FESTIVALS IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

A) Chinese New Year: It is the biggest holiday, with dragons, fireworks, symbolic clothing, flowers, lanterns and celebration. Also known as the Spring Festival, Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally run from January 21 to February 20. Like Christmas in the West, people exchange gifts during the Spring Festival. The most common gifts are red envelopes. Red envelopes have money in them and are given to children and old, retired people. It is not a custom to give red envelopes to working adults. Red envelopes are used in the hope of good luck.

B) Holi: It is a two-day Indian spring festival also known as the festival of colours. It is celebrated at the end of winter, on the last full moon day of February or March. It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which starts with a bonfire on the night before Holi, where people gather, sing and dance. The next morning is a free-forall carnival of colours, where everyone plays, chases and colours each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for their water fight. Friends and strangers, the rich and poor, men and women, children and the elderly all come together to spread love and friendship.

C) Day of the Dead: This is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico. It starts on October 31 and lasts 3 days. The holiday focuses on gatherings of families and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. People also build private altars, honor the dead members using sugar skulls, marigolds and the favourite foods and beverages and visit graves with these as gifts.

D) Sky Lantern Festival: It’s a festival that witnesses thousands of sky lanterns light over Pingxi District in Taiwan. It was originally celebrated to keep away evil and disease from the town, and the sky lanterns were released to let others know that the town was safe. These lanterns are decorated with wishes and images, and finally they're released off into the sky together, magically decorating the sky. Every year at the end of January, local people and tourists come together to make a wish and release their lanterns.