsal of I Made Moja and Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s The Creatures of Balinese Mythology.

The (free!) show starts this Thursday, March 3rd, at 6PM, and tickets for the March 11th and 12th performances can be purchased here.

Apologies to all my rabbit friends–but until such time as someone shows me a fierce bunny, it’s all about tiger pride.

Bali Temple Explorer is now live, both on our website and in the galleries. This remarkable interactive film by Martin Percy, produced by unit9, lets you explore a complex of three small temples located near the village of Bedulu in Bali. You can travel through the site by clicking on the video images, and a menu at the bottom of the screen offers a map and commentary. The museum is grateful to Martin Percy and unit9 for making this interactive experience available as a complement to our Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance exhibition. Let us know what you think!

UPDATE: Bali Temple Explorer has won the 2011 Webby award in the Travel and Adventure category. Congratulations to all!

In order to read a Chinese newspaper, around 4,000 characters must be committed to memory.  According to one of my favorite professors who spent time in China during the Open Door policy of the late 70s: “Give yourself about a dozen years to get a good grasp of it.”

Chinese, for anyone who has studied it, is a highly complicated language that requires a reader to quickly glean from the root (or radical) some piece of meaning.  Consider that every foreign concept that comes into China requires a new word.  The word for computer, then, is not computer, but closer to “electric brain.”  Try this link for a clearer breakdown of the process.

If this seems like a strangely digressive introduction of artist Xu Bing, who will be speaking at the Museum this Friday, maybe you don’t know Xu’s work.

His father taught at Beijing University, and his mother was a librarian, but because he was born in 1955 at the cusp of the Cultural Revolution, the idyllic world of the scholar’s son was short-lived.
“This is strange,” he says. “When I couldn’t read there were so many books. But when I was finally able to read, there was only one book.”*

Xu turned what could have been a disastrous situation to his advantage.  Because he studied calligraphy with his father, he became a skilled propagandist, and learned the value of meaning–and ultimately, the potential meaninglessness of words.

Possessing a deep sense of a lost world, Xu set out to make his Book from the Sky, a monumental work consisting of about 4,000 characters.  He painstakingly created a new lexicon of false characters, and from that lexicon a book that no one could read.  For anyone who has a passion for books and language, to be unable to decipher words begets crisis.
In China, where Mao’s single volume sustained a revolution, such a work would have obvious implications, especially in the light of the “simplified” Chinese character system that came about as a means of increasing literacy.

While I was in Washington, D.C., for a conference held by the American Booksellers Association, I took an afternoon to steal away to the Sackler Gallery, where Xu’s Monkeys Grasping for the Moon has pride of place in a great shaft of light.  The work is based on the folk story of monkeys who link arms to reach the moon in a pool of water, only to see their goal disappear as they reach it.  For the sculpture, enterprising primates are replaced with the word for monkey in twenty-one languages.

It was strangely appropriate for me to be missing a panel on selling e-books.  One form of technology–in this case, the e-reader–is poised to threaten another mode of technology, an ancient one.  I don’t dare draw conclusions of a Maoist nature, as the books still exist, albeit in the form of zeroes and ones.  As long as books have pictures, I can tell myself we’re safe, although a very large number of the books we carry are literature, Asian cultural studies, histories: wordy tomes that are within the purview of tablet readers.
What I found in D.C. were questions–so many questions.  And like the monkeys who reach for the moon, I don’t know if I’m any closer to answers.

For further conversation and perhaps even a few answered questions, attend the lecture this Friday, January 28th, in Samsung Hall from 2:30 pm–4:00 pm (free with museum admission).

Wisdoms of the East and West is an animated video created in 2010 by artist Ben Wood and puppeteer Michael Schuster to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the East-West Center in Honolulu Hawaii. The video is based on the flagship Charlot and Affandi murals in Imin Center-Jefferson Hall at the East West Center.

In keeping with the East-West Center’s mandate to promote better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the Pacific region, the video shows Semar, the Javanese shadow puppet on a voyage from East to West. The video’s soundtrack is a fusion of Indonesian and western music and was performed by musicians Annie Reynolds and Made Widana.

Ben Wood is a British-born visual artist. A recipient of the California Governors Award for Historic Preservation, his work has been shown Internationally, at the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City, the London Jewish Museum, and the East West Center in Hololulu. Since 2004 he has carried out over 5 large scale video projections onto Coit Tower in San Francisco.

The museum is proud to host the participants in the 2011 National Chinese Language Conference organized by the Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning and the College Board in collaboration with the SF-based Mandarin Institute. The conference takes place April 14-16, 2011 at the Hilton, and our event is the evening of April 15.

Conference attendees include language teachers from all over the US, and they will be coming to the museum for an evening reception and showcase of our galleries and programs, including stories told in our galleries in Chinese by High School students of Chinese to elementary grade immersion program students.

The theme of the conference is: Connect, Innovate, and Lead!

Teachers will explore how:

• Technology and Innovation are changing the way our students learn language and engage in international collaboration.
• A World-Class Education is preparing the next generation in the U.S. and China for an interconnected future.
• Best Practices and New Directions are guiding quality instruction and enhancing student achievement.
• K–12 and Higher Education can collaborate on articulation, teacher preparation, and research.

They are accepting session proposals and registrations now at

http://sites.asiasociety.org/nclc2011/conference/

1. free flowing conversation, about art, for anyone.
2. a place where everyone is invited to join an open, ongoing discussion – no art degree required.

The Asian Art Museum has now joined the ranks of institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Public Library on ArtBabble.

What is ArtBabble? And how is it relevant to teachers? (You may ask.) Well, ArtBabble was conceived and initiated by the Indianapolis Museum of Art in order to showcase video art content in high quality format from a variety of sources and perspectives. ArtBabble is not blocked by school districts (as is YouTube), and has a great Notes feature, which allows you to delve deeper into video content via related educator resource packets, websites, works of art in museums’ collections, and much more.

Check out our latest video, What does the Asian Art Museum Mean to You? Babble on! www.artbabble.org

By Saturday, August 28th, the city’s sweltering summer heat will yield to a more accustomed winter chill, so we recommend warming up with the Asian Art Museum’s Celebration of India.

Get moving with the Chitresh Das Dance Company, flex your mind and body with yoga gallery tours, sample Indian desserts and spices, and create your own works of art.

And since no fewer than five people have asked about it today, yes, Sanjay Patel will be presenting his new book, Ramayana: Divine Loophole.  Check out his Gheehappy.com, or learn about his influences (he has excellent taste) and read an interview on Pixar’s site.

A huge new shipment of South Asian books just arrived in the Museum Store, so if the docents pique your curiosity, you can take some of the museum home with you.  Namaste!