Different Festivals Around The World

Festivals and Carnivals play important role in development of cultures and bringing people in these cultures closer thus fostering a sense of social cohesion.

Festivals are the building blocks of any culture - by establishing customs and rituals around festivals, they make passing down of cultural information and cultural influence from older generations to newer generations much more easier thus propagating tradition in result.

By bringing individuals closer, these festivals help to pass on cultures and religious ideals into the next generation.
This is a important way in which cultural and religious traditions are preserved.

Some festivals have food as their main characteristic while other have lights, festivals music and festivals gathering just to name a couple.

All around the world different communities of people celebrate different cultural and religious festivals which have different characteristics. In this blog, I'll be looking and writing about certain festivals from all over the world whether they be religious or cultural in nature.

By giving this blog a read you'll know what festivals are near you, where and when they'll be happening.

This blog won't mention popular and well known western festivals like Christmas or Easter because they're already known around the world.

1) Chinese New Year

Chinese calendar is based on lunisolar calendar meaning it has characteristics of lunar and solar calendars. Along with mainland China, this festivals is also celebrated in other East Asian cultures.
It is also referred as Sping Festival in some places.

The calendar usually starts between 21 January and 20th of February and has associated practice, customs that make this festivals one of the most important and impactful festivals in the entire world.

Festivals celebration include different form of dancing, family gathering, fireworks, decoration of the house and giving away red envelops.

Traditionally, Red is worn on this festival because it is believed that wearing red colour will scare away the bad fortune and evil spirit.

In food items, dumplings, fish and spring roll hold a special importance. Every food holds symbolic importance and it is believed that eating that particular food will bring different postive attributes like wealth, wholeness and prosperity. Lion and Dragon dances also play an important cultural part of this festival, and this part of the festival has now become a global image perception for Chinese civilisation.

You can enjoy this festival regardless where you live as its truly global these day being celebrated from North America to New Zealand.

2) Holi

Holi is a Hindu festival that's largely celebrated across India, Nepal and by Indian dispora. The festival is also celebrated across other faith's like Buddhism, Sikhs and Jains. This festival is also referred to as festival of love, festival of colours or festival of spring.

Holi is a ancient festival that usually signifies start of new life, it pushes its observer to forget follies and fights of old, to live with harmony and peace. Its a time for family gatherings, for cultural exchange, meeting and making new friends. It's normally celebrated in the start of spring which means it normally falls on late March, early April period.

As most of Indian history has been tied to it's land and thus practice of farming, holi is seen as start of new crop season, to grow new crops in new spring season.

It wouldn't be incorrect assertion that colour's are the most important and outstanding component of Holi. Usually during Holi days, colours are thrown on other people in social gatherings like dances and stuff. On occasion of Holi, sweets are shared with freinds and families. Barfi and Ladoo are among the most popular of sweets that are given in holi celebrations. Drinks such as bhang are also popular drinks on this festival.

In Hindu mythology, holi is a celebration of good victory's over evil, victory of divine love over hatred and jealousy.

Due to large presence of Indian Dispora overseas in every part of the world, holi celebrations have seen a surge worldwide as now they are celebrated across all inhabited continents.

3) Eid Ul Adha

This festivals is celebrated across entirety of Muslim World as well as anywhere Muslims reside elsewhere in the world. Eid Ul Adha is more of religious festivals with social and cultural contoation rather than being other way around.

The word Eid literally means 'Festival'. Muslim all over the world who have the means to do so scarfice animal in the way of God and give back its meat to needy and downtrodden of the society. Eid Ul Adha is collequaly known as Eid E Quran which translates to 'Eid Of Sacrifice'.

Animal can be sheep, goat, cow, camel, deer. Less financially well of Muslims put their share in a large animal like cow or a camel, which is further divided into seven compartments with respect to its meat.

Muslim celebrate two eid, this one is the latter one and is considered to be more important and impactful than the first one.

Islamic calendar is based on lunar cycle and this festivals falls on 10th day of last month which is called as 'Zil Haj'. Apart from animal sacrifice, Muslim who have means to do both in terms of fiance and health perfom pilgrimage to Makkah and Medina which is known as Hajj. Hajj is done 9th and 10th day of Zill Hajj month.
Hajj is mandatory for every Muslim who's in good health and has financial means to perform the pilgrimage.

The day is started with Eid Prayere which usually happens early morning, and the well to do Muslim offer financial help to poor and needy, this step is called Fitrana.
Muslims regardless of their age, gender or background wear new and beautiful clothes on this occasion and have eid gathering with their freinds and families.

Meat is traditionally divided into three equal parts, first part is held at home for family that did the sacrifice, second part is reserved for family and friends, while the last part is given to poor and needy.

4) Morocco: Fez Festival of World Sacred Music

This festival was started in the mid 1990's in the African country of Morroco. This festival is largely community based festival with musical experience bringing from all over the world here.

In the recent decades, this festivals has garned international reputation as a top music festival with inclusion of traditional sufi music, African music and other genre of music. Sufi and other genres of spiritual Islamic music are popular and famous for making people feel connection with their own soul. Thus spiritual music with sufi undertones is given immense importance and has had equally immense impact on the global crowd of this annual festival.

Typical length of this festival is around 10 days and is organized to bring human spirit through music. Festival is typically hosted in the middle of July.

Apart from music there are multiple discussion forum platform that raise awareness about global issues like climate change, human rights, civil rights among others with panels of intellectuals discussing these important matters.
This is probably the newest addition to this festival but seeing the state of the world, it was a necessary addition.

Recently, different cities such as Los Angeles in USA and Madrid in Spain have started organising their own festivals with same name. These music festival have same mission statement but the genre of music that's played is different for different area.

These days this festival is considered to be top notch music festival with very cheap and accessible spaces, plus city of Fez is itself 1000 year old city with matching history and architecture. It's a once in a lifetime experience which isn't even that expensive to begin with.

5) Nowruz

Nowruz is a Iranian New Year festival that celebrates beginning of spring season. This ancient festival started as zoroastrian religious festivals, these it's significance is largely secular in nature. This festival has written recorded history of 3,000 years and has been celebrated in parts of Asia like Central Asia, Western Asia and Areas of Black Sea since. This festival normally takes place on 20th March.

The word 'nowruz' means a new day and spellings of this word changes by geographical location. This festival celebrates victory of light over darkness,feeling of solidarity and reconciliation by union of family gathering and time for harvest.

Before the arrival of the spring season and thus festival of Nowruz, house cleaning is done this is accompanied by buying of new clothes. Along with this practice, individuals fill up water inside some container and this is associated with health and attempt to banish bad luck.

During the Nowruz festival, younger folks traditionally make a stop to meet and spent time with their elders. These guests are offered wide variety of foods like dried nuts but more proper dishes with cultural significance are also present. These dishes vary from geographical regions and country to country like there would be a different dish for offer in Afghanistan than say in Iran or Iraqi Kurdistan.

In places as north as Azerbaijan, this festival is celebrated and is generally very popular. The customs of this country's nowruz include things like bonfires late into the night, elegant public display of fireworks with firecrackers.