About
For my cultural experience, I chose to attend the Atlanta
Persian Festival, which was held on April 1, 2018, from 11am-7pm at Piedmont
Park in Atlanta, GA. I attended the festival from noon to 4pm with my
husband.
Why the Atlanta
Persian Festival?
When trying to determine what
activity I should do for my cultural experience, I had a difficult time
choosing an activity that I felt would be appropriate. I was
primarily concerned that the activity I chose would not require a stranger to
“perform” his or her culture for me. I did not want to inconvenience
anyone by making them into subject of my curiosity. For example, I
had considered attending a variety of religious services at institutions in the
Asheville area. However, the thought of attending a service, say at
the Greek Orthodox Church or at the synagogue, and taking notes the entire time
(or worse, taking pictures) struck me as disrespectful. The next
step of actually stopping someone after the service and interrupting their day
to ask questions seemed rude. I realize now that perhaps I was
overthinking things a bit. As I mentioned in the first assignment
for this diversity class, I was raised not to cause trouble, so I am constantly
worried about how I can do the things I need to do without bothering
others. For this assignment, I was looking for something that would
be as minimally invasive as possible.
After some thought, I settled on
the idea of a cultural festival. I reasoned that the point of a
cultural festival is to share one’s culture with an outside
group. Here there would surely be people who would be happy to
answer my questions and share ideas and information with me. I
thought that a festival would be a way for me to observe and ask questions
without being too intrusive or feeling as though I was asking too much of the
members of a particular community. So I searched online for
festivals happening in the spring and settled on the Atlanta Persian
Festival. I knew almost nothing about Persia except for what I could
recall learning in my high school world history class about the Persian Empire,
and thought that this would be the prefect opportunity to learn something
new.
I also chose to attend a festival because I knew the
activity would push me beyond my comfort zone. As an introvert, I do
not enjoy being in loud, crowded places, and it is very challenging for me to
talk to strangers. Attending the festival would force me to do all
of these things, and it was indeed a challenge. I managed to take
only a few poor-quality photos because I was so worried that people would be
upset if they saw me taking a picture of them. I so nervous to talk
to the men and women working at the festival that it took me a very long time
to work up the courage to fight through the crowds to approach them and ask the
questions I had. But in the end, I knew that the only way for me to
fully understand and participate in the festival was to ask questions and to
sit with my discomfort, and I am better for the experience.