Category Archives: Festival

Holi

Informant: LL

Ethnicity: Jewish

Primary Language: English, Telugu

Age: 19

Text: [LL] Holi is a festival celebrating love, happiness, and color. It’s almost like Mardi Gras, where huge crowds of people really let loose and have fun throwing colors at each other. 

Context: The informant usually celebrates Holi with his adoptive family, where they have a party and throw colored powder at each other. However, the informant mentioned that the festival is also popular amongst his friends; he also noted that people from many different backgrounds have participated in the celebrations he has seen. He described it as a “crazy but joyful experience,” and overall felt a deeper sense of connection to his family and Indian culture through the festival.

Analysis: Taking place at the beginning of March, Holi is a springtime festival celebrating love and color after the end of winter. Holi is reminiscent of childhood activities like throwing water balloons at each other, presenting participants with the opportunity to reflect on their youth, aligning with these themes of rebirth and renewal during spring. Like many other Hindu festivals, Holi is rooted in religious beliefs. However, most modern participants are simply looking for a reason to let loose and enjoy themselves during the festivities. Participants in the festival throw colored powders and water at each other to celebrate the change of season; oftentimes, by the end of it, they are covered in so much color that they are nearly unrecognizable. For many, the festival fosters a sense of community and transcends the boundaries of social barriers such as race and class as a result of this anonymity as well as the fast-paced, playful nature of the festival.

Deepavali

Informant: RS

Ethnicity: Indian

Primary Language: English, Konkani

Age: 58

Text: [RS] When I was growing up, every Deepavali we used to decorate the house with flower garlands and draw rangoli on the walls as they are considered auspicious. Oil baths were also important. We were woken up very early in the morning, and our mom would apply herbal oils from head to toe. After an hour, we would scrub the oil from our skin, be fed sweet porridge, and then be sent back to bed.

Context: Deepavali is the festival of lights, celebrating the triumph of good over evil and light over dark. The festival, and in particular, the ritual of the oil bath, was emphasized as being very important to the informant and his family. The informant believes that the oil baths are a way of washing off past sins. He also noted that he thinks of the festival as a time to celebrate new beginnings.

Analysis: Deepavali (also known as Diwali) is one of the most well-known Indian folk festivals, involving several rituals rooted in themes of light and purification. The festival celebrates the light that comes after a period of darkness; the ritual oil baths, which the informant believes to absolve one of sin, are symbolic of this clean slate that follows the festivities. According to the informant, the oils used are typically specific herbal blends, a reflection of traditional knowledge of folk medicine that has been passed down through generations. The practice of eating a sweet after being cleansed from the oil bath is likely to start off with something good to set the tone for the rest of the year. Deepavali provides those who celebrate with a cathartic opportunity to create a fresh start for themselves as well as spend time with loved ones. As a result, the festival is deeply important to Hindu culture and tradition.

Lunar New Year Tea Ceremony

“Every lunar new year, whenever I’m in Singapore with my family, we would go to my grandparents’ place and we would have a tea ceremony, which meant like me and my entire extended family who lives in Singapore would meet up, and just kind of like eat food together and have tea. The proper ceremony, where it’s like we pass out hongbao, is when the two people you’re honoring are sitting down at a couch, and you have to give tea to them. They are always older, and that’s why you’re honoring them, like your elders. You would do this by giving them blessings and telling them what you wish for them, all the luck and health and fortune you would like to give them for the next year. And you tell them how much they mean to you and you give them tea. And when you do that, they’ll correspond back and give wishes to you, with your hongbao. And you have to do that for your grandparents, uncles, aunts, great uncles, et cetera et cetera.”

Context: This description was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller where I asked for any traditions or festivals that he would recall. The teller has lived in Singapore since childhood, and is currently a student at the University of Southern California. 

Analysis: This tradition occurs within another festivity, that of the Lunar New Year, and thus gains a liminal significance from the transition between the prior year and upcoming year. It is performed primarily by the younger generation to an older generation, although it is expected for the older generation to respond to the initiation by the younger generation. In providing blessings to each party, the participants are in a way enacting preparations for the coming year, whether it be financial or luck-based. In general, as the teller explained, it is a way for participants to recognize, honor, and celebrate familial relationships, a tenet of many East Asian cultures with Confucian influences, at a significant and perhaps magical point in time where it would be the most effective. This particular Lunar New Year tradition experienced by the teller also notably uses the offering of tea as a catalyst for the interaction. Tea, in this case, is invoked to set up the scenario as a social interaction, a gathering of different peoples, as the drink is traditionally used in situations outside of the holiday. Thus, the usage of tea could perhaps be seen as a tool used to help cross otherwise difficult boundaries, especially for those of a younger generation. 

Kakamatobi, or Fancy Dress Festival

The teller explained to me a festival/celebration that takes place in Ghana called the Kakamotobi, or the Fancy Dress Festival, which they experienced in their childhood while living in Ghana. As the teller explains, celebrations take place from late November to early December, in preparation for the Christmas holiday. The festival is characterized by people dressed in vivid costumes, which the teller describes as having “vivid yellow face[s], red lips, bulging eyes, feathery colorful costumage […] some people had stilts too.” They also explained that these costumed characters would “chase others” as other people ran away, humorously noting that it was “lowkey evil honestly, cause why would you just chase children.”

Context: This text was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller, where I asked for any significant festivals or traditions they could share with me. The teller is of Ghanaian descent and spent their childhood in the country near the coastside city of Tema. They noted during their explanation that this festival was something that they could see outside from their home, so they have a close proximity to the celebration itself. 

Analysis: From additional research from online sources (specifically this article: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fancy-dress-festival-winneba-ghana), the historic roots for this festival comes from the early 20th century, following years of Dutch and English colonial rule over Ghana. Specifically, Ghanaians took aspects from Dutch masquerade practices, which they interacted with at white-owned bars, and incorporated them into their own customs. This celebration eventually became associated with the identity of Ghana itself, as indicated by the first president of Ghana recognizing and supporting the festival following Ghana’s independence from Britain in the mid-1900s. While the teller notes that celebrations took place from November to December, online articles say that celebrations typically take place between Christmas and the New Year. The discrepancy may be just rooted in differences in memory, but it could also be a result of differences across regions. While the teller experienced the festival near the coast, around the area of Temu, the festival itself originates from Central Ghana, and may have been iterated upon as it spread across the country. Kakamotobi has some liminal significance, taking place at the boundary between the old and new year, but its importance perhaps comes from its value as a nation-defining event, given its historical context. 

Viewing Flowers Festival

“One festival there is in Korea is when the cherry blossoms bloom in spring. It’s called 꽃구경 (or viewing flowers). It’s not really a formal festival organized by the government or an organization but it has a similar vibe because a lot of people gather in parks to have picnics and cook food, and there’s a lot of live performances by artists. I remember going to Seoul Forest, a big park in metropolitan Seoul, a lot around early April to see the flowers bloom with my friends and family. It’s always really packed then because there’s not a lot of places to see nature in an urban city like Seoul and everyone wants to take pictures of themselves with the flowers. It has a really festive atmosphere because at that time of the year winter is just ending and the cherry blossoms are among the first flowers to bloom in the spring. So everyone’s coming out for the first time in a while to spend time outdoors and enjoy the return of warm weather.”

Context: This text was given to me through an online text message after requesting for an instance of a festival or tradition that the teller has experienced in the past. The teller was a student at an international school in South Korea, where many of her fellow students had Korean cultural roots.

Analysis: This particular holiday is celebrated during the start of spring by a wide population of people, though as the teller describes, modern celebrations like picnicking and artist performances seem to be catered towards the younger generation rather than holding onto old tradition. While many holidays and festivals are derived from a specific time relative to a celestial calendar, whether it be the solar or lunar calendar, the timing of this particular event/tradition is based around a biological, botanical calendar. It is not exactly beholden to a specific celestial cycle, but rather an observable shift in the surroundings itself, manifested by the blooming flowers. Perhaps due to its greater “earthiness,” the festival that the teller describes is more casual and less ritualized, with many gathering with friends for more informal, unstructured events like picnicking or gatherings with friends. The importance of the festival, of course, comes from the liminality of the boundary between winter and spring, a transition marked by the bloom. The lighthearted celebrations perhaps act as a way to encourage similar activities to occur in the coming months, where the weather will continue to be warmer and enjoyable.