So much in Asia depends on the calendar. In February in Beijing, more than 20 million people all set off fireworks to celebrate Chinese New Year. In Nagaland in India, tribes from all over the region meet to compete, dance, and celebrate. In Thailand, spectators look on as celebrants perform bizarre rituals at the Nine Emperor Gods Festival.
With an intimate and unique knowledge of Asian culture, Remote Lands knows the importance of experiencing culture the right way. Whether you want an up-close view of the Sing-Sing festival in the Asaro Valley of Papua New Guinea or a quiet walk through the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, Remote Lands can give travelers the best possible experience on their celebrations throughout Asia.
This month-long celebration begins on June 29th and includes the Kasadyaan Festival. It’s a celebration of the baby Jesus and includes traditional body painting and tattooing in the style of the pintado warriors. There is a colorful grand parade with tattooed performers demonstrating tribal dancing in the center of Tacloban city.
This popular week-long festival is a celebration of the culture, heritage and nature of the city of Davao. The people give thanks for their lives and the blessings of the city with joyful parades of floats decorated with flowers. They dress in authentic ethnic costumes, play traditional instruments and hold street dancing competitions.
Our Lady of Penafrancia is a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and every year, devotees visit Naga city for nine days of festivities to honor her. They attend mass and enjoy street processions, feasts and fireworks. On the ninth day, the people line the banks of the river to see the statue sail past on a barge in a huge fluvial procession.
Lanzones are small tropical fruits on which the inhabitants of the Camiguin Islands rely for their livelihoods. Every year, the people celebrate the harvest with a colorful festival in which the fruit and its leaves are used to decorate everyone and everything. There are cultural displays and markets of food and crafts.
Masskara, which means ‘many faces,’ is a vibrant two-day festival taking place over the third weekend of October in Bacolod. People from all over travel to the city to take part in games, watch the beauty pageant and the popular masked tribal street dance competition, while enjoying the music, food and festivities.
This annual festival takes place in Angono to celebrate San Clemente, the Patron Saint of fishermen. Wearing fishermen’s clothes, men parade through the streets with huge papier mache puppets. The ‘Higantes’ are placed in floats upon reaching Laguna Bay and set adrift. Finally, the image of San Clemente is returned to the church.
To celebrate the start of the Christmas period, thousands of visitors flock to San Fernando to see this spectacular festival. Each barrio spends a year designing and making enormous colorful plastic lanterns arranged in beautiful, intricate patterns and lit with high-tech, computerized lights, competing for the top spot in the lights competition.
This seven-day festival is held to honor the baby Jesus in Kalibo, Alkan. Catholics attend mass and religious processions take place in the streets accompanied by traditional music and dancing. The final day, the third Sunday in January, sees a torchlit parade and a masquerade ball where the most colorful tribe wins prizes.
Visitors flock to Iloilo City for this celebratory day held in honor of the child Jesus and of the arrival of Malay settlers on Panay. There are parades of flotillas on the water and a carnival in the street where the locals dress in colorful costumes and perform energetic street dances to music and drumming.
The Black Nazarene is a life-sized statue of Christ carrying the cross. On January 9th, Catholics flock to Manila to see it carried by barefoot men around the city to depict the stations of the cross. The people line the street to watch the procession and hope for the chance to touch the statue, believed to be miraculous.
