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e_k_braveman
When I saw the bonus prompt, I knew exactly what I wanted to show people. I'm somewhat vague about where I'm from for privacy reasons and I might lock this post some time after the challenge passes for those same reasons, but right now I just want to show you an iconic song from my native country, Bulgaria. It's called, well, White Rose and it's by the folk singer Slavka Kalcheva.
It actually originated from her, not as a folk song passed on for generations, but due to its popularity, it's become a staple of Bulgarian culture. I found a somewhat rough translation here. It's essentially about a young woman going to the public drinking fountain--a significant space in Bulgarian folklore-- and receiving a love confession from a man. She's somewhat apprehensive about it, thus the repeating lyrics about being careful, and says she's going to test him to see if he's being genuine about his feelings. To be clear, she doesn't receive a white rose like in the video, she's wearing it when she goes to the fountain. I'm not fully certain of the symbolism, but from what I can tell online, it's meant to signal a pure and honest love, so presumably the woman in the song is trying to tell the man that's what she wants.
That's all well and good, but I think what's really cemented it in Bulgarian people's minds is the associated circle dance, or horo as it's called here. Circle dances are a big part of traditional Bulgarian culture to the point where you're likely meet at least a few people who go or have gone to circle dancing classes as a hobby. That said, most people don't really know a lot of dances except some basic steps... and the one people associate with White Rose. Now, I won't say everyone know it well since it's pretty complex as demonstrated in this tutorial, I certainly don't, but a lot of people are confident enough in their knowledge of it to join the dance when it pops up. There's a lot of people don't even know which region the horo comes from and, as one Bulgarian article I found claims, might even be wrong if they think they do know it. Speaking of which, I'm not sure how or why people started dancing to it like this, but I digress.
If you're ever in Bulgaria and you hear this song, you're likely to see a long line of people gather to dance to it. Pepole can and will join in even if they weren't part of the group that started dancing or they don't know anyone else in the line. You can see it happening in the video below:
So yeah, as I said, it's integrated itself into Bulgarian culture despite being only 2 decades old. It always makes me think of that counts as culture and if it really needs to exist for X amount of time before it's considered "tradition". Either way, it gives me warm fuzzy feelings to hear the song and watch videos of people dancing to it. Hope it was fun for you to learn about it!
