Lantern Festival

As mentioned in a previous post, the Lantern Festival marks the 15th and final day of the Chinese New Year celebration. This festival is also known as the Yuan-Xiao Festival or Shangyuan Festival. This particular event officially ends the New Year festivities.

In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple in design, and only the emperor and noblemen had ornate lanterns. Now, lanterns are more embellished with various and complex designs. Many lanterns are made in the shapes of animals. The lanterns are said to symbolize the people letting go of their past selves and starting anew.

There are many different beliefs and legends about the origins of the Lantern Festival. A lot of them tend to focus more on ancient mythology.

In modern practice, the Lantern Festival is a major celebration during the Chinese New Year. There are many lanterns released to give the illusion of a virtual ocean of lights. The most eye-catching lantern is the Dragon Pole. This is a lantern in the shape of a golden dragon, spiraling up a 38-meter-high pole, with fireworks spewing from its mouth. Another popular activity at this festival is guessing lantern riddles. These often contain messages of good fortune, family reunion, abundant harvest, prosperity, and love.

picture found on qoolwellstuff.blogspot.com

The Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is the most traditional celebration in China. This New Year is held according to the lunisolar Chinese calendar. It begins from the last day of the last month in the Chinese calendar to the 15th day in the first month, which ends with the Lantern Festival.

Origins and Mythology

According to legends, the Chinese New Year was created because of an attack by a mythical beast called the Nian. the Nian is said to live under the sea or  in the mountains. Once each spring, on or around the Chinese New Year, it comes out of hiding to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year to appease it. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food prepared, it wouldn't attack any more people.

Legends say that the villagers had seen that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. From then on, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian, and never came back to the village again.

Chinese New Year celebration in Hong Kong.

Festivities

On the days immediately before the New Year celebration, Chinese families give their home a thorough cleaning. It is believed the cleaning sweeps away the bad luck of the preceding year and makes their homes ready for good luck. Brooms and dust pans are put away on the first day so that the newly arrived good luck cannot be swept away. 

The celebrations usually consists of various traditions on each day leading up to the final 15th day (the Lantern Festival). Customs may range from visiting the elders of the family to celebrating a birthday of a certain deities. Fireworks have become a very integral party of the festivities as well as has wearing the color red. These are all thought to ward off evil spirits and bad fortune.

This has been a celebration that I have really wanted to attend in China. However, being part of a university with such a large number of Chinese foreign exchange students has allowed me the opportunity to celebrate in a small way here.

Holi, Holi, Holi!

This is the celebration I've been most anticipating for so many reasons. There is so much I could say about this event simply because the culture that it originated in is very rich and filled with a long history.

Honestly, I have no first-hand experience with the culture or this celebration, but I will do my best to describe it in some detail while containing my excitement.

Holi is a religious festival held every year among the Hindu people to celebrate the end of winter and the coming of spring. It does have some religious meaning as well present in Hindu mythology. The event is also known as The Festival of Colors which represents many colors of spring. During the festival people throw colored powder at each other.

While Holi is a Hindu festival, it is celebrated in many other places across the world. It has even come to my university (UCO) and will be held on April 9th! I have never participated in this celebration, but I think this is my year!

I wish I had more insight on this festival because it definitely shares a "colorful" side to an already diverse culture. But here's a blog from someone who has a different perspective than mine here.

UPDATE: UCO's Holi Festival has been moved to April 11th due to weather. Hope to see ya there!

Kiss Me, I'm Irish!

OK I'll be honest, I've never actually seen anyone celebrate St. Patrick's Day... St. Patty's Day? I think the most my family did for this year's St. Patty's is buy a cookie cake.

But if I could celebrate St. Patrick's Day one year it would be at Dublin, Ireland for their FOUR day St. Patrick's Festival! FOUR DAYS to celebrate St. Patty's with millions of people.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

While St. Patrick's Day started out as a religious tradition, commemorating Saint Patrick, it grew into celebrating the ethnicity of the Irish people. The St. Patrick's Festival started in 1995 to showcase the talents and achievements of the people of Ireland, and where it once was a one day event it grew to four days in 2001.

This event is filled with all the makings of a great party. Enjoy parades, music, and dancing where you can eat, drink and be merry with millions of other strangers! If they were strangers before, they won't be at the end.

This is that time of the year when you can celebrate being Irish!... Even if you're not..

Carnevale di Venezia

What is it about wearing a costume that feels liberating? That grants a certain freedom? The freedom from ourselves and to be anyone, or anything, we want to be. The disguise seems to give us power and mystique -- to tell us, "Anything is possible."

In America, the possibilities are endless for just the one night in October, but at Carnevale in Italy, playful mischief runs rampant in the cobbled streets of Venice.

Piazza San Marco is usually the place to be during the weeks of Carnevale where people of all shapes, all sizes, and all colors of the spectrum are seen. Venetians will go out of their way to impress both the locals and the tourists with their elaborately decorative masks and dress, walking the streets and posing for pictures. But Carnevale is more than that.

History of Carnevale

The celebrations of carnevale are rumored believed to have began after the victory of the "Repubblica della Serenissima" -- or Venice at that time -- against Ulrico, Patriarch of Aquileia, in 1162. Rejoicing, the Venetians celebrated their victory in San Marco Square.

The dancing and dressing up in rich and colorful garments went on for several centuries until the 17th century. And if today's standards of Carnevale are any indication, sounds like that would have been one helluva party in that time! Unfortunately, the festival met its decline in the 18th century.

After a long absence, the carnival returned in 1979. The Italian government decided to bring back the festivities to share Venezia's culture and history by using Carnevale as the centerpiece for their efforts. Today, around 3 million visitors attend the event of the festival.

Behind the Mask

Wearing masks is a common practice during Carnevale and are traditionally worn from December 26th to Shrove Tuesday (we may commonly call this "Fat" Tuesday) just before the start of Lent.

Here are some common masks worn at Carnevale:

The Bauta

The Columbina

Medico della Peste

The Moretta

The Volto (Larva)

Let the Celebrations Begin

The huge "Festa Veneziana" sets the stage for the beginning of Carnevale, inviting guests in with poetry, music, and colors on the banks of Cannaregio.

The Best Masked Costume Contest is held twice daily throughout Carnevale at the Gran Teatro of Piazza San Marco. Here, parades, street artists, masked groups and traditional dancers perform on the stage of the Gran Teatro.

The parade of the "Marie's" to San Marco Square

Another one of the many activities of Carnevale is the "Festa delle Marie." Traditionally, the Venetian Doge would offer extravagant jewelry as a bridal dowry to 12 beautiful Venetian maidens every year. These maidens are considered to be the most beautiful in all of Venice.

The festivities during Carnevale are not in short supply with everything to entertain you. Music, singing, dancing and, of course, mischief are around every corner of the winding narrow streets of Venice. But with all of the activities going on there is only one rule to keep in mind: Carnevale ogni scherzo vale ~ Anything goest at Carnevale...

NOTE: NONE of these photos were taken by me nor do they belong to me.

Are you my type?

Morbid Anatomy... certainly lives up to its name, and the font does not help either. The type is very small and really thin. It was a strain to read or to even want to keep reading this blog.

A Cup Of Jo
This blog's typography was very easy to read. The font is probably around 12px, so not real big but I didn't feel like my eyes were straining. The type of font was simple and it's an interesting blog as well.

A blog to "spark your fancy"

Recently, I've been checking out cool blogs to follow. Ones that "spark my interest" or "suit my fancy"... OR I just looked up these blogs for an assignment. I'll let you decide.

Anyways, I came across this blog called Opinionator in Technorati's list of top blogs. What's really cool about this blog is the different content it provides. Anything from writing tips to historical facts about the Civil War (facts you didn't know... or might be interested in)-- written in a narrative style. This blog contains various writers with different interests who blog day-to-day. What draws me to the writing though is if there is only a few writers that I enjoy reading I can simply read posts by them specifically.

If you're looking for a blog with some color and flair to catch your eye then you might be a little disappointed. Opinionator is a New York Times blog forum, so they've spent little time in putting up photos that look like they were uploaded from Instagram or pretty colored font. It's very professional... because it's the bloody NEW YORK TIMES!

It's good writing. Pure, unadulterated, and simple. You might have to dust off that Webster's Dictionary to brush up on a few forgotten words, but the writing is simple enough to keep you attention.

BEWARE: You might run into some writers whose views may piss you off... it is, after all, an opinion page.

Happy blogging!