Tag Archives: festival

Beltane and Modernizing Tradition

“A lot of it is making it up as I go along, it’s really hard to pin down which are the fire festivals because they all involve fire. Beltane is for sure one of them. This is a midpoint festival, in between the spring equinox and summer solstice. It’s about the coming of the bright half of the year, something more heavy and developed than Ostara, which is about light. Here, things actually start blooming.

“Historically, this is when a lot of weddings (a.k.a. hand fastings). A lot about sexuality, life and unity. This is where the May Queen, someone getting crowned queen and getting adorned with flowers. Here in particular, fire is a purifying force in the sense of getting ready for something instead of getting rid of something. They would have cows run between their fires for fertility, or extinguish their personal fires to light a communal bonfire. Symbolic of reawakening a spirit of community.”

Context

It’s tough, especially since I’ve been trying to figure stuff out and make my own traditions out of the old traditions. I don’t really have the time to do that now. I grew my first tomato on the day of Beltane. It was a wee little thing, but I treasured it so much. To see something you nurtured coming into itself was really nice. [For this holiday, I] decided to focus on fresh produce, and ate a bunch of tomatoes with a friend. The friend smoked, I had an edible, and we cooked stuff with the tomatoes.”

Analysis

The informant talked at length about cultivating their own traditions, building out an identity, faith, and practice, by looking back at older, more esoteric examples. Rituals are often symbolic of our identities and what’s most important to us. For the informant, a resonance with nature led her to holidays and traditions that honored that connection.

The constraints of modern living, however, have forced her to adapt that celebration to meet her current needs. A busy life doesn’t leave much room for experimentation, and many of the symbols evoked by Beltane can’t really be accomplished in modern settings. It’s difficult finding the space to have cows run between fires these days.

How we celebrate evolves with the times, but why we celebrate doesn’t. Does a ritual still remain the same if the practice of it is different, but the essence of and motivation for doing the ritual remains?

Qingming Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Brooklyn, New York
Language: English

Text:

Collector: “Can you describe any rituals or festivals you have participated in before?”

Informant: “My family and I have a yearly ritual where we go to the cemetery to visit my great grandparents. We visit their grave and burn fake money and clothes to send them these things in the afterlife. We also burn stuff like cars, houses, accessories, jewelry, bags. They are all made of paper but it’s supposed to give them the real thing in the afterlife. We then burn incense and bow and pray to them.”

Collector: “What time of the year do you guys do this tradition? Is it based on your family’s religious beliefs?”

Informant: “We typically try to go a little bit after Chinese New Year. My immediate family isn’t religious, but I believe it’s based on Buddhist beliefs in the afterlife.”

Context:

My informant is Chinese-American and has been participating in this yearly ritual since she was young. While her immediate family is not religious, they practice some Chinese Buddhist traditions such as bringing items to their deceased loved ones and praying to them.

Analysis:

This ritual is a part of a traditional Chinese Holiday, typically practiced in the beginning of April during the Qingming festival, which translates to “Tomb Sweeping Day”. This festival reflects a common Chinese belief in the afterlife, but is not . It is a way for people to honor their deceased ancestors and loved ones, ensuring that they are well taken care of in the afterlife. Some people believe that “sweeping the tomb” is only to be done during the festival, otherwise it would be disturbing the deceased. It is a way for the living and the dead to feel connected. People pray to feel spiritually connected to their ancestors.

Festival: Salu Salo

Date of Performance: 05/01/2025

Nationality: Filipino

Primary Language: English

Residence: Manila, Philippines

My informant recalls a fond memory from his school days. He grew up in the Philippines, and when my informant was a child, he attended an annual festival called “Salu Salo”, which means welcome, or something similar, in Tagalog. It was a school event, wherein he and his classmates would experience Filipino culture, and play at various stalls and events related to the festival. His whole middle school would have haunted houses, small rides, and bounce houses set up, and it was the preeminent celebration of their school year. Normally, his school, which was Catholic, had a uniform, but on this day, children were allowed to wear whatever they want. It’s a spin on the classic Filipino “Fiesta”, or celebration, and to start it, the class would all be together, and have a party, involving dance, food, and other games. Parents were invited to attend, and teachers would man the stalls and join in celebrations with their students. Overall, it was a fun event that encouraged the students of my informant’s school to be proud of their Filipino heritage and be rewarded for their work across the school year. 

This festival sounds to me like a combination of a more typical end of the year party and a more traditional celebration of Filipino culture. I’d imagine that events like these help to connect feelings of relief and happiness with national pride, bolstering morale while also reminding children of their background.

Festival: Japanese New Year

Date of Performance: 04/30/2025

Nationality: American

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles, California

My informant, who is half-Japanese, tells me of the traditional New Year’s celebration her and her family would follow every year. She didn’t grow up in Japan, but her grandparents still lived in Tokyo, so around the new year, they would visit and stay with them for about a week. The week would be spent watching reruns of 80s television, and then on the 31st, her grandmother would prepare a traditional wintertime stew called Oden, which consists of fish cakes, radish, and other vegetables. They would stay up until midnight, and then celebrate with the annual airing of a New Year’s concert attended by various important figures in the Japanese political and entertainment world. The following day, they would eat something called Osechi Ryori, an assortment of traditional dishes that is eaten every new year’s day, each of which have symbolic meaning for good luck and fortune. Then, they would all go to the shrine near her grandmother’s house, where they would make their first prayer of the year, draw cards that symbolized their incoming fortunes, and eat from traditional food stalls. Sometimes she would go in traditional kimono attire, but for the most part she describes this experience as pretty casual. 

Kind of like the Christmas celebrations described by my other informant, while this practice has its roots in religion, my informant has treated it as more of an informal, familial celebration than one related to its Shinto foundation. They related this experience more to their memories of their grandparents than to its cultural and religious significance, but stated that its yearly practice helped to link my informant with her Japanese side.

Festival: Christmas

Date of Performance: 04/30/2025

Nationality: American

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles, California

My informant describes the importance of his family’s Christmas celebration every year growing up. He notes that it isn’t necessarily unique, but that his parents made it a point of emphasis in his childhood, and that to this day he fondly remembers the effort they put into making it special for him and his brother. He also notes that while was raised culturally Catholic, he is not particularly religious, and regards the holiday as having more of a personal than spiritual significance in his eyes. His family tradition went as such: every year, they would decorate the tree together on the first of December. His father took care to always buy a real, fresh, pine tree, because he enjoyed the smell of it throughout their house. The biggest day of the Christmas holiday, he describes, was the night before Christmas, when his cousins, who only visited about once a year, would come over with his uncle and aunt, and his parents would cook a large dinner. This was followed by a screening of A Charlie Brown Christmas, after which they were all allowed to open one present before going to bed. The next morning, they would find the milk and cookies they’d left out eaten, and their stockings stuffed with one or two items from their Christmas list. After this, they’d eat the leftovers of the night before, and watch Christmas movies with their parents and family. 

My informant describes this practice with much enthusiasm – I could tell he really enjoyed reminiscing about his childhood. He notes that his parents’ treatment of the Christmas holiday was likely due to his father, who grew up as the child of immigrants, always envying the “classic” Christmas experience he peers had. 

On another note, my informants’ perception of Christmas as less of a religious event and more of a family celebration  is pretty similar to the experience of my other friends. Regardless of if they were raised religious or not, many describe the winter holidays with similar fondness, likely because of globalization and the cultural prominence of the “classic” Christmas holiday. Interestingly, this practice is less community based as it is familial, perhaps reflecting the dominance of the nuclear-family model amongst Western countries and cultures.