The university's Museum of Anthropology offers more evidence of the area's diversity with its new exhibit, "Across the Temple Gate: The Cambodian Side of Greensboro," open until Oct. 1.

If your first thought is, "I didn't know Greensboro had a Cambodian side," the exhibit can be an eye-opener. Beverlye Hancock, museum curator of interpretation, agrees.

"There are a number of different ethnic groups, like Cambodian and Thai, living in North Carolina, and they are our neighbors," Hancock said. "It is good to learn about them because they are members of our community; we need to get to know our neighbors," she said. The text and photographs by Barbara Lau and Cedric Chatterly showcase Greensboro's Buddhist community of the Khmer (pronounced ka-mare) people and their New Year's celebration.

The Khmer people of Cambodia began migrating to Greensboro in the early 1980s to escape turmoil and persecution in their country. "Beginning in April of 1983, just months after the first refugee families arrived, the fledgling Cambodian community mounted a Chol Chhnam (New Year) event, an annual Buddhist festival marking the vernal equinox," Lau's narrative explains.

The New Year's festival is "the largest gathering of Southeast Asian Buddhists each year," according to the exhibit. It is a time for Cambodian community members to celebrate with their friends and extended family, who travel from all over the state to the Greensboro Buddhist Center. The ceremony is a full-day event, centered around making offerings to the monks of the temple and to Buddha. The center is a 10-acre plot of land with a temple and two monks' residences.

"Buddhist monks own nothing except a robe and an alms bowl, so the community is responsible for providing support to the monks through their donations of food, money and supplies," the exhibit explains. On New Year's Day, families bring traditional dishes to present to the monks as offerings; the worshippers then eat the feast together.

The festival represents all the aspects of traditional Cambodian Khmer life. The people perform traditional religious dances like "Paga Meah Paga Prak" (Gold Flower, Silver Flower). The day is ended with the bathing ceremony, in which worshippers bathe the hands and feet of the monks in scented water. The Greensboro community has also added an American twist with a giant water fight, complete with shaving cream and Super Soakers.

"During this part of New Year's, many of the social conventions that govern appropriate behavior, particularly between people of different age groups and genders are discarded," Lau said.

The exhibit offers a look into a community a world apart from North Carolina's perceived status quo. The museum's next offering is an exhibit titled "Los Dias de los Muertos," or the Days of the Dead, starting Oct. 1 and ending Nov. 2. It is a festival to honor the spirits of loved ones and ancestors where "the family concentrates on remembering the deceased and keeping their memory alive," Hancock said.

New Museum Director Stephen Whittington, formerly of the Hudson Museum, is looking forward to "Worldviews: Maya Ceramics from the Palmer Collection." It is a much more expensive exhibit than the university usually funds and curators are hopeful that students will take advantage of it, he said.

"We're the students' museum, and we'd like for them to come and enjoy," Hancock said. "They are always welcome."