Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2017 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

1.Thousands of ships make their way to the Netherlands every year for Europe’s largest sailing festival – Sail Amsterdam. The event was held for the first time in 1975 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the city. 2. Hurry up, spring! That’s the theme of Maslenitsa, or the Pancake Festival. A Russian festival held eight weekends before Easter, the centerpiece of the celebration is blini. These round, golden pancakes represent the sun, which residents are welcoming back after the dark days of winter. 3. Put on your dancing shoes; it’s time for la feria de abril. Held in Seville, Spain, when the city’s tens of thousands of orange trees are in blossom, the festival includes dancing, and a lot of it! 4. It takes months of preparation to create the…

Most people love a party. Good food, lively music, maybe some fireworks to cap off a day spent with family and friends — festivals are usually fun-filled days when people can take a break from everyday chores. Some festivals, like Mardi Gras and Carnival, revolve around religious beliefs. They are a time to let loose before the somber period of Lent. Other festivals honor a specific person, event, or food. Have you ever been to a pumpkin or apple festival in the fall? You could travel the world and spend each day celebrating a different festival or event. But no matter how far you travel, you will see many similarities in the ways and reasons why people celebrate. Ancient people created festivals as a way of thanking their gods for…

What if Easter preparations meant dyeing sand, collecting pine needles, and staying up all night to work on an art project knowing it would be ruined the very next day? Well, welcome to Guatemala’s Semana Santa, or Holy Week! Semana Santa is the biggest holiday of the year in Guatemala. Festivals take place throughout Lent in more than 300 cities and villages across the country, but one of the most famous celebrations is held the week before Easter in Antigua, the ancient capital city. There, cobblestone streets are repaired and homes are freshly painted and adorned with purple and white banners, lilies, and ribbons as the town gets ready to host visitors from all over the world. Holy Week celebrations were introduced in Guatemala by the Spanish conquerors in the mid 16th  century. But…

Across 4. type of trees in bloom in Seville during la feria de abril 5. country where the Mombasa Carnival is held 9. pancake festival celebrated in Russia 10. type of elephant with larger ears Down 1. a fast naval vessel used in the 18th and early 19th centuries 2. Washington D.C.’s cherry trees were a gift from this country 3. triangular-shaped cookies enjoyed during Purim 6. elaborate designs made from sawdust and other materials during Semana Santa 7. “Greatest Free Show on Earth” (two words) 8. thin, round pancakes Answers are on page 48.…

Festivals around the world show off many different cultures and traditions, but there is one thing they all have in common — art. Wherever there is a festival, there is bound to be some form of art. It could be anything from music and dancing to costumes and elaborate decorations. Parades are a part of many festivals. Crowds line streets and watch as dancers, bands, and floats drift by. Floats, a flatbed vehicle decorated for a parade, usually have a theme. The theme could be highlighting elements of the festival, showing off the skills of a special group, or advertising a local business. If you were to make a model of a parade float, what would you want to celebrate? Materials: • A shallow rectangular cardboard box for the base of…

January Timkat The quiet village of Lalibela, Ethiopia, is transformed into a noisy, bustling place as tens of thousands of pilgrims, both young and old, arrive there in mid-January each year. They come to participate in the age-old rituals of Timkat, or Epiphany. Some walk for days, or even months, to take part in the worship. Timkat rituals reenact John’s baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. February Tet Tet is a joyous time filled with wonderful sounds, colors, and scents. The most important Vietnamese holiday, Tet, marks the lunar New Year. In Hanoi, the capital city, families prepare for Tet by buying flowers, decorations, firecrackers, new clothes, and gifts and cooking Banh Chung cakes, the special Tet food. (Tet can fall in late January or in early to mid-February.)…

– Off watch! – On watch! The four hours of my gangway watch have come to an end, and I’m ready to dive into the thick of action. The quay of the harbor is buzzing with visitors of all sorts — foreign tourists and local residents, families with kids and coveys of teens, sailors, and journalists. Only once every five years does Amsterdam host such an event! Tall ships from all around the world have gathered for one of the biggest sailing festivals in Europe — Sail Amsterdam. I’m here as a crew of the frigate Shtandart, the wooden replica of the Russian man-of-war, which was built in 1703. The bright yellow standard waving on the top of the 33-meter-tall main mast is like a beacon for us in the…

Yukio Ozaki, the mayor of Tokyo, gave the city of Washington D.C. a gift of 3,000 cherry trees in 1912 as a symbol of friendship between the countries of Japan and the United States. First Lady Helen Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two trees on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. An early spring festival to celebrate the blooming of the trees and the friendship between the countries was first officially held in 1927. “Peak date” is defined by when 70 percent of the Yoshino cherry blossoms are open. This usually occurs sometime between the last week of March and the first week of April. The peak date in 2016 was March 25. A peak date prediction…

Mardi Gras World in the city of New Orleans offers unique, behind-the-scenes tours of its floats. Every float here is worked on year-round for the festival known as the Greatest Free Show on Earth: Mardi Gras. And there is no way to separate these spectacular floats from the fun of Mardi Gras parades! French for “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras was begun in New Orleans in the 1700s and takes place before Lent. Because Lent is a religious time of fasting, people celebrate Mardi Gras to prepare to give up rich foods. What better way to celebrate parades, which kick off two weeks before and up until Mardi Gras day, than with eye-catching floats? Each year, anywhere from 14 to 40 floats make their way down St. Charles Avenue, the most…

Imagine a holiday like Halloween, but with both adults and children wearing costumes. There’s no trick or treating, but everyone is eating special cookies. They are also having lots of fun being silly at carnivals and plays. Welcome to Purim, an ancient holiday still celebrated in Jewish communities worldwide. It occurs on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Adar (typically in March) and celebrates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from evil Haman, prime minister to King Ahasuerus. The story comes from the biblical Scroll or Book of Esther, set in the 4th century B.C.E. in the Persian Empire. A dramatic killing begins the story. After having his wife executed for disobeying him, King Ahasuerus selects a new queen, the beautiful Esther. Her cousin, Mordecai, a leader of…

HOW DO YOU TELL AN ASIAN ELEPHANT FROM AN AFRICAN ONE? African • Large ears, shaped like the continent of Africa. Larger surface area of ears keeps them cool in the blazing African sun. • Fuller, more rounded head with single dome at top • Males and females can grow tusks, (but not always). Asian • Smaller ears. • Live in cool jungle-areas, so they don’t need as much protection from heat. • Twin domed head with an indentation in the middle • Only males grow tusks, (but not always). In India and Asia, elephants are superstars. They have played an important role in religious events, marriage ceremonies, and on the battlefield since ancient times. Throughout India, the elephant-headed god Ganesh is revered and worshipped. Elephants symbolize strength and wealth…

“Dark, heavy clouds weigh on our shoulders,” Natalia Korteleva says about winter in Vyborg, her hometown in northern Russia. On the shortest days of the year, in late December, the sun rises after 10 a.m. and sets before 4 p.m. By mid-February, lengthened days filled with 9.5 hours of light make people absolutely giddy about shaking off winter. For more than a thousand years, this giddiness has marked Russia’s annual Maslenitsa festival encouraging spring to hurry along. Today, Russians love their hearty, playful celebration just as people did in pagan times, before Prince Vladimir introduced Christianity in 988. Russians keep ancient Maslenitsa traditions alive and also connect them with their Russian Orthodox Church. Though the pagan Maslenitsa occurred at the equinox in March, when day and night are equal in…

Legend has it that during the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, if you look closely enough, you can see the images of the Jade Rabbit and the Lady in the Moon. This is the time when the full moon rises into the night sky at its roundest and brightest all year. The moon’s round shape symbolizes togetherness and unity, and families gather together to share a meal, celebrate the moon’s glimmering beauty, and retell stories of long ago. The tradition of appreciating the moon dates back almost 2,000 years to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), when families gazed at the exquisite orb glowing in the sky and took walks in the moonlight. It wasn’t until sometime during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127 AD) that the fifteenth day of the eighth month in…

THE STORY OF CHANG’É AND HOU YI In the days of long ago, the Earth had nine suns. The suns blazed so brilliantly that they scorched everything on Earth. Trees and plants withered, rivers dried up, and no crops could grow. The people began to starve. The Jade Emperor summoned the best archers in the land to shoot down the suns. A young archer named Hou Yi raised his bow to the sky, and one by one, shot down each of the suns until only one remained. For his success in saving the Earth, the Jade Emperor awarded him the Pill of Immortality. Although he appreciated the Jade Emperor’s reward, Hou Yi didn’t want to take the pill and become immortal. It would mean he would have to leave his…