FESTIVALS IN USA

What do festivals tell us about society in general?

Festival is an event of celebration which may be relevant to culture, religion, and nation. Undeniably, festival has played an important role in our lives. So, what do festivals tell us about society in general?

Firstly, festivals that are associated with culture and history may help us get to know local traditions and customs about the society. These festivals that have cultural or history background are usually celebrated by doing some traditional things dating back to ancient time. If a society celebrate this kind of festival grandly, it attaches great importance to its cultural and historical heritage. Therefore, through the celebrations we can know that whether a society pay attention to preserve its traditions and customs or not.

What’s more, festivals that are related to religion may help us get to know people’s belief. For instance, religious festival like Christmas shows people’s belief that Jesus is justice and the eternal sun.

At last, festivals that act like stress relievers may help us know the society’ s attitudes and preference. Some festivals can give us an opportunity to forget all our worries, seek for happiness, and gather together with our families and friends. People who love celebrating this kind of festivals tend to be positive about life and less stressed.

Some festivals are set up for art, music, and sports. For this, different countries show different degrees of preference for these festivals.

Two important festivals in America

● Gilroy Garlic Festival

The Gilroy Garlic Festival is one of the most important Food Festivals in United States. This festival is celebrated in Gilroy, California each summer, which is also called the informal “ Garlic capital of the world”. Each year people get together to buy foods made from garlic, and some recipes of making garlicky foods always draw much attention. They also created special tastes like garlicky ice cream; garlicky wine and garlicky potato chips. It is said to be a tradition as well to choose a “Garlic Girl”. Besides, music, dance, handmade article shows are included in this festival held in hot days.

● New York Fashion Week

The New York Fashion Week is always mentioned together with other four “Fashion Weeks” around the world — Paris, Milan and London. It started to be held in 1943 influenced by the World War II, because of the continuous wars among countries, people could not leave for Paris to watch the famous French fashion show, so it was put on the domestic stage to have this fashion show. And now it’s normally held twice each year, in February shows this year’s winter fashion and in September shows the next year’s fashion trends. Creative minds are found and loved through this festival.

What do these festivals tell us about America?

These festivals show that USA is a multicultural country. People can’t help enjoying these festival for fun, relaxation and making friends. According to preceding part of this blog, we choose two festivals - Gilroy Garlic Festival and New York Fashion Week - to mainly talk about.

For Gilroy Garlic Festival, people pay huge attention which not only about the garlic but also the small town- Gilroy. It attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year and consumes two and a half tons of garlic during the festival which can also improves the development of local tourism. This festival inspires many people’s imagination and creativity of cooking and gives people from different area in the USA a platform to communicate with each other by cooking.

For New York Fashion Week, it is a great opportunity to show various understanding of fashion. It refers to the strong inclusivity, creativity, power and stable mass basis of American fashion style which also proves the diversity of its culture. Besides, this festival attracts people around the world in order to improve popularity of American fashion style to communicate people’s different thought of it. It will present people new type of vogue concept, prospective design, vogue atmosphere and art inspiration. It is just like a kind of collision in fashion.