Laura Green
http://www.visitsouthbank.com.au/events/buddha-birth-day-festival-2013
I
enjoyed listening to this weeks lecture. The mention of the Buddha Birthday
Festival got me thinking about its significance. I used to attend the festival
most years with my family, and although I haven’t been for the past two years,
I remember enjoying the day by wandering through Southbank and usually stopping
to have a nice lunch at one of the restaurants. However, I have never really
contemplated the significance of such a festival occurring within Brisbane as a
symbol of cross-cultural interaction, which as was mentioned in the lecture,
although we are a “multi-cultural” society, can be quite lacking.
When
you attend the festival you can see it is clearly popular with both Buddhist
and non-Buddhist locals and tourists. This weekend will be the 17th
anniversary of the festival in Southbank, which is a testament to its
popularity (Buddhas Light International Association, 2013). It is wonderful to see this cross-cultural interaction, but it does
highlight that this type of thing is actually quite a rarity in our society. I
wonder if festivals to celebrate other religions or cultures would receive such
a warm reception? Hopefully, they would, but the fact that there aren’t really
any other popular ones seems to suggest they wouldn’t.
Next
time I attend the Buddha Birthday Festival, I will view it as more than just a
nice day out and will probably enjoy it all the more because of this.
References:
Buddhas Light International Association, "The Festival", 2013 Buddha Birthday Festival (2013) http://2013.buddhabirthdayfestival.com.au/festival
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