There are billions of people in the world and each of us are different in lot of ways. We all have an event that symbolize our cultures in some way. USA has the 4th of July as a special event to celebrate America independence from the British. The events that take place represent some form of freedom and independence. Without these celebrations the world we live in would be different; we wouldn’t know about our history and why we celebrate these events. This is a way we can learn about who we are as a culture and celebrate how far we have come. The Chinese and the Scottish people also have special events that symbolize their culture. The Chinese have many different cultural events but one special one is the Chinese New Year also known as The Spring Festival. Scotland’s event is also to celebrate and to remember the history of their people. The name of the event is Up Helly Aa also known as the Fire Festival. Each culture has different events that teach their people about the past and not to forget how far they have come.
The Chinese have a cultural event that I always wanted to experience; since I don’t have the time or the money to fly to China, I watched it on YouTube. Their event is called the Chinese New Year. During this time they are celebrating their calendar New Year and it’s a weeklong celebration. While celebrating everyone is fixed on the festival. Businesses close to celebrate the New Year as they offer up sacrifices to the gods and light fireworks to scare off evil spirits. While researching different events, I also came across another interesting event that the Scottish people do every year. The name of this event is the Up Helly Aa Fire Festival. The Up Helly Aa Fire Festival is an event in Scotland, where they...
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Works Cited
Chinese New Year. (n.d.). History.com. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/chinese-new-year
Traditional Chinese Festivals - china.org.cn. (n.d.). Traditional Chinese Festivals - china.org.cn. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Festivals/78322.htm
Chinese New Year family traditions. (2012, February 3). YouTube. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noiouIzjJZE
. (n.d.). YouTube. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR7uiGVKOsQ
Up Helly Aa - Europe’s biggest fire festival. (n.d.). Scotland.org. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.scotland.org/features/up-helly-aa-europes-biggest-fire-festival
Up Helly Aa. (n.d.). - Official Website of the Lerwick Committee. Retrieved May 6, 2014, from http://www.uphellyaa.org
In order to explain, this we need to go back to the very beginning of this creepy holiday. Long ago, a people known as the Celts celebrated a holiday they called Samhain. The Celts lived two thousand years ago in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France. Celts began each new year on November first; This is the day that ends the harvest and marks the beginning of winter, cold and hard, which many then feared they had not stored enough food to survive. With that in mind it is no small wonder that this time of year was often associated with death. So the day before, Samhain , Celts believed that this world and the Deadworld boundaries blurred and th...
Vietnamese festival for celebrating the lunar New Year. On the first day of the festival,
Picture this. It is the day of the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Belmar New Jersey. Look to the left and now to the right. People are dressed head to toe in emerald green and bright orange, waving around the green, orange and white Irish flag. After frantically looking around for a vacant spot on the curb to sit, the parade begins and the sounds of bagpipes and drums fill the air. Year after year, the music, the clothing and the atmosphere remain the same. This is what St. Patrick’s Day is. It is a day that other cultures have the chance to experience the Irish way of life. Unlike many other countries cultures, the Irish values and customs have remained virtually the same over many years.
China has seen many changes throughout the course of their development, yet one aspect about their culture has tended to see continuity over the centuries. The practice of ancestor veneration has been present for thousands of years in Chinese culture. Looking at this single theme from China in 1600 compared to earlier periods, it is not hard to see that China has seen great continuity when it comes to honoring their ancestors. Religion, politics, and the economics of China may have changed over the years, but ancestor veneration has persisted and has even been shaped by these aspects.
Li, K., & Mengyan, F. (2013). A historical survey on modernization of Chinese culture. Asian Social Science, 9(4), 129-132. doi:10.5539/ass.v9n4p129
Mooney, James. The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. London: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Christmas is one of the most celebrated festivals in the western world. The nativity celebration of Jesus. In every country, or every region, local customs influence the ceremonies, and Christmas is celebrated differently everywhere because of those customs. But what most western people have no idea of is that Christmas is not the only nativity festival of a founder of a religion. It is not even the oldest nativity festival! That would be the traditional Buddhist festival of the birth of Buddha.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore, Wing-Tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds. Sources of Chinese Tradition. NewYork: Columbia UP, 1960.
During this festival you will see many different colours and many life sized puppets of dragons ,which means good luck to everyone. The Chinese do parades with all the life sized puppets, different colours and traditional food. Chinese New Year promotes multiculturalism through all the amazing lights, dance, parades and food getting massive crowds from all around Australia. This festival aims to bring everyone together and to show respect and learn different cultures.
Description: Here comes CHINESE NEW YEAR 2015. Read about LANTERN FESTIVAL celebrations of 2015 CHINESE NEW YEAR. Read CHINESE NEW YEAR IN 2015.
(Chang and Kalmanson, 2010) As an old saying goes, “Piety is the foundation of all virtues” This illustrated the significance of filial piety in Chinese society. Since the origin of Yulanpen festival was a son with filial affection who would do anything to save his mom, the Buddhism tale abided by the traditional ideas of the social context. The Chinese believed that the ceased one also had needs in feeding themselves. Therefore, it was important for the descendants to feed them to avoid their ancestors suffer from hunger to show their respect towards their forebears. Yulanpen festival has also provided a chance for people to feed spirits without heirs in order to prevent them from disturbing their ancestors. Due to the tradition of taking care and respecting of ancestors after their deaths, the Yulanpen festival flourished in the Chinese
Williams, C. A. S., and C. A. S. Williams. Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs: An Alphabetical Compendium of Antique Legends and Beliefs, as Reflected in the Manners and Customs of the Chinese. Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle, 1988. Print.
This peculiar phenomenon of both cultures mixing within such an important event in which most cultures stand adamant about is what we believe can represent, to a certain degree, the unique cultural mix in Hong Kong. It is curious how two vastly different cultures can mix so well within a small place with a large population. Thus, with the above considerations, we decided to fix our topic on weddings. We believe that through this project, we will be able to learn more about our rare and uncommon culture, in terms of its origin and composition of other cultures.
The Chinese New Year is fifteen days long and each day involves a different custom based off of a different ideology such as cleaning your house will wipe away the bad luck of the preceding year. Halloween although originating in Ireland, was carried to other countries and is now often seen as an equivalent to the popular Day of the Dead Celebration in Mexico. Although, Day of the Dead is about celebrating dead loved ones, the act of dressing up in costumes happens in both celebrations. Halloween follows the ideology that children dress up in costumes and go collect candy from people’s houses whereas day of the dead is centered around the ideology that for one night dead loved ones can be reunited with their families. Easter and the popular Jewish holiday Passover are often seen as the same thing because they fall around the same thing and both celebrate spring. All around the world countries celebrate independence days that are on different days but they all represent relatively the same thing. But, different countries hold different ideologies for their independence days. For
Chinese New Year is the most widely celebrated tradition in Asia. The tradition is usually celebrated on the first day of the first month on the Chinese Lunar calendar. This tradition is rooted in centuries-old customs and is one of the most popular public holidays in China. Apart from China, this tradition is also celebrated in many Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan. There are many values and rituals tied with this tradition. For example, people would wear red clothing, decorate the house with red paper, and give children "lucky money" in red envelopes. According to legend, it is said that red can drive away bad luck, which is why the color red is highly emphasized. In myths, our ancestors would light bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would scare off evil spirits. This is why fireworks and firecrackers are set off during this special tradition. Other values and traditions during Chinese New Year dinner such as eating specific dishes during the New Years Eve Dinner, exchanging red envelopes, and cleaning the house. These traditions all emphasize one value: the importance of family reunion during Chinese New Year. Family reunion is essential because it is a time to interact with family and friends who often times do not live nearby. Family and relatives will plan their schedules around Chinese New Year dinner, instead of taking family for granted. Adults also teach children important tradition and lessons during Chinese New Year so that when they grow older, they would continue this tradition with their families.