What Your Festival Says About You

The article argues that festivals reveal what a culture values — now map where YOU sit on the same tensions.

Your Festival Anchor

Name one festival or celebration — from any culture — that you genuinely connect with, and write one sentence on why it matters to you personally.

Anarchic or Reverential?

La Tomatina is anarchic and egalitarian; the Crane Festival is careful and reverent. Mark where YOUR festival sits on this axis — then mark where YOU personally sit.

Anarchic & egalitarian

Careful & reverential

Spectacle or Meaning?

Is the primary appeal of your festival the visual spectacle, or the deeper cultural or spiritual meaning? Mark both what the festival OFFERS and what YOU actually seek from it.

Pure spectacle

Deep cultural meaning

Local or Global?

The article notes that international tourists now define many festivals. Mark where you think your chosen festival sits — and where it SHOULD sit.

Belongs only to locals

Open to the whole world

Tradition or Evolution?

Oruro took centuries to fuse its traditions — it kept changing. Should YOUR festival stay exactly as it was, or evolve with each generation? Mark your honest view.

Preserve every tradition exactly

Let it evolve freely

Read Your Pattern

Look back at your four marks across steps 2–5. Do they cluster together, or spread out? Write one sentence describing the pattern — what does it reveal about what you actually value in a celebration?

The Revealing Word

The article ends by saying festivals show a culture what it values 'without any particular intention to do so.' Choose ONE word that captures what YOUR four marks together reveal about you — and write one line explaining why that word, not another.

Why that word?

Discuss Tell your partner your word from step 7 — do they agree it fits what they know about you?

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