Story and photos by Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
Lions with large eyes and even bigger mouths wiggled and rose from their slumber to the sound of drums and clashing cymbals. The lions floated through the crowd, towering over their seated audience, and bringing delight and maybe even good fortune to those in their presence.
Last week, the cafeteria at Brown Elementary School in South Portland was transformed into a stage for kung-fu theater.     Kindergarten, first grade and second grade students sat cross-legged on the floor on Dec. 13, enthralled by booming Japanese Taiko drums, kung-fu weapon demonstrations, colorful dancing lions and a 64-foot dragon.     
A visit from the Courageous Kids Club, a youth performance group with Limerick based Ricardo’s Family Karate, was one of the highlights of a week dedicated to celebrating diversity and learning about Asian cultures, particularly those of Japan, Vietnam and Korea.
It is one of two school-wide celebrations a year, aimed at understanding and celebrating countries represented by Brown’s student body.
Brown Elementary School is South Portland’s main English as a Second Language (ESL) school for elementary students. ESL is a program offered by public schools to help students who speak a language other than English at home, learn English. ESL programs are also offered at Mahoney Middle School and South Portland High School.
Elizabeth Holland, an ESL teacher who works primarily with third, fourth and fifth grade students, said she and other staff work with students in small groups to reinforce their English skills. Holland said ESL staff also help with mainstream classroom lessons and act as translators for Spanish speaking families.
Brown Elementary School Principal Margaret Hawkins said there are currently 60 ESL students representing 25 countries attending the school.
Hawkins unlocked the school on Dec. 9, a Sunday, in order for the Brown PTA to decorate the entranceway with large Japanese carp kites, a kimono, maps, a Japanese flag, as well as hand-painted fans and origami dolls made by students in their art classes.
“We thought since we have all this diversity we should celebrate it,” said Elisabeth Vose-Gimbel, chairman of the PTA’s Cultural Enrichment Committee, which formed last year.
The school has already hosted celebrations of Peru and Cambodia and the next celebration will focus on Bulgaria, Vose-Gimbel said. She said the countries are chosen at random by picking a name out of a hat.
Holland said parents helped cook and serve food for last week’s kickoff event: an authentic Japanese buffet.
“Parents made a variety of Japanese food including Japanese yam dumplings, adzuki bean dumplings, seaweed salad, sesame rice balls and edamame beans,” she said.
Holland said the students were interested in trying new foods.
“They opened their minds and most of them were quite adventurous in choosing these foreign looking foods,” she said.
Individual classes also spent the week learning about Japanese and Korean history, writing haiku poems and reading books such as “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes,” by Eleanor Coerr. The celebration closed with a martial arts demonstration, including Brown karate students, by Scarborough based Dragon Fire Martial Arts.
“This week it’s very clear that the school works to promote multiculturalism, but throughout the year, teachers and the administration and parents make efforts to make sure that Brown school is a welcoming, positive atmosphere for students,” Holland said.
Having traveled to Korea and Japan for a study tour this summer, Holland said she took a more active role in this recent celebration. The National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA), which encourages educators to increase their own and students’ understanding of Asia through their coursework sponsored her trip.
When the lights dimmed and the Courageous Kids Club members – who range in age from 9 to 17 – began pounding the Taiko drums, students had the opportunity to learn about Asian culture first-hand.
Under purple spotlights, the group used the ancient art of Japanese Taiko drumming to play songs of celebration and tell a story. The “River Song” tells the story of a river raging in the middle of a storm marked by booms of thunder and driving rain. The  drummers crouched behind the large, rotund drums at first and then popped up one at a time, portraying a carp jumping in the stream.
The drummers also displayed their use of kung-fu skills and brandished long weapons with shining blades.
Addressing the students, Frank Ricardo, the founder of Ricardo’s Family Karate, said the real weapons in the world are patience, love, charity and understanding.
“When you leave here everyone try to do a kind deed for someone else,” he said.  
Frank Ricardo’s daughter, Leilani Ricardo, narrated the performance and said dragons are also considered lucky throughout Asia. It took nine people to operate the 64-foot dragon that undulated and danced around the room, bringing the show to a close.
Ricardo said the dragon was originally a carp, but because it didn’t believe in limitations it transformed into “its very best self.”
“All of us have a dragon inside of us no matter what our limitations are,” she told the students. “There’s no gate of limitations you can’t jump over.”