📘 Part 3: Festivals

This episode’s vocabulary

Keystone (noun) - the most important part of a plan, idea, etc. on which everything else depends.

To promote (verb) - to encourage people to like, buy, use, do, or support something.

Gusto (noun) - great energy, enthusiasm, and enjoyment that is experienced by someone taking part in an activity, especially a performance.

To showcase (verb) - to show the best qualities or parts of something.

To get into the spirit of things (idiom) - to show enthusiasm and enjoyment.

Commercialized (adj.) - organized in order to make a profit.

To eclipse (verb) - to make another person or thing seem much less important, good, or famous.

Wholesome (adj.) - good for you, and likely to improve your life either physically, morally, or emotionally.

Prevalent (adj.) - existing very commonly or happening often.

To preserve (verb) - to keep something as it is, especially in order to prevent it from decaying or being damaged or destroyed.

To evolve (verb) - to develop gradually, or to cause something or someone to develop gradually.

Ostentatious (adj.) - too obviously showing your money, possessions, or power, in an attempt to make other people notice and admire you.

Bombastic (adj.) - high-sounding but with little meaning; inflated.

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Questions and Answers

Maria: Now, you've talked about an interesting tradition in your country. Now let's talk about festivals in general. Are traditional festivals important?

Rory: Well, I think they're important, sort of, keystone events for holding the culture together, but they aren't the only thing. There have to be smaller things to make cultures function as well. So festivals are one thing, but there's also individual traditions that families have amongst themselves. So making sure that you have time to promote things like togetherness is also quite important. So it's not always about the big things.

Maria: How do people celebrate festivals in your country?

Rory: Well, with great gusto, I'd say. If you take the "Fringe festival", for example, it's sort of, well, a media festival essentially now because people put on different acts. People put in a lot of effort with everything to make it all come together. Like, there are street performers, for example. There's the free fringe, which obviously is free. So people don't make any money from it, but they put in a lot of effort to showcase themselves. And I think that's quite nice. So, yeah, people get really into the spirit of things in this sense. That's just one example, though.

Maria: What's the most popular festival in your country?

Rory: Well, I suppose the fringe, for sure. Like I said, I think for the reasons I just mentioned, it should be fairly obvious why. That's the most popular one that's unique to Scotland. I think in the West, more generally, if we speak about Christmas, for example, then that's something that's like maybe the most pervasive festival. It's, like, everywhere. And obviously people get into it quite naturally and they buy lots of gifts for each other and they're getting together with their families for Christmas. So that's quite nice.

Maria: What's the difference between your traditional festivals and Western festivals?

Rory: Well, for me, traditional festivals are Western festivals, I suppose, because where I'm from is the Western country. But if we make a comparison between festivals in Russia and festivals in the West generally, then there's a lot less commercialization in Russian festivals like Maslenitsa, for example. But you can at the same time see this creeping in as time goes by. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely something to be aware of.

Maria: What's the difference between the festivals now and festivals in the past?

Rory: Well, connected to what I said before! I think they are a lot more commercialized now. There's so much product placement and advertising. Like, at Christmas, for example there's that famous Coca-Cola advert. It's kind of worrying in a way, because it can eclipse the more wholesome meanings of some festivals and celebrations, but I don't think it does it entirely. So there is still some positivity to be taken from this, but it is something that you notice if you compare what it was like in the past to now.

Maria: Do you think that Western festivals like Christmas are replacing traditional festivals in other countries?

Rory: Uh, well, like I said, I'm from a Western country, so I couldn't say for certain, but it's probably more prevalent than in the past, in all likelihood. Either that or maybe there are more hybrid celebrations. For example, Russians usually celebrate Christmas in January and it's definitely taken on. A more Western aspects in terms of the advertising and the imagery that's associated with it. I don't know if it's replacing it, though. Maybe it's just turning it into something new and things are always changing. So it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Maria: Do you think it's wrong for children not to celebrate traditional festivals?

Rory: I think it depends on why they're not celebrating them. If it's a question of having different views or maybe you want to preserve your own culture, then it might be important that they don't celebrate. They could at least be aware that something is happening so you can know about something and not celebrate it. Like, I'm aware of Ramadan, but I'm not a Muslim. If it's out of some misguided notion of like having a blank slate where your child is completely unaffected by your culture or other people's culture, then that's not going to work because we live in the real world. So it really will depend on how your motivations for doing this.

Maria: Do you think customs and traditions are changing these days?

Rory: Um, well, I think they're changing all the time, really, aren't they? Um, it's it's natural for things to evolve and change over time, although some things are changing faster than others. So, for example, if we go back to what I said for my Part 2 answer, if we talk about "First footing", then I think that's probably less common now with strangers than it used to be, because people in the West tend to be a bit more guarded. They tend to value their personal space a little bit more. And so that's becoming less of a thing. And if we factor in the coronavirus restrictions, then it means that it might not happen so much at all this year. So that could be an example of how things are changing faster than others. Other things... I don't think they're changing so quickly. I guess the kind of trees people use at Christmas varies. You have plastic trees and real ones. I think people have more plastic ones than real ones now. So, yes, they're changing, but at different speeds. And that's normal. It's natural.

Maria: Do some countries celebrate traditions more than others?

Rory: And I think some countries have celebrations that are more noticeable than others. But it's likely It's happening as often in less ostentatious cultures than those which are more ostentatious or bombastic. Like, if we look at America, for example, they're very, what's the word, outspoken about their values and the things they do, like Thanksgiving, you have the turkey and all of these films and all of these different facets of culture revolve around it. And so that's something that people immediately know about. And they think that Americans have all of these great traditions compared to other countries. But, you know, you don't have to scream what your traditions are from the rooftops in order to have traditions. Like, there's lots of things that people do that other people don't know about. Like, well, not many people know about "First footing" in Scotland, for example, but people do that. And so I think that people have an equal number of traditions. It's just how they present them to the world that's different.

Maria: Do young people in your country like to celebrate foreign festivals?

Rory: Well, probably more open minded people or people from different cultures celebrate foreign festivals because they're coming from abroad. I don't think that's an age thing, though. For example, there are more immigrants now than there used to be. So I imagine they'd be likely to celebrate some things from their own culture as well as things from the culture they've moved into.

Maria: Do you agree, that the real meaning behind traditional festivals, has been lost?

Rory: No, not really. People are always curious as to why things happen, and as long as that's the case, we can keep the media the real meaning alive because someone has to explain it to them. So it's important to point out that old and new meanings can coexist simultaneously easily enough. I mean, for example, if you look at Christmas, it's usually considered to be about family these days. That's compared to in the past where it was really about celebrating the birth of Jesus with your family. But they have equal weight right now and you don't cancel each other out. So it's not necessarily that they're being lost. It's just that they're moving to accommodate newer ideas.