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Today in the U.S. we celebrating Thanksgiving. I know our foreign buddies don't have the same holidays as us. What do you all celebrate that we do not?? And what is the meaning of the Holiday?
Holidays observed in the US that may not be observed in other countries
1) Thanksgiving
2) July 4th
3) Halloween (not an official holiday)
4) Labor Day
5) Memorial Day
others?
Columbus Day
Martin Luther King Day
Presidents Day
I wonder how Thanksgiving Day went for the guys overseas. I'll bet they got some turkey today.
Some of my other American friends and I had a fine Thanksgiving Dinner here at a restaurant run by an Englishman. We had turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, and a bunch more...but alas no pumpkin pie!
Here are some of the Chinese holidays:
1) Mid-Autumn Festival - This is the Chinese harvest festival held in October. They eat moon cakes of all varieties. They're like little cupcakes filled with anything from fruit or meat to lotus seed or bean paste. Chinese families gather together at night to gaze at the moon.
2) Dragonboat Festival - This festival honors an ancient poet named Qu Yuan who eventually drowned himself in the river when his state was finally defeated by the Qin dynasty. The story goes that the people of his village tried to rescue him, but when they failed, they decided to throw little rice balls into the water so that the fish would feed on the rice rather than eating the body. Now people celebrate by going out on the river in dragonboats and eating rice balls in memory of the event.
3) The Chinese New Year - This is the biggest holiday of the year here. The schools let out for about a month in January and February. The festivities run from the first day of the first month in the Chinese calendar through the fifteenth, the day of the Lantern Festival.
I was in the UK last year, and they had Guy Fawkes Day. This is sort of the equivalent of our Fourth of July celebration, except their holiday commemorates a failed rebellion. This was the holiday in the movie "V for Vendetta." Basically, this fellow named Guy Fawkes was a disgruntled soldier who resented the restrictions the king was placing on Catholics, so he was persuaded to join the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parlaiment. Someone tipped off the authorities before it could go down, though, and Fawkes was captured alone in the cellar where they had the gunpowder. The interesting thing is that according to many of my English schoolmates in college, the evidence suggests that in fact the whole thing was a government setup. Fawkes and his comrades were likely encouraged to form a plot and aided by government agents so that the government could capture them and have an excuse to crackdown on the Catholics some more. So now they commemorate Fawkes' capture and subsequent burning at the stake by setting off fireworks and burning Guy Fawkes dolls in effigy. Sometimes the Guy Fawkes dolls are dressed up to look like the original Fawkes, but they often bear a striking resemblance to other public figures like Tony Blair, George Bush, or the Pope.
Interesting holidays. Thanks for sharing GoldenFleece
I like the Chinese New Year. They have a nice celebration in Chinatown in Washinton DC every year. It can be interesting to examine the Chinese Horoscopes also.
it is cool to read things about other countries. Sometimes I forget that there are so many different cultures and beliefs here at the Clan. I wish more of our Clansman would take the time to tell us about there part of the world.
THANKS GF!!!
We have Victoria Day in Canada...I don't really pay much attention to Canadain holidays cause I'm not Canadian, I'm assuming it has something to do with Queen Victoria.
My wife is Korean and they too celebrate Thanksgiving, it's just not at the same time as the U.S. I think it is about a month earlier than ours.
Also, New Years day is really big to them. My understanding is that all Koreans celebrate their birthdays on that day, which is of course different again than the U.S.