Category Archives: Festival

Pre-Thanksgiving Festival/Tradition

“A tradition that my family had is called Pie Day, and it’s not 3-14 but instead the day before thanksgiving. It’s essentially a party where friends and family come together and make pies for thanksgiving, everyone is in the kitchen. Before we moved to Washington my grandma would always have pie day at her house and that is the one time of year that I would see the most extended of extended family. There are lots of wine snacks and cooking. In Washington it was much more my parents’ friends and a couple cousins and such, and the night ends with everyone gathering on the couch and sitting down for a show or movie.”

The informant performs this tradition every year the day before Thanksgiving, typically held at her parents house in Olympia, Washington, USA. Depending on the year, different people may arrive to participate in this tradition. The informant’s immediate family, her parents’ friend group, her dad’s work friends, herself and her siblings, who invite a couple of their friends, and then some extended family are all potential participants, depending who is in town. Every person who comes can bring a dish they would like to make for the next day, but most people just come to socialize and decompress before the busy Thanksgiving day. The informant is not sure when it started, but her family started preparing the pies for Thanksgiving in the days before and as the years went on, more and more people were invited to participate in preparing food prior to the actual holiday.

The tradition demonstrates a culture that values food and socialization, as nearly all cultures do. Cooking together is a common way to build bonds between people, especially family and close friends. It is a sort of unofficial folk festival for just the small group of people involved, taking place the day before a bigger holiday. This is relatively common as people prepare for holidays. There are group cooking days for food-centered holidays, group shopping excursions for the winter holidays that involve gift giving, and group decorating days before decoration-centered holidays like Dia de Los Muertos or Christmas. It is a way to mount the excitement for the holiday as well as extend the celebration.

Easter Tradition

“A tradition I have is every year for Easter my whole extended family goes to Cabo. Since Easter is on a Sunday and most of us have school the next day, we celebrate Easter on Saturday because we have to leave on Sunday. During the day we hangout and paint and decorate eggs which will be turned into deviled eggs in a couple hours. Then, we get ready for our easter egg hunt which only involves the grandkids. There are eggs sitting on the grass on the floor, however those eggs are only for the very very young kids. Each of us has a basket we need to find and as well as candy eggs and baskets there are golden eggs that contain different amounts of money. Since we are getting older, it is starting to get competitive because we all want the money. My grandpa always gives us some hints and sometimes our parents do too. After the hunt, we all open our baskets then get into teams and play croquet. After croquet, we all have a nice dinner together at the house.”

The informant does this every year on Easter weekend in Cabo, Mexico. Her whole family is involved, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Her grandpa helps hide the eggs and gives them hints when necessary. Her parents get all of her siblings small baskets, the other parents give their kids baskets as well, which are full of small gifts like bracelets and chocolate. She believes Easter egg hunting has always been a thing for Easter, and her family has been doing this for as long as she can remember.

The tradition is part of the widely held celebration of Easter, the Christian day on which Jesus Christ was said to have risen from the dead after his crusifiction. On this day, it is common for children to hunt for Easter eggs, which are colorful plastic eggs full of candy. This holiday is often spent with family and friends and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. Although the holiday is now a large part of the holiday economy and is very consumerist, it started as a celebration of the coming of Spring before it was Christanized. It is celebrated around the world as an important Christian holiday.

Muslim tradition : Eid

Nationality: American
Primary Language: English
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 9 April 2024

Tags: Muslim, Islam, Christmas, Ramadan, family, festival

Text:

Eid can be seen as an “Islamic Christmas”, a time where one can spend time with family and friends to celebrate the end of Ramadan and such. It’s actually tomorrow (April 10 as of this recording) but it usually lasts 3 days minimum, with people celebrating as long as they want or need to for about a week or two. It’s based on the Lunar calendar. People often go to each other’s houses, celebrating with prayer and joy, and the holiday is very familial in nature. Since it starts right as Ramadan ends, the goal is to break one’s fast every day, starting by eating a date, due to the belief that the prophet Mohammed also broke his own fast with a date. The phrase for this festival is “Eid Mubarak”, which approximately translates to “Happy Eid”, simply.

Context:

J is a student studying ANTH 333 in the University of Southern California. She regularly participates in Muslim traditions and cultural activities with her friends and family.

Analysis:

The comparison between Eid and Christmas is pretty interesting, as while both festivals/celebratory periods have virtually nothing to do with each other, the activities and festivities held in each are similar enough to where a comparison can be drawn. It’s evident to see through Eid and various other religion-based festivals that spending time with family to eat and have fun together is a universal experience that goes beyond location or religion-based culture.

Taiwanese Festival: Lunar New Year

Nationality: Taiwanese
Primary Language: Taiwanese, Mandarin
Age: 46
Occupation: Branch Manager
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 19 April 2024

Tags: Lunar, New year, firecrackers, red, family, Asia

Text:

Lunar New Year (also called Chinese New Year) is one of, if not the, most famous festivals/traditions in all of Asia. Starting at the turn of the Lunar Calendar (around February in the Gregorian calendar), families from all around Asia come together to enjoy good food, share fortune with each other, and have good times. Various activities before and after the main celebration include cleaning the house to let the good fortune inside, putting scrolls and characters on doors and walls, decorating various places with red, and lighting fireworks. The latter two are in relation to the mythological story of Lunar New Year, about a fierce beast named Nian who would come and terrorize the local people before they warded him off with firecrackers and the color red. Now, elders give the young red envelopes filled with money (usually after a short give-receive ritual of sorts), eat foods like dumplings in the shape of money and other such cuisine that invoke good fortune, and have an overall wonderful time with each other.

Context:

C was born and raised in Taiwan, and has traveled the world various times due to her work and studies. She regularly participates in Taiwanese and Asian festivities with friends and family.

Analysis:

I put “Taiwanese Festival” in the title, but really, any sort of Western Asian country would do due to how widespread this particular festival is. Virtually every single action one takes and food one eats can be linked to a specific belief or superstition, making it one of the busiest times of the year for Asians due to how much work gets put into everything. It truly is a showing of how various different people from different backgrounds can come together and share in one traditional time.

Russian Tradition: New Year’s Eve Cinema

Context:

Informant M is a 21 year old Cinema and Media Studies major from Upstate New York and Florida. He minors in Russian Language and Culture and is passionate about Soviet Cinema. He is a junior at USC and has been living in the area for 3 years.

Text:

“In, I think 1972… in the 1970s, a movie was released in two parts in Russia called The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath. And it was a TV movie, so it was broadcast in sections, but it’s basically about this guy, Evgeny, which is like the Russian version of being named John. Who basically gets super pissed with his buds on New Year’s Eve and ends up… his friends end up pranking him and putting him on a plane, blackout drunk, in the place of one of their other friends. And he flies from Moscow to… I think it’s St. Petersburg. And because – and it’s like a joke about the setup of Soviet cities – his address goes to an identical building with an identical lock and so he gets to what he thinks is his house. And it’s not his house, it’s a woman named Nadia’s house. And the movie is just like, the two of them – she’s got a fiance – just the two of them like gradually falling in love. But the first half of the movie is before New Year’s Eve and the second half of the movie is after New Year’s Eve, after they’ve had their moment and they’ve kissed and it’s beautiful and then there’s other problems but that’s like the middle of the movie. And so every year, on Russian state TV and also Russians will watch it on their own, they will broadcast the first half of Irony of Fate on New Year’s Eve and the second half immediately after midnight and people will watch it and it’s just a tradition because the two halves of the movie are also split by New Year’s Eve.”

Interpretation:

Upon first glance, the tradition M described seems lighthearted, perhaps lacking in depth. The concept of watching a film that takes place over New Years on New Year’s Eve and into the new year is fun and simple. It’s easily classified as a tradition. It’s something observable and in which outsiders can participate. In fact, the informant and I attempted to watch The Irony of Fate on New Year’s 2023, but fell asleep before it ended. Furthermore, I believe there to be much more cultural commentary involved in this tradition. For one thing, it’s part of a greater national identity. It’s broadcasted on public television networks and accessible to Russian people. The film includes jokes and bits that are recognizably Russian – something which helps certify identity time and again. What’s more, the film is a rom-com, perhaps the most popular genre and one which can unite viewers. Plus, there seems to be a focus on domestic values of love and friendship, something significant and worth holding onto in periods of change during life (such as New Year’s Eve).