Hmong friends

After the Vietnam War sparked a mass migration, Sacramento is now home to 27,000 Hmong people, the second-highest concentration of this population in the state. To celebrate Hmong culture, the 13th Annual Sacramento Hmong New Year Festival from November 23 to 26 at Cal Expo (1600 Exposition Boulevard) features a beauty pageant, a volleyball tournament and performances from Sacramento singer Kevin Her and dance group Nkauj Hmoob Peev Xwm. Among the more than 160 vendors, food offerings will include Hmong-style sausage; snappy, tangy and spicy papaya salad; and barbecued pork, chicken and fish that’s steamed inside of a banana leaf wrap. There will also be a fun rendition of the traditional courtship game, where teens form lines based on gender and meet potential suitors by tossing a ball. Tickets ($4) offer the perfect chance to broaden your worldview or to escape the second hour of Thanksgiving dinner when your Sociology-majoring cousin and your stockbroker uncle “discuss” capitalism.