Category Archives: Festival

清明节 (Qīngmíng Jié) Tomb Sweeping Day

Title: 清明节 (Qīngmíng Jié)

AGE: 55
Date_of_performance: April 4, 2025
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Nationality: United States (lived in china for 20 years)
Occupation: Employee of the British Council in China
Primary Language: English
Residence: Beijing, China, currently Toronto, Canada

Folklore Explanation:
“Qingming is a public holiday, so everything slows down for the day. You probably remember—we’d get the day off, and if we stayed in the city, you’d notice how quiet it felt in the morning. Most families would head out early to visit the graves of their relatives. You’d see them cleaning the tombstones, pulling weeds, and laying out offerings—usually food, flowers, or incense. Some people burned paper items, like imitation money or little paper houses, as offerings to the ancestors.

But it wasn’t just a solemn day. After the rituals, families would often go on long walks together—some even make a trip of it. A lot of people leave the city and go into the surrounding countryside or small towns where the holiday is more deeply rooted. You could see whole groups picnicking, flying kites, or gathering for a big meal. It’s a day about remembrance, but also about being together as a family. The weather’s usually mild by then, and it kind of marks the real start of spring.”

Analysis:

Qingming Festival is a form of calendar custom and ritual folklore, rooted in ancestral worship practices common in Chinese folk religion, Confucian values, and Taoist and Buddhist influences. It is an example of commemorative folklore, observed at a fixed point in the solar calendar (around April 4–6). The festival’s customs—tomb-sweeping, food offerings, and symbolic paper burning—are passed down intergenerationally, typically through oral tradition and communal practice, rather than through formal education. While deeply spiritual, Qingming is not tied to a single organized religion but reflects a broader cultural reverence for lineage, harmony with nature, and seasonal change. It continues to be transmitted through family practices, media portrayals, school education, and public rituals, maintaining a strong presence in both rural and urban areas of China.

Simbang Gabi – Filipino Holiday Festival

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 51
Occupation: IT Help Desk
Residence: Naperville, IL
Language: English

Text:

Simbang Gabi translates to “Night Mass” in Tagalog.

Context:

The performer grew up Filipino in a community of mainly Catholics, then immgrated to the Midwest in 2003 where they joined a “Simbang Gabi” program at their local Catholic church with other Filipino immigrants.

“Simbang Gabi a Filipino tradition that is actually nine days. Basically we go to mass for 9 days in a row before Christmas. It happens at Dawn.” […} “We choose to continue it so the other kids who grew up here would experience our culture and it at te same time our community, it would be a Filipino event that people would congregate to. ” […] “Our Simbang Gabi program would showcase the way we dance, the way we have food, the way we have Filipino games… My sole purpose to do it is for the kids, to continue the tradition, to continue the culture.”

In the Philippines, celebration happens since “the moment we are conscious” and is celebrated by all Catholics (80-90% of Filipinos are catholic). They were told that if they finished all 9 days of Simbang Gabi and they make a wish, it will come true. “It’s like you’re praying or petitioning for something.”

Analysis:

The performer’s version of Simbang Gabi is intriuging because it’s an example of how a Filipino tradition is Americanized and yet celebrates the culture in an “authentic” way despite not being an exact replica of the tradition. Simbang Gabi in the United States is a wonderful example of cross-cultural diaspora as Filipino immigrants “perform identity” and preserve the culture after physically moving and assimilating with American culture.

Simbang Gabi in the Philippines is reflective of Filipino traditions of faith, family, and folklore as it mixes the Catholic influences of Spanish colonizers with communal values of meeting in church daily as well as creating a lasting tradition that defies borders.

Pagpag – Filipino Funeral Custom

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 51
Occupation: IT Help Desk
Residence: Naperville, IL
Language: Tagalog

Text:

“Pagpag” in Tagalog translates to “Dust off”

“If you go to a wake/funeral, you shouldn’t go straight home. You have to go and stop by somewhere else – for example a coffee shop, mall, or restaurant.”

Context:

The performer didn’t experience this tradition until his Lolo died, and it he never really questioned it, because it was common for his Filipino relatives to eat after any gathering. It was something the people he grew up with just understood. He grew up in the Philippines (rural Luzon) until he was 8, then moved to America where his family still followed this tradition.

“That way you wouldn’t bring death to the household. If there is a ghost that latches on from the funeral home or just death in general, you don’t want it to follow you home. You don’t just go to a place and drive by, you have to stop and spend some time there.” “In the Philippines, there weren’t really places to go before going home. Now whenever we go to a funeral, we do Pag pag.”

Analysis:

Pagpag is rooted in spirital folk belief of liminality: the belief that events such as death and spiritally charged and potentially dangerous. By not going home right away, people seek to disrupt the path of wandering spirits and ensure their household won’t become haunted. This ties into Filipino animism and folk Catholicism which is a blend of indigenous spiritual beleifs and Catholic concepts of afterlife (brought over in the 1500s by Spanish colonizers).

Another great value of Filipinos is community. By avoiding going home right away, this practice also forces community through shared mourning and offers emotional decompression after an emotionally taxing event. Even if it’s not tied to superstition and the fear of vengeful spirits, societies tend to pact together after devastation just to cheer each other up as it’s human nature which has been passed down across generations.

Holi – The Festival of Colors

Nationality: Australian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hyderabad, India
Language: English

Festival: Holi — The Festival of Colors

Background/Informant’s Interpretation: Playing with colors, since a young age in India, Holi is something fond to him, and is happy to find in the United States, being abroad and away from home. Introduced by his family, specifically, his dad, at the age of 4, Holi is a Hindu festival where individuals throw color and water at each other. To him and those across the country, it symbolizes that good has beaten evil hence spring has arrived. Music, loud drums are played and people dance in the streets with traditional food being passed around normally cold drinks and desserts like thandai and khulfi. Sweets are also made to be shared with family and friends. Recently, playing holi at USC brought fond memories of throwing colors at his sister, demonstrating shared memories through a heritage-centered festival

My Interpretation: Besides sounding like a good time, this festival is key in his development as a person, and also symbolizes how part of your heritage can be shared and showcased with others. With traditions such as the type of food and the objects being used in the festival remaining consistent, we can see that the past is being shared with the present through a shared means. Furthermore, culture is something that is shared here as it is with family and loved ones. This association plays into the idea that this festival appears on campuses and nontraditional locations, which previously would have been colorless.

Kaju Katli – A Staple Sweet

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Residence: Hyderabad, India
Language: English

Text: Kaju Katli

Background/Informant’s Interpretation: A sweet that roughly translates to cashew diamond, this good is enjoyed and can be found at any festival or pooja being performed in India. Traditionally, sweets are offered after a festival or pooja to celebrate the completion, the auspiciousness, and the good they tend to bring. Sometimes, his mom would make them for him to enjoy after he did well on a test or if his parents were in a good mood. This led to him consuming 10 to 15 at a time and passing out on his couch after a sugar crash. This sweet, is a processed white diamond that is prepared by a combination of dry ingredients such as cashew and sugar, making it into a fudge-like consistency. He remembers him and his dad going to local vendors and street shops to collect these sweets while being ordained in Traditional clothing called Kurtas for men and saris for women.

My Interpretation: The sweetness itself sounds key in the celebration and essential to a certain tradition that is maintained time after time. The fact that it is interchangeable with other ones that can be used, but also is needed at the end of the festival, symbolizes the fact that without it or its adjacent parts of the festival or the ritual seems to be incomplete. Hindu rituals tend to emphasize this idea of good triumphing, so the sweet is sort of a key factor in representing this in a materialistic way. Furthermore it is a cultural item that can be shared and enjoyed by others. I feel that it also connects to heritage and ties into glocal culture as a local tradition can be mass-produced and is seen on a global level in cities across the country and out of its home region.