Category Archives: Festival

Tet- Vietnamese New Year

Nationality: Vietnamese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, California
Performance Date: April 14, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

Informant is from San Jose, California, a city with a very large Vietnamese population.

“So in addition to the regular January 1st New Year that everyone in the US celebrates, my family and I also celebrate the Lunar New Year, which is called Tet in Vietnamese. Basically, it is usually in late January or early February, and is when the new lunar cycle begins, which marks the beginning of the year in many Asian countries like Vietnam. During Tet, there are a few superstitions and traditions that everyone follows to have good luck for the next year, and there is a ton of food and gathering around with family.”

Tell me about some of the traditions.

“Well, my parents always told me that whatever you do on the first day of the year, you will do for the rest of the year, so you’re supposed to practice good habits and be clean and all that. Uhh… Oh, also, you aren’t supposed to work or do any cleaning around the house, as people believe that you will sweep away any good luck. One of the big traditions, and my favorite tradition, is giving out red envelopes with money to all of the children, which is supposed to be a sign of fortune and good luck. Other than that, there is a lot of good food, and there are Tet festivals in San Jose and I think in Orange County too.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

The Lunar New Year is commonly celebrated in many Asian countries, and this is a variation of that celebration. Some of the traditions seem to be the same across the cultures, such as giving out the red envelopes and the feast. However, the no-cleaning rule is very interesting, in that it seems to imply that luck can be brought in and out of the house, which is something that I haven’t heard before. This is a holiday that is familiar, yet unique, to many different peoples.

The Significance of Yams in Nigeria

Nationality: Nigerian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 19, 2017
Primary Language: English

new_yam_festival2

My friend grew up in Nigeria before coming to the US for college. He says yams are life in Nigeria.

Friend:“The yam is the staple food and therefore a measure of masculinity and wealth. If a family has a lot of yams, you’re rich because you can feed your family. This makes you a strong man. Yams are equated to life in Igbo culture. Nigeria is the leading producer of yams in the world, so of course they are a big deal to us.”

Me: Do you still have family who farm yams?

Friend: “My father does not farm yams, but my grandfather did, and his father before him. When my grandfather got married, he had to present his yams to my grandmother’s family to prove he could provide for her, which is a fairly typical custom in Nigeria.”

Me: Is there anything specific about how yams are farmed that makes them special?

Friend: “On some farms in Nigeria, the women aren’t allowed to go to the farm until harvest time. Then the women do all of the harvest work. It’s superstition I guess. There are many people today who still grow yams. Yams are featured at any big gathering or at any holiday meal.”

 

Analysis: Many cultures have some form of staple food. For the Irish, potatoes are an important part of sustenance, and therefore are a large part of how people live. Because of this, a simple food like a potato, or yam, can come to have symbolic meaning.  What a family produces in terms of yams, and how it relates to masculinity is extremely interesting, given that yams are an unpredictable measure of success. One year, the harvest could be plentiful and the weather perfect. The next year, however, bad luck could lead to very few yams. Another aspect of this folklore worth noting is that while the men do the initial farming, the women do the harvesting. Perhaps this relates to the hunter/gatherer trope, but a man’s worth relies on work which is half done by women.

National Cherry Festival- Traverse City

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Actor
Residence: New York City
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

I collected this piece of folklore from my brother, who went to school in Michigan. Traverse City has a Cherry Festival every summer, and this is his experience of it:

Skye: “Along the northern shores of Lake Michigan sits Traverse City.  The city is along Grand Traverse Bay and sits at the lower end of a fertile peninsula.  For decades, the area has been the self-designated Cherry Capitol of the world because of its good farmland.”

Me: How long has the festival been around?

Skye: I’m pretty sure it started at the turn of the century. The farmers would have an annual “blessing of the blossoms” in the spring–much like a blessing of the fleet in fishing communities. There is also a Cherry Blossom Queen, and a parade. The single day observance grew to be several days long.  And now, the contemporary festival is 8 days long.”

Me: What does the festival consist of?

Skye:”There is a professional mascot named Super Cherry.  Merchants set up stands and sell everything imaginable that is Cherry related.  Main stage entertainers come from all over the world.  There are baking and craft contests. Local restaurants and hotels are full and menus feature Cherry sauce, Cherry pie, Cherry mustard, Cherry wine, Cherry syrup, Cherry horseradish and Cherry ice cream.”

Analysis: Other communities in the US have food related festivals and observances– for instance Gilroy Garlic Days in California and the world famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Food festivals such as these are a reminder of how America became such a prosperous country, abounding with fertile soil. Many people nowadays do not farm as their main way of making money. But Americans who have multiple generations from the U.S. likely have ancestors who farmed. Celebrating the cherry is celebrating hard work, abundance, our history as an agricultural society, and our ability to innovate with simple foods.

For the official website, see here: http://www.cherryfestival.org/

Annapolis Tug of War

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 24
Primary Language: English

“So in my ummm… hometown… ummm… my parents live in Annapolis… and in Annapolis there’s a divide between two smaller little… like… sub cities. There’s downtown Annapolis and Eastport and what’s dividing them is the chesspeak bay and theres the… there’s the bridge. an unnamed bridge that connects the two. and so ummm… each year the city of Annapolis puts on this ummm… tug of war that goes along the chesspeak bay. So they get this massive rope that’s at least a mile long and they get citizens of Annapolis to tug from Annapolis and citizens of Eastport to tug from Eastport and so… it’s usually twenty people on each side of the rope and it’s going across the entire bay and they have like boats like it’s just a rope across the entire bay for like one mile which was super cool to see every year and I participated in it on my ummm… last year and Eastport did win last year, that’s where my family lives and it’s a super cool tradition”

This tradition seems to span an two entire boroughs of a town and seems to focus on conflict between the boroughs of Annapolis. The rivalry doesn’t seem too bitter though as the towns to dedicate this one tug of way every year to this friendly rivalry.

Cherry Blossom Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

“Every year in D.C… Washington D.C., there’s what’s called a Cherry Blossom Festival. And ummm… it’s in the spring and it… happens each year when all of the cherry blossom trees… blossom… I guess…ummm… and… it’s super cool because everything is that bright washed out shade of pink and there are pedals everywhere especially after the festival is over and like the trees like… and the pedals have fallen everywhere because of the wind. I used to think it was super cool when I was like eight, but now I just think it’s kind of a nuisance because it happens every year but it creates a ton of traffic and I can’t get where I need to go… And it happens in D.C. and like in Annapolis there’s like… that’s like an hour’s distance and there’s still traffic so it is a gridlock nightmare but it’s still a super cool part of D.C. that not a lot of people that… don’t spend a lot of time in D.C. realize. So it’s a fun tradition”

This one is a modern festival based on a natural phenomenon. We don’t usually have that many new festivals based on these phenomenons in modern day. We don’t celebrate the winter solstice or anything really but this seems to be a festival representational off of a new age of spring and the aesthetic beauty of the cherry blossoms of Washington D.C.