A little bit of your culture

[mimi]

One of the greatest things about this forum is the diversity,I think we're all around the world,so I though we could take a little advantage of that to know more about its different cultures.
I made this thread to everyone post wathever they want about their country and culture =)

For starters,We were talking about posting some traditional festivities pic in the photos thread,So I'm posting something about carnival.
Carnival is the biggest festivity in Brazil.During this festival big Carnival Parades are held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,these parades are a competition between the samba schools to see wich one is the best (aka spent more money)

The parade soundtracks are "samba enredos",and they must have a theme.Starting the parade we have the school's flag-helders


Then there's the head comission,wich shows the school's theme



Leading the way,we have the battery queens


Then there are the different sections,and the alegoric cars (where most of the money is spent)


Celebrating the 100 years of japanese imigration,Porto de pedra samba school paid a homage to anime and manga in their carnival parade! to those interested I'm linking the video on youtube:
br.youtube.com/watch?v=ATlkS7Jh2Jk&feature=related

kisses!

[krystalepyon]

Jesus. Those are some incredible costumes and floats. How can samba schools afford all that!?

lol I didn't realize there were countries that actually celebrate immigration. O.o But cool. ^.^

[sphere]

heck yeah!

Well.. I live in Malaysia and we have loads of cultures and religion here. It's a known fact that Malaysia has the most holidays in a year compared to any other country!

Here's some of the things I'm not sure you have seen b4 though..

The malays wear Baju Kurung, Baju Kebaya (for females) and Baju Melayu (for males) on Hari Raya. That's the Muslim Holiday. They eat 'Ketupat' and 'Rendang' Ketupat is rice cakes just so you know. and Rendang being cooked meat with seasonings. The kids get money on this day.

Example of Baju Kurung, Kebaya and Baju Melayu.



They come in many sizes and color. ^^ The 2nd photo is a 'Baju Kebaya', 3rd is Baju Melayu and First is Baju Kurung.

The Indians wear 'Saree' on Deepavali which is the Indian festival. They wear colorful outfits and eat 'murku' which are a spicy biscuit.

Example of a saree.



The Chinese off course celebrate Chinesse new year. Meli would know about that ne? ^^

[krystalepyon]

lol I used to know how to wrap a sari. My nan taught me. *is half Indian*

Gee... Wouldn't know where to start. do I post about Australian culture? (Beer at midday) Brittish culture (Warm beer in the afternoon) Irish culture (Any beer whenever) American culture (Beer for beer's sake) or Japanese culture (Beer cause I'm NOT Japanese and all non-Japanese people must drink all day every day cause that's just what they do... right?)

Heh. Kidding. But seriously. I've lived in so many places, have family from so many places, and Jesus, I have three passports. I don't exactly know which culture to claim as my own.

[mimi]

Sphere-Wow,I didn't know that malaysia had so many holidays o.o and I hadn't seen the outfits either,
They're very cool!The saree is simply beautiful!Wich one of them do you wear?
Rice cakes sound nice *¬* *I love rice*

Krystal- Sou you know how to wear that beautiful outfit? *.*
hahahahahaha,beer is beer and is always good I guess XD
You really know lots of places,that's awesome!I think you don't need to claim only one culture as your own,if you want to,tell us about what you liked the most in each one of them =)

About the money in the samba schools,the government gives some since a lot of tourists come to see the show,and the samba schools are like closed communitys so people who don't belong to the schools but want to go on the parade have to pay for it.And there's the illegal obtained money,of course

[melichan]

Chinese New Year.....how could I not know about it? XD
I's awesome. In families, the adults give the children red envelopes with "Gong hay faht choi(I can't spell or speak chinese sadly T-T)" written on it and cute little pictures on it. (My aunt always has the cutesy little envelopes for us even though were all like older then 14 XD But there nice and fun to look at) Inside these envelopes is money. No specific amount.

Then usually there is like a banquet of all this nice chinese food. The one I had last year wasn't that great.... but we were at a really nice resturant in SF and got to watch these shows hired by this like Asian society that was having a party from the balconys XD My brother got to be in this magic trick by these really bad magicians. It was funny XD


Anyways! During Chinese New Year, there are all sorts of parades with like dancers, and like paper dargon dancers (I don't know what they're called XD) And that's all I know about chinese new Year >.< I'm like gonna put in a pic of me in a chinese dress my mom made me later. Lol

There is also the Moon Festival in September. Stores sell all these Moon Cakes for this holiday and they are delicious =D

[Lovux The Great]

Well, there's always Swedish Midsummer...



Haha, nah, that's not really swedish midsummer for ya. At least all midsummer parties Lovux has been to has not been like that (but some of them were close calls. ). The video you just saw is a German commercial for Sweden's famous furniture company, IKEA, and here they make fun of our Swedes' way of celebrating Midsummer. But it's not completely without truth either (like many other parodies). There is a Maypole of which we dance around, and at some places we do wear folk clothes like they do in the video, but it's mostly just people who are working with cultural events in general who do that, though I wouldn't mind dressing up like that on an occassion or so. To put it bluntly, midsummer is a party day. People are gathering to eat and drink and party hard. That's it. XD

Another tradiation we have is Saint Lucy's Day, or "Sankta Lucia". An IRC accuintance of mine made a good Lucia guide and posted as a devitation on her deviantART, you can check it out here:
annausagi.deviantart.com/art/Saint-Lucy-s-day-72060316
And don't worry, you don't need to have a DA account to get access to the picture. But warning, it's quite lenghty, so dial-up user, beware.
Here's a video showing a traditional Lucia march. I really like this video, since usually you can only hear the ladies voices, but here, the Star Boys' ( ) deep voices can be heard as well, which complements the girls' vocals and gives the whole march a saintly and church-esque feeling to it, IMO.
And here, purely for the lulz, is a random funny video featuring a small kid in a Lucia march who can't stay still for his life. Don't forget to check out his dance moves in the middle of the video!

Yeah, that's all Lovux can think of.

[sphere]

I wear the Baju Kurung and Kebaya. We just finished celebrating Hari Raya so I'll have some photos up soon ^^ Yeah, the ketupats were nice! xD I eat rice everyday xD it's like the main food in Malaysia. xD

Melichan! Isn't it supposed to be Gong Xi Fat Choi? That's what we call it here.

[mimi]

Meli- It sounds really cool! Once I saw the paper dragon dancers on tv,it seemed really beautiful!
I liked the name "moon cake",what they taste like? o.o
and I do love bad magicians more than the good ones XD hahaha
I'll be waiting for the pics *.*

Lovux- I loved the commercial video XD
You party all day long? since morning? that's a lot of disposition!
The Saint Lucy's day music is really beautiful! My family is half italian and my grandmother used to sing the first part of this march to me in italian when I was little ^^
the DA piece is really cool too! I didn't knew there was such a sad history ehind the song,never understood the lyrics

Sphere- cool! hey,pics *.* We eat a lot of rice here too,almost every day we have rice with beans for lunch...don't care all that much for the beans though x.x

[melichan]

Oct 8, 2008 11:07:33 GMT -5 sphere said:

I wear the Baju Kurung and Kebaya. We just finished celebrating Hari Raya so I'll have some photos up soon ^^ Yeah, the ketupats were nice! xD I eat rice everyday xD it's like the main food in Malaysia. xD

Melichan! Isn't it supposed to be Gong Xi Fat Choi? That's what we call it here.

Probably. XD
I can't spell it but I can say it fine.

Mimi - I know, arn't they? I'm amazed they can see under those things XD As for the moon cakes, there are different kinds. I like the red bean filling ones =D Haha, they were so terrible it was just funny. Lol, okay XD I'll try to find them

[mimi]

red beans? *.* Though I'm not a big fan of the salty greens we use around here,I loove to eat japanese sweets made of those beans (if I'm not mistaken the japanese use the same beans,I'm not sure XD)

[krystalepyon]

lol @ Lovux's videos. The little boy was funny, and the commercial was... interesting. XD I read the Deviant Art thing, too, and I have a question... What the heck to gnomes have to do with anything? O.o

[sphere]

here are the pic's as promised!



Bottom from left to right is my brother, my sister.

Above from left to right is my grabdma, my dad, my mom and then me, wearing a baju kurung with a (get this) real, dimond bracelet.



Family pic now!

[mimi]

wow,what a big family! your sister looks a lot like with you
I really liked the clothes! and the bracelet must be also beautiful,diamonds are so sparkly!very elegant \o (I always remember about the refractive index when I see diamonsd,don't know how nerdy it is .-.)

[Lovux The Great]

Oct 10, 2008 19:15:15 GMT -5 krystalepyon said:

lol @ Lovux's videos. The little boy was funny, and the commercial was... interesting. XD I read the Deviant Art thing, too, and I have a question... What the heck do gnomes have to do with anything? O.o

They are part of the Swedish culture, of course.
However, one should remember that the gnomes here are NOT to be confused with the gnomes that works for Santa, you know, the elves. These gnomes were, in the folklore, said to live under people's houses and took care of animals and protected the family from evil spirits, but the people living in the house had to keep on good terms with their "house gnome", so to say, or else he would bring misfortune to the household (they are even said to, despite their physical littleness, be so strong that they could kill a full-grown cow with ONE smack and carry it very long distances). One way to keep a gnome happy was to put out a plate with porridge and butter on it during the winters.
And, well, I guess it's from this old legend where the tradition of gnomes come.