| I have a wonderful experience in the Philippines, since I arrived here. I'm so happy to experienced Masskara festival in Bacold. It was a great oppotunity to experienced Philippine culture. The origin of the festival that teacher told me before I went to the festival were different from my expectation. The start of the Masskara festival was when the city of Bacolod in 1980 was in crisis, sugar subsituties such as high frucose corn syrup are introduced in the United states, and sugar cane grows mainly, as sugar prices all city of Bacolod is in financial difficulty to make matters worse. On april 22 of the same year, many of the residents of Negroponte, including inportant people in Bacolod city clan, and died because the ship sinked, which killed too people. Then, Masskara festival stared with the intention to overcome the crisis by shaking off grief and encouraged each other's morale. This festival has now became one of the most well known festival in the Phiippines. The symbol of the festival is a smiling mask, because Bacolod residents always smile, theirs why Bacolod is the "City of smile". During the festival, I saw Filipino faces on the streets, and also their smiles and laugher and colorful costumes, followed by a Masskara beauty contest. Various special events was held including carnival, drum and trumpet contests, food festival, sporting events, music concert. This experience will not be forgotten when I go back to Korea. |
