Category Archives: Earth cycle

Seasonal and celetial based

Iranian Winter Festival

Nationality: Persian, Puerto Rican
Age: 18
Occupation: Graphic Design Major at University of Southern California
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish, Persian

“In Iranian tradition there exists the winter festival which is kind of like Christmas. The real name is Shab-e Yalda, which in translation means birthday night. I think it’s because we consider it the rebirth of the Sun. It happens every year on the night between December 21st and December 22nd. The reason is because that is the longest night of the year, and after that there is more and more light. Because darkness is considered evil and light is associated with good, during this night fires would be lit outside while inside families would be gathered around. What makes this similar to Christmas is the celebratory aspect I think. Inside the house while the fires protect them from the evil of the night, people and their families would keep each other company while they stay up all night. This would involve music, poetry, stories, anything that could keep the night fun and the energy flowing so that no one would fall asleep. I had only had the pleasure of experiencing this once when my father’s family came to visit, it was extremely fun! Other than that we don’t really celebrate it here, but I really like it and the story of evil vs. good that is the reasoning behind it.”

It is always fascinating to me hearing about different festivities that are parallel to ones in other nations/religions. Though my roommate has chosen to compare this to Christmas, the usual Christmas related activities are barely seen in this tradition. It must be the spirit of the matters that she is talking about, the family time, and the excitement towards the morning. Other than that, from an outside perspective, I don’t see how it is like Christmas at all. Of course it is a couple days away from Christmas, but again I see no relation.

What I do find interesting is the concept of celebrating according to the calendar. This relates back to societies that rely on agriculture. Anais had also happened to mention to me once that during this time the host gives out fruit of the season, and that tradition is to celebrate the past harvest’s produce. It also associates me to the Jewish calendar, which we use in Israel together with the regular one, mainly regarding holidays. The Hebrew calendar or, the Jewish calendar, is a Lunisolar one and most holidays correlate with agriculture.

Though Christmas is a religious holiday, this winter festival is about harvesting season and the fight between dark and light, evil and good, and in my opinion , does not need to relate to Charismas, as it has its unique beauty.

Indian Festival

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student at Johns Hopkins University
Residence: Nashville, Tennessee
Performance Date: March 15th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, B?ngl?, Hindi, Spanish

“Most people don’t know the mythological reasons of why Holi is celebrated, and only know that it’s the “Festival of Spring.” It’s a holiday in India that takes place usually around April. And basically everyone comes out in the streets to celebrate by wearing white and then throwing colored powder/ colored water on each other, some even bring water guns, to celebrate the arrival of spring. I’ve basically been celebrating it all my life. Personally it has no religious significance. It’s like Halloween, not that religious and mostly just for fun… I don’t know if that analogy makes sense. I guess I do connect it to my childhood, but other than that it has no great significance (nothing like Christmas or Easter, or other major Indian holidays like Diwali). It’s just ridiculously fun. You guys should celebrate it at USC.”

I had the pleasure of hearing of such festivities from Rohini when she came to visit one of my close friends here, who is also Indian, during Spring Break. Though Rohini lives in Tennessee, and goes to college in Maryland, she does not neglect these Indian traditions. Since Rohini did not know the real significance or any history of the festival I went and searched for information about it online, where I came across the holifestival.org site. This site was made in order to educate people about Holi festivals as well as other traditions that follow with the Holi festival such as recipes and other festivals. The fact that there exists an online website for the festival, along with Rohini’s explanation that it is celebrated for enjoyment mostly and that teens do not really know the background of it, makes me think that this festival has become very popular around the world and perhaps much more commercialized than originally intended. According to the website the Holi Festival was originally named Holika and has a religious aspect to it. The site supports my first impression that said the festival has changed in meaning over the years and apparently in the early years it was “special rite performed by married women for the happiness and well-being of their families and the full moon (Raka) was worshiped.” To add to this folk festival, there are several folk legends as to why this festival is celebrated, the official site speaks of one legend in particular, the legend of Hiranyakashyap; “Hiranyakashyap wanted everybody in his kingdom to worship only him but to his great disappointment, his son, Prahlad became an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana. Hiaranyakashyap commanded his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap. Holika had a boon whereby she could enter fire without any damage on herself. However, she was not aware that the boon worked only when she enters the fire alone. As a result she paid a price for her sinister desires, while Prahlad was saved by the grace of the god for his extreme devotion. The festival, therefore, celebrates the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of devotion.”

Although the site does present this historical and mythological context, it also shows the modernization by not only using the internet as a tool of education, but also due to the links found on the page that include “Holi SMS” and “Holi Gifts”, that latter one also suggesting the commercialization of the festival nowadays.

Holi Festivals are extremely known and popular and can be found all around the world, in Bangladesh, Guyana, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, the UK and of course in the USA.[1]

[1] Society for the Confluence of Festivals in India. “Holi Around the World,Holi Celebrations Around the World.” Holi – Holi Day,Holi 2012,Holi Festival India. Web. 23 Apr. 2011. <http://www.holifestival.org/holi-around-the-world.html>

Tatoo lore

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 18, 2011
Primary Language: English

“In Chinese, it doesn’t actually mean anything, because they forgot a line. So but yeah, this tattoo actually has this really interesting story to it. It’s um, like, me and my friend were like, oh my gosh, you know just sitting there, my friends like, I really want to get a tattoo. And I’m like, oh yeah okay, you know you just say things, like I’m going to go to the beach but you never actually go to the beach. But like, you know, we’re just, we talk a little bit, we get in the car. And she’s like, you know, I really do want to get a tattoo. And I’m like, okay. So then she gets in her car, turns it on, starts driving.  We ended up driving to a tattoo parlor. So literally, its three hours later and I walk out with a tattoo.  This is when I was eighteen years old, I didn’t just turn eighteen, but like you know it was kind of like that eighteen year old, you know, thing.   I was back home in Denver. And um, the funny thing was that um, that like, um, part of why, um, its folklore is that um, it’s kind of like um, like, why I have it is to, because it never goes away. And it’s like, it means um, sunrise. And to me like, after every night there is always a dawn. And it’s like, it reminds me of that, whenever people ask me, I can be like, oh yeah, I can tell them that and it’s kind of cool that way.”

LM’s tattoo is a permanent reminder to her that the world and life is cyclical. Additionaly, it is a reminder of that period of time of her life, and the friend she was with.  Although the tattoo artist forgot to draw one line making it so that the tattoo isn’t even Chinese, it is still an important symbol to LM.  People get various types, styles and designs of tattoos for many reasons.  But the one thing that is similar about them is their permanence.  Like a yearly holiday or festival, a tattoo can serve to remind the individual, or individuals who share a tattoo, of something important about themeselves and their life.  While some tattoos might look identical or similar, on different people they almost always have a different story and meaning behind them.

Festival – India

Nationality: Marathi
Age: 55
Occupation: Public Relations
Residence: Cerritos, CA
Performance Date: April 27, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati

“In my house, we used to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. Ganesh is the god of obstacles; he has a human body and an elephants head, with only one tusk. Initially, people used to do this in their homes. Then it became more of a community event, especially in Bombay. Small communities would get together and keep a deity of Ganesha and do prayers everyday and have events, like childrens programs and presentations and such. It’s a 10 day event. You have to do it either for 10 days, 5 days, or 2.5 days. After praying every day, on the 10th day you take the deity to the sea and submerge it and let it go. It’s called Visarjan. Every year, people would make these deities, from as small as an inch to as large as 100 feet tall. The deities were made from clay, they were made very beautifully. There are artists who make the statue of the deity Ganesha.  Every day you would have prayers, and Prasad which is sweets prepared to offer to god and is shared with everyone.”

In my mom’s house, they used to prepare for this by clearing the front room. They would go buy a deity and create a sort of alter and present it with silk garments and plants and lights and things. Every day, they would do the Pooja (prayer ceremony) in the morning. Generally the men in the family would do the Pooja, it was usually my mom’s father or one of her brothers or uncles, depending on who was there that day. Every day, after the Pooja they would have Aarti, which was a prayer after the Pooja. My grandmother would make Prasad every day. People who didn’t have the deity in their home would come visit them and we would share the Prasad and food with them. On the 10th day, they would submerge the deity.

I haven’t ever been to the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in India. But, from what I have learned from Sunday School and from what I have read about or seen on TV, I know that the Ganesh Chaturti is a festival that is meant to honor Ganesh, as given by the name. But, I also know that it is a big deal in Bombay more than other parts of India. Thousands of people gather to take part in the Ganesh Chaturthi. When we did the Ganesh Chaturthi at my house, I don’t remember it being that large of a deal, mainly because it takes a while to prepare and having to continue the same process for many days requires a decent amount of time that wasn’t always readily available.

Annotation: This festival is documented in an article in the NewYork Times.

New York Times. Parade Caps Festival for a Hindu God. 30 August, 1997.

<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E2D71031F933A0575BC0A961958260&scp=3&sq=ganesh%20chaturthi&st=cse>

Tradition – Korea

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Nationality: Korean
Age: 47
Occupation: Mother
Residence: Temple City, CA
Performance Date: April 6, 2008
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Tradition- Korea

“Every New Year’s day, it is also a Korean tradition to eat Dduk Mandu Guk (Dumpling

soup with rice cakes).”

My mother told me another tradition that Korean’s do every year. Every New Year’s day, Koreans eat a traditional dish of Dduk Mandu Guk. She told me that she used to eat it in Korea every New Year’s day. Korea’s New Years is a little different from America’s because Korea celebrates its New Years based on a lunar calendar and not a solar calendar. She told me that before when she was younger that they would eat just Mandu Guk (Dumpling soup) without the Dduk (rice cake) on New Years. It wasn’t until sometime later that they added Dduk to it. She said the northern regions of Korea (before North and South split) added Dduk to their soup and it influenced others regions of Korea to follow. She said that each family has different and special methods and ingredients that they add to their dumplings that make each dumpling somewhat unique. This variation makes most families’ dumpling soup somewhat unique. In my mom’s dumpling soup, she said that she adds seasoned chicken breast strips on top of the soup to give it a spicy kick to it. When asked why Koreans eat dumpling soup for New Years, she said that every year that passes, we “ate” another year. So to kind of symbolize that “eating” and for another good year, Koreans like to eat a nice, warm, filling dumpling soup.

It was kind of neat talking to my mother about this. I didn’t realize that Korea celebrated New Year’s on a different day than us. My mother grew up eating this soup on a different day every New Year since the New Year’s date would change every year because of the lunar calendar. I really enjoy eating Dduk Mandu Guk and especially on New Year’s. It is like eating turkey every Thanksgiving. It is a meal I grew up eating every New Year’s and I feel like I have to eat it every New Year’s. I actually often go to Koreatown and order a bowl of dumpling soup once in awhile. And it is true what my mother says about each soup being somewhat different. Sometimes the base is different and other times it is the dumpling that has a slightly different taste to it. I realized that all dumpling soups are very similar, and yet somehow pretty different. To this day, I have yet encountered a dumpling soup with the same chicken strips that mother adds. I wasn’t sure if I understood my mother correctly when she said they “ate” another year. I have never heard of a year passing, as eating the year. But overall, it was interesting learning about this.