Click on the link below to see my video of one of the Fallas buring!
http://youtu.be/6xSWSswS9zQ
Saigon New Year's 2018
Saigon New Year's 2018
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Fallas in Valencia
Click on picture above to see photos.
Have you ever seen 400 000 dollars burned in a town square in less that 15 minutes? How about 400 000 Euros? Well, if your answer is yes, you must have been to the Fallas, one of the main festivals in Valencia. By a once-again generous sponsorship from our Valencian friends Katia, Vicente and Paula, we were hosted to experience the best fiesta in Valencia - the Fallas (faya - that is how you pronounce it). We just returned from this wonderful fiesta a few weeks ago, and I must say the definition of a fiesta or a party has been changed for me forever....
I don't think I have ever seen so much dedication and effort put into building something so wonderful and detailed like a Falla (a statue made of cardboard and special expandable-foam) only to be mounted, later admired for several days and then burned on March 19th at midnight in about 15 minutes....
It all starts the day after the Fallas, after the final Falla has been burned. People cry. I almost cried. These wonderful satirical depictions of politics, sports, mystical characters all took a whole year to build. So after a short, two day long cry, local people seem to recover and start planning the next years Falla. This consists of the following:
- money, lots of it. The winning Fallas are truly magnificent pieces of art. This Year's first place winning Falla was about 30 meters tall and some 100 meters in circumference.
- sponsors, typically a big and successful local company, that coordinates this project for the year. Normally, the 1st place and 2nd place winners end up winning again, as they keep competing year after year and have largest funds. But there are others that sometimes succeed, especially as crisis introduced some new dynamics...
- then for one year there are Falla artists that work on the concept and start working on the pieces of the overall statue that gets put together before the March 19 next year.
- to make the whole system work, each Falla has its own "society" that has members who pay hundreds of euros to be part of the project, which includes organizing, fundraising, building, partying, etc. Remember, it is a year long project!
- each Falla society elects a girl and a woman to be their Fallera minor and Fallera mayor (main faiera and young faiera) who will officially represent the 2 Fallas each society will build: one for children and one as the main feature.
- Falleras, the girls or women representing the Falla typically come from families with means, as the participation and year long events require a lot of funds: dresses that can cost 6k euros, gold jewelry, family sponsored events and parties, list goes on and on. It has been told that people take out special loans for these events. You can really feel the pride of the people once you take part in this amazing event.
A little intermission: the history of this fiesta goes back to middle ages, where merchants burned their unneeded pieces of scrap in celebration of the equinox and spring cleaning. Later, the celebration evolved, helped by the church, to coincide with st. Joseph the saint. Over the last century the celebrations have become more elaborate and with introduction of polystyrene, the building of massive Fallas has become possible and has become a mass tourist attraction.
In the 18 days preceding the Fallas' main event, the Crema (the burning of the Fallas), on a daily basis there is a mass display of fireworks in the city government square. The display is called Mascleta, and the purpose is to make it as loud as possible. The first one we experienced was from a street beside the main square, as we could not get to square due to the crowds... The sound was so loud, that the ending salvo we could feel in our hair...
During the last days preceding the main event, we witnessed the offrenda, which is the flower offering to the Virgin of the town, who awaits patiently in the main square, as thousands of Falla societies, represented with amazingly dressed Falleras and society members, march for hours through the city to offer flowers to the virgin. The flowers in 24 hours build up an amazing coat of the virgin, which is a glorious site... There are children, youth, mothers and older people all participating in the offrenda march.... There are 365 Fallas participating, multiplied by hundreds of people in each society... So you can do the numbers...
During the last days, there are fireworks in the evening which we went to watch, mascletas every day and, of course, lots of food and wine everywhere, which is a must in any Spanish fiesta.
One night we got back to our home base at our friends at 5 am and the next night at 3 am. We walked so much that at any point sitting for 10 minutes was a real gift.
Main square Mascleta: on the Monday of the Crema we went to the Government square early. About an hour ahead of the main event we were able to grab some tapas at a nearby restaurant, a cerveza and have a short break before the earth shattering event. Then we took our spots and prepared to shock our eardrums. To be honest, after my first behind the corner experience of Mascleta I brought earplugs. I was really worried.... But Katia was having fun and kinda calling me a chicken (tourist) so after looking around and not seeing anyone with earplugs I decided to brave it. Of course, it could have been that everyone was also a tourist.... The show started. It was loud. VERY LOUD. I felt it everywhere. I must say it is something that you must feel once in your lifetime. Or get a friend to throw a flash bang grenade at you at home.... Probably a bit cheaper too.... AWESOME EXPERIENCE!
On the night of the Crema, the burning of the Fallas, we went downtown, checked out the 2 competing light districts, that compete for the best display of lights, and then headed for one of the Fallas to be burned. This Falla I fell in love with. Not sure why, but the faces of these clown statues were kind of sad yet very fitting for the occasion. At about midnight, assisted by about a dozen firefighters, the Falla was prepared for the main event. It started with a bunch of very loud fireworks and then the statue caught on fire... The flames grew and got larger and larger until the heat was unbearable and I thought my camera was going to melt.... We all had to back up to avoid being scorched...
15 minutes later it was over and we headed to the main city square to witness another Mascleta and then the burning of the Falla put on by the city government, which was as impressive as the number one winner this year...
A side note: the city Falla is represented by Fallera mayor and Fallera minor (these are the Queens of the 365 other Falleras), both of which get elected every year and come from families with major connections and money. They act as main MCs of the event and give order to the chief pyrotechnic to start the burning of the main Falla, which is the last one to burn in Valencia, at about 1:30 in the morning.
If you read to the end of this blog you are as tired as we were at the end of the 3 days. Cathy and the kids left mid day Sunday after we visited a great Valenciano zoo with giraffes and elephants, so I stayed to the end of the fiesta. It was an amazing time.
Have you ever seen 400 000 dollars burned in a town square in less that 15 minutes? How about 400 000 Euros? Well, if your answer is yes, you must have been to the Fallas, one of the main festivals in Valencia. By a once-again generous sponsorship from our Valencian friends Katia, Vicente and Paula, we were hosted to experience the best fiesta in Valencia - the Fallas (faya - that is how you pronounce it). We just returned from this wonderful fiesta a few weeks ago, and I must say the definition of a fiesta or a party has been changed for me forever....
I don't think I have ever seen so much dedication and effort put into building something so wonderful and detailed like a Falla (a statue made of cardboard and special expandable-foam) only to be mounted, later admired for several days and then burned on March 19th at midnight in about 15 minutes....
It all starts the day after the Fallas, after the final Falla has been burned. People cry. I almost cried. These wonderful satirical depictions of politics, sports, mystical characters all took a whole year to build. So after a short, two day long cry, local people seem to recover and start planning the next years Falla. This consists of the following:
- money, lots of it. The winning Fallas are truly magnificent pieces of art. This Year's first place winning Falla was about 30 meters tall and some 100 meters in circumference.
- sponsors, typically a big and successful local company, that coordinates this project for the year. Normally, the 1st place and 2nd place winners end up winning again, as they keep competing year after year and have largest funds. But there are others that sometimes succeed, especially as crisis introduced some new dynamics...
- then for one year there are Falla artists that work on the concept and start working on the pieces of the overall statue that gets put together before the March 19 next year.
- to make the whole system work, each Falla has its own "society" that has members who pay hundreds of euros to be part of the project, which includes organizing, fundraising, building, partying, etc. Remember, it is a year long project!
- each Falla society elects a girl and a woman to be their Fallera minor and Fallera mayor (main faiera and young faiera) who will officially represent the 2 Fallas each society will build: one for children and one as the main feature.
- Falleras, the girls or women representing the Falla typically come from families with means, as the participation and year long events require a lot of funds: dresses that can cost 6k euros, gold jewelry, family sponsored events and parties, list goes on and on. It has been told that people take out special loans for these events. You can really feel the pride of the people once you take part in this amazing event.
A little intermission: the history of this fiesta goes back to middle ages, where merchants burned their unneeded pieces of scrap in celebration of the equinox and spring cleaning. Later, the celebration evolved, helped by the church, to coincide with st. Joseph the saint. Over the last century the celebrations have become more elaborate and with introduction of polystyrene, the building of massive Fallas has become possible and has become a mass tourist attraction.
In the 18 days preceding the Fallas' main event, the Crema (the burning of the Fallas), on a daily basis there is a mass display of fireworks in the city government square. The display is called Mascleta, and the purpose is to make it as loud as possible. The first one we experienced was from a street beside the main square, as we could not get to square due to the crowds... The sound was so loud, that the ending salvo we could feel in our hair...
During the last days preceding the main event, we witnessed the offrenda, which is the flower offering to the Virgin of the town, who awaits patiently in the main square, as thousands of Falla societies, represented with amazingly dressed Falleras and society members, march for hours through the city to offer flowers to the virgin. The flowers in 24 hours build up an amazing coat of the virgin, which is a glorious site... There are children, youth, mothers and older people all participating in the offrenda march.... There are 365 Fallas participating, multiplied by hundreds of people in each society... So you can do the numbers...
During the last days, there are fireworks in the evening which we went to watch, mascletas every day and, of course, lots of food and wine everywhere, which is a must in any Spanish fiesta.
One night we got back to our home base at our friends at 5 am and the next night at 3 am. We walked so much that at any point sitting for 10 minutes was a real gift.
Main square Mascleta: on the Monday of the Crema we went to the Government square early. About an hour ahead of the main event we were able to grab some tapas at a nearby restaurant, a cerveza and have a short break before the earth shattering event. Then we took our spots and prepared to shock our eardrums. To be honest, after my first behind the corner experience of Mascleta I brought earplugs. I was really worried.... But Katia was having fun and kinda calling me a chicken (tourist) so after looking around and not seeing anyone with earplugs I decided to brave it. Of course, it could have been that everyone was also a tourist.... The show started. It was loud. VERY LOUD. I felt it everywhere. I must say it is something that you must feel once in your lifetime. Or get a friend to throw a flash bang grenade at you at home.... Probably a bit cheaper too.... AWESOME EXPERIENCE!
On the night of the Crema, the burning of the Fallas, we went downtown, checked out the 2 competing light districts, that compete for the best display of lights, and then headed for one of the Fallas to be burned. This Falla I fell in love with. Not sure why, but the faces of these clown statues were kind of sad yet very fitting for the occasion. At about midnight, assisted by about a dozen firefighters, the Falla was prepared for the main event. It started with a bunch of very loud fireworks and then the statue caught on fire... The flames grew and got larger and larger until the heat was unbearable and I thought my camera was going to melt.... We all had to back up to avoid being scorched...
15 minutes later it was over and we headed to the main city square to witness another Mascleta and then the burning of the Falla put on by the city government, which was as impressive as the number one winner this year...
A side note: the city Falla is represented by Fallera mayor and Fallera minor (these are the Queens of the 365 other Falleras), both of which get elected every year and come from families with major connections and money. They act as main MCs of the event and give order to the chief pyrotechnic to start the burning of the main Falla, which is the last one to burn in Valencia, at about 1:30 in the morning.
If you read to the end of this blog you are as tired as we were at the end of the 3 days. Cathy and the kids left mid day Sunday after we visited a great Valenciano zoo with giraffes and elephants, so I stayed to the end of the fiesta. It was an amazing time.
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