Stowaway Writing Samples
Festival of Colors: Redefining Holi in Spanish Fork, Utah Type:
feature article for Stowaway Magazine
Description: The following is an article published as a feature in the Winter 2014 issue
of Stowaway Magazine.
Festival
24 â–ś winter 2014
C of olors Redefining Holi in Spanish Fork, Utah
By Catherine Billings www.stowawaymag.com â—€ 25
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,
I firmly grasp the handful of colored powder. I pull the neckline of my T-shirt over my mouth and nose.
1!
I tightly squeeze my eyes shut.
I join tens of thousands of people in throwing colored powder into the air. The sky is painted with bright pink, purple, orange, and yellow clouds. The clouds blend together and rain down on the participants below. Welcome to the Festival of Colors.
Every year in the early spring, the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah (approximately 50 miles south of Salt Lake City), hosts one of the largest Festival of Colors events in the Western Hemisphere. On each of the two days of the festival, scheduled “throwings” of colored powder occur throughout the day. These throwings are preceded by countdowns led by an announcer over a microphone. Throughout the festival, musicians play traditional music that features the names of God, and they lead the crowd in mantras. Participants mingle in the crowd in front of a stage where people dance, crowd surf, form conga lines, and generally have fun. Those who aren’t interested in the crowd can eat authentic Indian food, visit the temple’s llamas, shop among a variety of vendors, or explore the outside of the temple. The temple’s interior is closed during the Festival of Colors to preserve its cleanliness. Between scheduled throwings, it is entirely commonplace for participants to throw, smear, or sprinkle the colored powder on each other. This colorful festival in Spanish Fork is based on the Hindu religious holiday Holi (pronounced the same as holy). The celebration of Holi began
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Previous page: Participants throw colored powder into the air during one of the throwings at the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork, Utah. Top: Crowd surfers are hoisted up by friends and strangers. Bottom: A conga line weaves through the crowd in between throwings.
Previous page: photo by Chris Chabot; top: photo by Thomas Hawk; bottom: photo by Steven Gerner
Participating in the Festival
in northern India but has since spread to southern India, other South Asian countries, and even the rest of the world. Because Holi is celebrated as a two-day event in Spanish Fork, the experience is very different from what one would experience in India, where Holi is celebrated as a holiday that can span several days. Dr. Charles Nuckolls, a professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University, explains one of the biggest differences: “In India, Holi is not a crowd process. There can be crowds, but that’s not really how it works. You don’t stand in place and wait for the powder to descend upon you. You could be walking anywhere and somebody pops out and throws color on you.”
Photo by Thomas Hawk
Transforming Traditional Holi
In India, the Holi Festival is celebrated in conjunction with the full moon of Phalguna, which usually falls during February and March of the Gregorian calendar. Caru Das Adikari, the priest of the Spanish Fork Krishna Temple, always schedules the Spanish Fork event on a Saturday and Sunday as late as possible during spring to increase the probability of warm, dry weather. In 2014, the event takes place on March 29 and 30. The best-known component of the Holi Festival is the throwing of colored powder or water. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Krishna (one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the supreme god of Hinduism) was jealous of Radha’s fair complexion, so he smeared color on Radha’s face. Thus, it was Krishna’s playful prank that started the tradition of throwing color during Holi. The throwing of color is the main event at the Spanish Fork celebration. Although throwing dyed water is popular in India, Caru Das felt that it would be best to ban all liquids due
A Holika effigy burns during the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork.
to Utah’s much chillier climate during early spring. Even though the Color Festival is now structured around scheduled throwings, the element of spontaneous ambushes of color is still present. In India, a bonfire is traditionally lit on the eve of Holi, known as Holika Dahan, to reenact the myth of Holika and Prahlad. According to Hindu mythology, a demon king named Hiranya Kashipu declared himself ruler of the universe.
However, his son Prahlad refused to worship him and worshiped Vishnu instead. Hiranya Kashipu asked his sister Holika to carry Prahlad into a fire, knowing that Holika had a boon from the god Brahma that allowed her to be unharmed by fire. However, Prahlad’s devotion to Vishnu allowed him to escape unharmed while Holika burned to death for attempting to use her boon to do harm. Thus, the bonfire represents the victory of good over evil.
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other with colored water. In Spanish Fork, powder is used instead because of the colder climate.
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Top left: photo by Pison Jaujip; top right: photo by Anant Nath Sharma; bottom: photo by Pison Jaujip
Above and top left: In Kharadi, India, people take to the streets on Holi to celebrate Hindu tradition. Top right: Friends in Pune, India, splash each
A bonfire with an effigy of Holika is lit once or twice each year at the celebration in Spanish Fork, but it is easy to miss. Caru Das explains that the bonfire’s low profile is partially due to worries about the safety of Holi participants and partially due to concerns from local fire departments.
Finding a New Meaning
Photo by Thomas Hawk
Historically, Holi was a ritual of reversal, in which people who are stratified at the lowest level of society have an opportunity to reverse the hierarchy and symbolically abuse those who are of higher status without fear of retribution—women to men, young to old, low caste to high caste, poor to rich. The Festival of Colors as it is celebrated in Spanish Fork retains the idea of changing the status quo but
achieves this change quite differently than the traditional reversal of hierarchy. This festival breaks down normal barriers by allowing participants to interact with both friends and strangers. Courtenay Maynes, a senior at Brigham Young University (BYU) from Vancouver, Washington, describes her experience: “As we arrived at the festival, we’d walk past people covered in colors. Random people we didn’t even know were throwing colors at us and hugging us. Once we got to the temple, everyone was dancing and throwing colors at people that walked by. As we saw the ‘clean’ people coming in, we would throw color on them. Everyone interacted with each other even though we each came in our own group.” The powdered colors conceal aspects of personal identity that might serve to distinguish people from each other. Cori Scott, a BYU
student from Hillsboro, Oregon, explains, “You can’t really pick out people. Everyone looks the same, so I wouldn’t be able to recognize my friends afterward unless they said something to me.” Dr. Nuckolls hypothesizes that this process of concealing physical differences establishes commonality among participants. Ultimately, the Festival of Colors in Spanish Fork, Utah, has successfully translated many aspects of traditional Holi celebrations. Not only are many of the traditions preserved, but the underlying goal of challenging social hierarchy is also maintained. The next time you are looking for a socially unifying experience, or perhaps just a way to release your frustration and stress, look no further than Spanish Fork, Utah. utahkrishnas.org festivalofcolorsusa.com ▶▶ holifestival.org ▶▶ ▶▶
The Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, hosts one of the largest Festival of Colors events in the Western Hemisphere.
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Catching the Korean Wave Type:
department article for Stowaway Magazine
Description: The following is an article published in the “Culture: Arts� department of
the Winter 2014 issue of Stowaway Magazine.
Catching the
Korean Wave
Following the Wave
South Korean rapper and performer PSY (short for psycho) released the song “Gangnam Style” on July 15, 2012. A little more than five months later, the song’s music video made history as the first online video to surpass one billion views. According to Billboard, “hundreds of thousands of parodies of the video have been uploaded to YouTube,” including a cover video about Mitt Romney. Although the “Psynomenon” has led to increased interest in South Korea, most Americans are unaware that the popularity of “Gangnam Style” is only a small part of a worldwide phenomenon known as the Korean Wave. The term Korean Wave refers to the spread of South Korean pop culture across the world. The Wave spread first to other Asian countries, then to the Middle East, Northern Africa, Latin America, and the United States. According to Dal Yong Jin, a professor in Simon Fraser University’s
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School of Communication, Korean TV dramas were the first cultural product to achieve this global penetration. Other cultural products— including movies, pop music (known as K-pop), and online games—are following the path paved by Korean dramas. In the United States, the spread of the Korean Wave is still relatively isolated. Even the Korean drama powerhouse has yet to become integrated into mainstream pop culture. However, Korean dramas and K-pop still attract thousands of dedicated fans like Christina Hall throughout the United States.
Understanding the Culture
“The Korean culture is a very different culture,” Hall explains. “The first Korean drama that I saw clearly demonstrated this difference. At first, I thought, ‘This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Who acts like that?’
But then I wanted to know what happened next—it hooks you.” Carol Maynes, a 47-year-old mother of three living in Vancouver, Washington, had a similar first reaction. “I was caught off guard by how effeminately the boys were dressed. It took me a while to understand their humor,” says Maynes. “Sometimes the music implied that the scene was intended to be comedic, but I didn’t get what was supposed to be funny. However, once I caught on, I was hooked.” According to Crystal S. Anderson, director of the Kpop Kollective (a research initiative on the Korean Wave), the Korean culture exhibited in Korean dramas and K-pop is part of their appeal for fans. Dr. Julie Damron, a professor on Brigham Young University’s Korean Faculty, agrees. “They get attached to the dramas, and then they start to like the culture they see,” explains Dr. Damron. “They not only want to learn the language, but they want to go to Korea and to have Korean friends.”
Photo by Richard Freeman
Christina Hall may seem like a typical 20-year-old. After growing up in Lakewood, California, she left home to attend college, where she is working toward a bachelor’s degree in psychology. However, closer inspection of Hall’s life reveals some aspects that aren’t quite as typical. Her ringtone is SHINee’s “Ring Ding Dong.” Pictures of 2PM cover her laptop. She recently started watching “Protect the Boss” starring Choi Kanghee and Ji Sung. None of these names sound familiar? Perhaps “Gangnam Style” does.
culture
Photography courtesy of Republic of Korea
Learning the Language
In fact, Dr. Damron has noticed a huge increase in the number of students who are taking beginning Korean courses over the last five years. She explains that many students decide to take Korean because they watch Korean dramas and are “completely engulfed in K-pop.” Now at least half, if not three-fourths, of her beginning Korean students take the class because they love Korean dramas and K-pop. This cultural and linguistic phenomenon is occurring beyond college campuses. According to Dr. Anderson, fans also take Korean language classes through Korean cultural centers and on the Internet. Carol Maynes’s 14-year-old daughter, Melanie, started taking Korean lessons because she wanted to learn more about the culture she saw in the dramas and to learn the language, which she describes as “really pretty.” She is planning a trip to Korea with her friend after high school graduation and would like to eventually teach English in Korea. Christina Hall regrets not having time to learn Korean, but her younger sister—whom Hall introduced to Korean dramas—is “dead set on learning Korean.” Hall would love to visit Korea; she jokingly mentions that she might need someone to hold up subtitles, though, so she could understand what everyone is saying. Fans included in research conducted by the Kpop Kollective express similar interest in traveling to Korea. Although Korean culture may seem alien at first, you shouldn’t dismiss Korean dramas and K-pop before giving them a fair chance. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be in a beginning Korean class next year. ▶▶
kpopkollective.com
—Catherine Billings Top: PSY dances at a press conference held in Seoul, Korea. Bottom: Male group Big Bang performs for 14,000 fans during their Big Show concert.
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