Cultural immersion through community participation and observation

Culture is quite a broad term and encompasses a lot of different things. The oldest way of describing a culture is basically talking about the different aspects linked to it. This means that the oldest way includes the mention of the music, sculpture, literature and paintings of that certain kind of culture. It has been noted that a culture of a region becomes more prominent and profound if it is carried out and exhibited by the intellectual and the upper class. (Skelton & Allen, 1999) Another way of looking at culture is by considering what the majority of people are doing or how they are carrying out their own life.

This brings us to talking about the second aspect of culture. This is merely the way of life of the people living in a certain area. This sort of culture can even be used to describe animals if one thinks about it. Therefore in this context, we can go on to talk about the culture of any tribe, community or even a continent. William Graham Sumner (1906) basically stated that culture results from the repetition of small acts. Many a times, these acts don't really make sense but they are somehow incorporated into the culture of that certain region. Mead (1955) stated that culture is basically a group of behavior that a certain number of people share amongst each other. Since these people share these acts and behaviors, these acts are then carried on generations through generations. Thus, children, immigrant and a larger group of the society go on to take up these acts and make them an integral part of the culture of the society.

This was basically an overview to talk about how culture is looked upon differently by experts and scholars. Today, there are a variety of different cultures all the around the world. Even around me, I am exposed to cultures such as the Southeast Asia culture, Japanese, South American and so on and so forth. The culture that I had the privilege of experiencing was Indian culture. I experienced Indian culture by attending a spring event and religious service that is known as Holi. Before I get into more details about how my experience was, I would like to talk about what exactly Holi is.

Holi is basically a festival full of colors that is celebrated by different names by people in India. Seeing how there are many different cultures in the country itself, they tend to change the names at times but the main purpose stays the same. Holi is celebrated on the full moon day in the Phaulgun month which is almost equivalent o March. This is an important festival and something to look forward to because it goes on to welcome spring. The people get very excited about throwing colors on each other and playing around. Apart from throwing the colors on each other, a most important tradition of this festival is breaking the pot. This tradition is celebrated in all of the towns and villages. A major purpose of this festival is to allow the persons to get loose and enjoy each other. There is a pot of buttermilk that is hung very high on the streets. Over there, the men of the town or the area have to make this huge man pyramid. After doing so, they have to make that pyramids quite stable and then go on to hit the pot.

Holi is a significant part of the Indian culture because it allows the people to get close to their religion. It enables the Hindus to get close to religion because they basically go on to celebrate many prominent legends of their religion. The legend of Prahlad and Hiranyakshyap is celebrating din this festival Furthermore, the legend of the famous Radha and Krishna is also celebrated through Holi as well.

I was fortunate enough to experience this religious service because it is not that difficult to carry out regardless of where the person is. Anyone is able to attain food colorings or powdered color to throw at each other. The traditional puria and the bhang can also be made at home as well. This holi was basically carried out a community mandir which is equivalent to Church.

The Indian people had a lot of respect for their place of worship as it was evident when people were taking their shoes off. That was something that I wasn't very used to as we do not take shoes off when we go to church. Going inside, I was greeted by a mark of red color on my forehead. As I looked around, most of the people had that mark on their head; the eagerness with which people were putting their faces had made me think that it must be a good thing to have this mark on your head.

The place was full of men and women of varying age and built. Most of the people were wearing white clothes that were stained with different cultures. Seeing this different mix of colors, I did understand why this festival is a prelude to spring. The various colors flying around me, on the floor, on people's faces and on their clothes did make me thing that spring is near. I was surprised when my friends themselves took a fist full of yellow color and threw it on me. I was told about the wearing white tradition so I opted to wear my white T-shirt. After being colored many different colors by my friends and even by strangers I did not know, I finally decided to go take a closer look at the statues in front of me. People were very connected with the idols as they bowed down to them. This showed me that despite the recklessness these people showed with colors; they were serious and quite obliged when it came to the idols. After praying to the idols, most of the people were walking towards the food area and that is where I went. Even though I had never had this sort of food before, I enjoyed it a lot.

Surely, there weren't many African-Americans in the festival and I was standing out quite a bit. At first, I was met with a lot of stares that were not hostile in any way. The first look always used to be of surprise and a shock. Surely, no Indian person was expecting an African-American to show up to play holi. After they had gotten over the shock, their stare changed into a rather happy and pleased look. All the people there were happy that I was there to experience their culture. They were not defensive or rude but inviting and appreciative. There were many people there who went on to help with the color throwing and even the pooja part that I tried on later.