Hmong heritage education day car show

Author/Photographer: Kai Her - Jan. 7th, 2025

Happy new year from Team NnovatioN and Xplicit Projects! We hope you had a safe and familial celebration to start off the new year with a bang! Thank you for being extremely patient in waiting out for the new blog/coverage as I had time to relax with my little family and rejuvenate some writing strength over the two week break. I realized that as my daughter is gradually getting bigger and heavier by the day, time is too precious! Hence, that is why I just wanted to not focus my time on the site and really took the opportunity to be with my wife and spend as much time as I could with my daughter.

Now, let’s write!

Just a few days before my winter break, I convinced Aimee to see if we coulc both take our daughter to a car show in Fresno at the Fresno State college! After much consideration on how safe it was for our 3 month old (at that time), we carefully packed and ensured we had enough formula and warm clothes prepared for her in case if it rains and when she gets hungry. Tydus (an acquittance I met through cars) reached out to me to see if I would be interested in registering the S2000 to his show. As much as I wanted to enlist, time just wasn’t on my side. However, with much enthusiasm still hovering over me, I spectated the show.

In correlation to Hmong Heritage Education Day, Tydus thought it would be a great idea to also utilized that same event to host a car show. Upon asking how he saw this vision of throwing a car show was to specifically utilized the show as a fundraiser opportunity to help his local Hmong football team with expenses and travel conveniences to compete competitively around the states. I didn’t think much about it when he had mentioned that. It’s not like he’s the only one doing it. I’ve seen plenty of organizations collaborating with car builders and enthusiasts to promote their event. Plus, he actually owns and regularly builds a Lexus Is350 himself and attend car shows and meets from time to time. So, I don’t see anything wrong with it, really. I guess it’s a good strategy though, to bring the community together with similar or shared interests.

If you ever attended a Hmong New Year celebration event anywhere in the states (with a huge Hmong population), something to be aware of is how loud the music could be. Each booth pretty much brings out their own sound system and it’s almost as if they are having a battle with sounds/music to see whose is louder (when all the reason is to really just attract customers to come buy their products). Growing up and attending the celebrations various times throughout California, that is something I will always remember. LOL. I haven’t attended a celebration in years, so I wonder if that has improved and got better. So what I am trying to say is, this car show somewhat carried that atmosphere as soon as I strolled the baby stroller toward the show. I wasn’t complaining much though, because they had Hmong music playing and I felt right at home. Plus, you can also hypothesize that the majority of the population and participants there were Hmong. It was nice to be in the midst of Hmong individuals with the same automotive passion I possess, while the Hmong music was umping the whole show.

I’m grateful to see the mixture of an automotive car show and the Hmong culture intertwined into one. Exposing the community to the diversity and unique fusion of Hmong clothing craftsmanship, their (my) undying tradition, and explicit unwavering passion of the Hmong identity. It’s quite inspirational for me to witness and perceive how both worlds collided peacefully in celebrating not only innovation in the automotive realm, but also the profound cultural heritage of the Hmong community.

So, I hope you will be able to learn a little about my culture whilst still be able to look at cool cars through this coverage!

To quickly share some things about my culture, I thought it’ll be neat to just post a picture of myself and my little family. From as far as I could remember, we embrace in a lot of bright colored attire. Over the past few generations, there has been a mixture of the old traditional clothing and jewelry and American/modern wear. Like exemplified above, my wife and I conveniently wore the traditional jewelry around our necks and had my daguther wore ankle bracelets whilst still in modern fashion. It’s simple, easy, and simultaneously cultural and still classy (I guess).

Sua’s (@sua_view) family did a more exceptional job at it! His daughters and sons proudly wore the Hmong new year outfits. You can easily see the bright colored embroideries on the vests and the sashes in front of the white skirts. The hats also carried the same color scheme to match the whole outfit on both the girls and you are probably wondering what is hung on the vests? Well, to simply state, they are coins. Neatly looped and hung by beaded strings and then attached to the embroidered colored (pink/green/white) pieces throughout the outfit.

I don’t think the coin represented wealth or anything. In my opinion, I believe it’s more of a design that kind of just found its way to the whole outfit. I have never bothered asking my parents about it much as well, but one last thing I do want to point out is, most or all of the embroidered pieces are hand sown and then later attached to the sashes, dresses, shirts, or vests.

Thank you for allowing me share a picture of your beautiful family, Sua! Much appreciate it!

Now onto cars!

Upon arriving at the show, the first car I saw parked at the show was this WRX. Dropped on and riding on some Rays Volk Ce28’s in a diamond dark gunmetal finish. Wrapped around some Yokohama tires and about 75% of the Subaru’s front end is in a carbon fiber finish (fenders, hood)

After a short and brief switch of greetings with the NnovatioN brothers, I approached Simon’s second Civic project. Before the EM1, Simon was working on this Civic hatchback. Shortly after meeting Simon, he sold this Civic to someone locally. When Simon had saw it posted up for sale, he decided to purchase the car back.

The Civic is tastefully modded. Rocking a First Molding inspired front spoiler to accompany the First Molding vented hood. The Civic is lowered and riding on some OG Advan/Yokohama Wheel gold/blue RG’s. A pair of Spoon Sport twin block caliper sits behind the front wheels. To add, The Civic is equipped with a pair of bright red Bride seats and to replicate a EK9, you could easily spot the CTR headlights and front grill on the front, and at the rear, you could spot a CTR rear lip and a spoiler. Something very popular in the early 2000’s Honda scene. If you could replicate an EK9 with some nice JDM wheels, you’ll be considered to own a very clean Honda.

The Civic is swapped to a B-series motor. Still retaining air conditioning, and power steering, its everything you can ask for, for a clean and functional swap in California.

The valve cover is refinished in a J’s Racing teal color, and the custom intake arm housed a HKS inspired mushroom air filter. Compared to the EM1, you could probably tell which car Simon spends more time with and money for, but I do recall Simon saying that he shifting his focus on restoring the Civic and then begin building it back up.

It will only make sense to post up Simon’s EM1 for the next photo. You could see this Civic is getting most of Simon’s attention right now by how much he takes care of it.

The silver Mf10’s made it’s way back to the car, however, everything else on the car stayed the same.

On the side note, you could easily see the Hmong new year outfits behind the cars. Like I’ve mentioned, a beautiful collision of both cultures.

Sua’s DA parked in between Simon’s Civics. The Integra stayed the same from the last time you saw it at Calicreaming car show a few months ago. With the car under the sun, you can easily spot how clean Sua takes care of it. You have to see it in person to see how meticulous he is with his car. The more I study Sua’s Integra, the more it grows on me.

Mee’s EG Civic Si parked at the end of the aisle. Still retaining a lot of the Spoon Sports seen throughout the exterior of the car as well as the interior, the EG gets a lot of love from spectators. It’s a nostalgic build amongst the Hmong street racers back in the early to late 90’s.

The Civic remained the same from the last time you saw it at Calicreaming.

A close up and detailed picture of Mee’s swap. A Comptech Icebox intake filter is met at the end of the OEM intake arm. The oem radiator have been switched out to an aluminum SKunk2 Pro Series radiator. Spoon accessories are easily spotted and traveled throughout the entirety of the engine bay.

The same FD (RX-7) I saw at the Alignment Specialty Repair was also at the show. Also still dressed in the same fashion like the last time I saw it at the shop. I’m unsure what kit this is, but I like how subtle aggressive it looks. Does that make sense? There’s definitely a lot of aero parts visible traveling throughout the car, but yet, it doesn’t seem like it’s not exaggerated as well.

The car show at most had about a good 30 participants. However, it was quite rewarding to be catching a lot of JDM legendary chassis’ there. Like demonstrated here, it was quite gratifying to see this beautiful R33 at the show.

As iconic as the GTR’s are world wide, I never really enjoyed how they look compared to the other JDM legends (RX-7s, NSXs, MK4s). If I had the choice to choose between which chassis to acquire, the GTR wouldn’t be my first choice. That’s just me though.

See! I was honest when I had mentioned that the JDM legends were spotted at this small, but yet close-knitted show. A few parking spaces away from the R33, was this NSX (NA1). Somewhat lowered and on some staggered magnesium blue Te37’s. A black front spoiler sits under the front bumper smoothly and in harmony of the black roof and spoiler on the vehicle.

The best car at the show was this S2000 CR though! Although, that is an extremely biased opinion, I’ve always like the Rio Yellow Pearl color. I know a white CR is probably the one to get if you’re looking for one, but I would prefer a yellow one over a white or Apex Blue any day.

The S2000 stuck to the true essence of a CR by still fashioning the huge front CR spoiler, the rear CR wing, and black OEM hardtop (because the CR doesn’t come with a soft top).

(Simon’s EM1 at a rear angle.)

(Sua’s Integra at a low rear angle. As the modern cars are getting bigger and rounder, you learn to really appreciate how good these mid to late 90’s cars aged. Sua reminded us that it’s still classy to own a 90’s Acura.

This concludes the last car show I attended in 2024. It was a small show, but I greatly enjoyed capturing some content, meeting up with the brothers, and bullsh!ting again.

It’s almost unnatural to not grab some sushi after a car show, so that was what Aimee and I did after the show. We loaded up my camera gear and the baby stroller onto my truck and then drove to a sushi restaurant and filled our stomachs with unlimited sashimi and spider rolls.

To bring this coverage to a close, it was delightful to be surrounded by the large Hmong population in Fresno while attending the car show. Big thanks to Tydus for throwing the show. Aside from the car show itself, there were many festivities transpiring throughout the event. There was a Hmong educational hall explaining the history of the Hmong people and raffles. Well, that about sums it up!

Thanks for reading!