Festival of the East 2014: reflections on the Roman edition



The Festival of the Orient has just ended in the Capital, held at the new Fiera di Roma . The event, the official website reads, aims to raise awareness and spread oriental culture in its multifaceted expressions.

As many as three stages allowed to attend the succession of shows and two enormous pavilions hosted restaurants, stands, stalls and demonstrations. Two rooms have been dedicated to numerous workshops and seminars always concerning these themes: from Chinese medicine to sound yoga, from ayurveda to philosophy .

Festival of the East: logistical questions

The first thing that strikes one about this great event is its aspirations, that is, the desire to embrace in an extremely wide gaze an "east" understood as exotic, more than itself rather than as a geographical category.

This assumption has allowed (but I cannot say if legitimized) the presence of stands on American Indians as well as, precisely because of the biblical premise of inclusion, being able to fill this appointment with a very high quantity of "material" in terms of seminars, shows and stalls representing many countries.

In my opinion, the strategic management of such an imposing event was partly incomplete: the pavilions, also because of the influx of the Roman public, resembled chaotic bazaars where the stands were crammed next to each other without apparent logical order.

A meter from the chaos worthy of the noisiest Arab markets there were some visitors who "hoped" (?) To relax with this or that type of oriental massage ; at the same time, in the same meters, shows and dances alternated not far from the very crowded ethnic restaurants .

This set of elements made the visit very dizzying, the shopping difficult, the assistance to the shows exhausting (if you had succeeded in seeing them) and the tasting of the uncomfortable and hasty kitchen.

Festival of the East: consumerism vs culture

To the organizational inadequacy, which I could understand given the proportions and the turnout of the public, I must add a more substantial disappointment born, perhaps, from my expectations regarding this event.

The perception that I had was that of a walk in an exotic shopping center even of the highest quality. If some stall presented valuable objects, many were nothing more than collections of junk of dubious taste.

Of oriental CULTURE honestly I have seen very little of it except for some valid artists who came on stage and seminars and some interesting workshops; others, in my opinion, out of place (what do chemtrails and geo-engineering have to do with the festival of the East or "reading the soul" or angels and archangels?).

For this reason, if we consider this event as a great ethnic market, as an opportunity for schools and centers to advertise themselves, as a chance to witness unusual and captivating shows, then it can be said to be successful.

But if someone has ventured to the Festival of the Orient with the aim of deepening his knowledge of the other half of the world, with the hope of finding unusual texts to read or to savor those magical atmospheres that have seduced Europeans of all epochs, in my opinion, was disappointed. In fact, an image of the East has emerged (a term that would incorporate the portion of the world between Morocco and Japan ...) the result of western iconography, adhering to a very precise imaginary - real or not - it is very flashy, but little depth.

Know the "other"

Today we are used to living in a globalized world where geographical distances are extremely reduced by technology and even cultures can move easily to become a shared heritage.

This process, however, is anything but linear and the road that joins two peoples is generally tortuous. It is very natural to refer to the "stranger" of the stereotypes built by us, the fruit of OUR education and the result of OUR tradition.

They are sometimes picturesque or naive, sometimes very dangerous, but they both represent the idea we have of the "other". The present is not a particularly fruitful historical moment from this point of view because it is marked by social and political mechanisms that tend to close, rather than open the doors (and not only, banally, the borders, but a general willingness to welcome, also cultural).

The Festival of the East has certainly been an excellent opportunity to remind the general public of the existence of a part of the world rich in culture, charm and magic . Perhaps we still have to grind off some clichés a bit stale, but the task is not easy.

We are confident in the next edition!

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