Korean native Jung Hee Kim Lovejoy has been dancing since she was a child.
"When I was a little girl, I loved to dance," said Lovejoy, 44. "My father looked down on it, so I lied to him and did it anyway.'When she moved to Salt Lake City in 1986, Lovejoy decided to give Utah audiences a taste of Korean culture through her dancing.
The Lovejoy Dance Group performed the Korean fan dance and the victory dance at the 20th annual Asian Pacific Festival at the Salt Palace Saturday. The festival is intended to increase cultural awareness by showcasing customs from nearly 15 Asian and Pacific countries.
"When some people think of Asians, they think of Chinese food and kimonos," said the festival's coordinator Brandy Curtis. "When they come here, they realize that it's much more than that."
The festival also allows Asians and Pacific Islanders to preserve their heritage, Curtis added.
Vendors sold ethnic food, such as sushi from Japan. Martial Arts experts gave karate and kung fu demonstrations. Dancers from 14 different cultures performed dances unique to their countries.
Festival coordinators also invited three well-known Asian artists from San Francisco, one of whom was James Yeh-Jau Liu. Lui's paintings fetch more than $3,000 in Taiwan and Japan and $1,300 in the U.S.
Lui, 87, demonstrated his ability to paint a picture in less than five minutes in front of a crowd. Lui, who was born in Taiwan, moved to the United States 32 years ago to teach art at the University of San Francisco. After two years, he retired from teaching and opened an art gallery. Since then, he has painted at least two pictures a day to keep up with the demand.
Lui attributes the success of his paintings to the fact that he has lived in different cultures.
"My paintings are a mixture of American and Asian cultures," Lui said. "So more people can understand them."