THE CULTURAL
APPPRECIATION
PROJECT
Let’s make this easy.
There are SIX general types
of topics to share:
A SONG, A DANCE, FOOD,
A HOLIDAY, A LANGUAGE OR…
ANYTHING GOES
1. A SONG
In this clip we meet our friend Jordan who is singing a few bars of pasillo on an Ecuadorian rooftop. Jordan does sing sweetly, but for the sake of this project we don't care about the quality of a performance! We do welcome the obvious love Jordan has for Ecuadorian music. When you choose a song, default to one "in the public domain" so YouTube's copyright-seeking algorithm won't ping us. Otherwise, literally any bit of any song goes.
2. A DANCE
In this video we see an otherwise mild-mannered family whooping it up in grandma and grandpa's living room, dancing an Eastern European/Jewish dance. If you've ever been to a Jewish bar/bat mitzvah or wedding, you've dance the hora...and you probably even helped lift the bat mitzvah girl up on chair as part of the celebration. These family members, a mixture of Krugs and Sands, are of course superb dancers, but for our project, don't worry about your moves! Dance any way you want! Just dance, like the Krugs and Sands, with obvious joy and pride in the dance you've chosen to share.
3. FOOD!
In this video we meet Angi from Venezuela, who is showing us how she loves to make arepas. Of course there is a food from your ancestry that you love. SHARE IT! You don't need to make a whole big cooking show, or even video yourself with food in-process in the kitchen. You can just point to the yummy stuff on a plate, or even just talk about how much you enjoy it. The point? FOOD IS LOVE. And we love food. Tell us all about it.
4. A HOLIDAY
IIn this video we learn about Loy Krathong, one of our favorite holidays in Thailand. In the clip, our friends Alessa and Anyada are celebrating at their local temple ("wat") and were gracious enough to let us in on the fun. For your video, the holiday you're sharing doesn't have to be happening at that moment, and you don't have to dress in any which way! If you want to just tell us about a beloved tradition, that's great. If you want to show us -- either with photos or a video clip form the actual event, or by acting it out in whatever way -- we welcome that too.
5. A LANGUAGE
IIn this video our friend Qes from Israel, a spiritual leader in the Beta Israel (Ethiopian) Jewish community, teaches us how to greet someone in the Ethiopian language, Amharic. Do you speak a language that connects you with your ancetry? That's great...let us know! You don't have to be a native speaker or anywhere near fluent. Just share any words or phrases from that language that show your pride in your culture. We'll love it, guaranteed.
6. ANYTHING GOES
We want you to make the Cultural Appreciation Project your own. So there is something that connects you with anything at all that you consider "your culture" -- be it old or new, from a distant land or something you have just started to do -- SHARE IT! There are infinite examples, and, truly, you can make a case for sharing any element of culture you want. Like in this video our friend Yvonne from Germany teaches us a number of ways to headbang to German heavy metal music. Is headbanging a song? a dance? a food or holiday or language...? Well it may be all of those things, if you do it right, but it also doesn't have to be any of them. Yvonne's "culture" is metal and she was kind enough to share it with us. We now know how to bang our heads.