Sing! Dance! Everybody loves everybody! We’re all connected!
In an effort to get out to more festivals (because, as it turns out, there are a lot of cool ones locally, especially this time of year), I went to the Celebration of Cultures at Centennial Park earlier this month. This happened shortly after a rather successful cultural gathering at my old college (I think the third), and some of the people who were there were also here. I was at the fest all day; it was great. All kinds of people and world cultures combine into one big, awesome fest of love. I danced, I ate, I tanned! But I didn’t eat much because all the food lines were really long. I didn’t get to try all the foods I’d like to have. I need something authentic and Greek, that’s what I need.
Mostly what I did was watch dance performances and browse the tons of stalls. Even then, I feel like I could have seen more. Everything was so cool, and it was quite impossible to see all of it… I’m anticipating seeing more next year. I did manage to see traditional Japanese dance, but have no photos of it.
Of course, there were several Japan-related booths, like Happy Japan, which always makes an appearance at MTAC (and also Nashville Anime Day, and maybe GMX this weekend?), and another booth filled with anime and Japanese things (at which I bought a parasol, a towel with a Toshusai Sharaku ukiyo-e print on it, and a katana letter opener, because I’m a huge geek). But then there was the World Market section, with booths representing countries around the world! And, of course, there resided a Japan booth.
Get your name written in kana!
Games! I was terrible at all of them. Neno nearly killed me with one of them, too! True story.
Oh! Actually, I wasn’t terrible at the sumo-tapping game (almost front-and-center, there). That one’s my fave. I want one for myself.
The people taking charge of this booth are also related to the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival, which I completely forgot to go to this year. Spring will be here in no time, though! I anticipate next year’s very much! I love cherry blossoms, along with plums (which I saw a lot of in Franklin in Spring). They’re going to plant 100 cherry blossom trees here every year for 10 years. Let’s make Nashville beautiful!
The culture celebration was a very nice event on a very beautiful day. I almost wish it had been multiple days. I am excited for next year. Seriously, I can’t get enough of things like this. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it last year.
And I’ll end this post with a very gryphon-like…caaaaw!
