Holidays, Real and Created
Here I need to clarify: I realize how the headline contradicts itself, being that all holidays were created per se, strictly speaking. Maybe some are just more real than others.
One of the perks of working overseas is that you receive both your own and the local holidays. Okay, so it doesn't nearly match the time off any of the Euros get, but it still helps to have a three day weekend now and then.
There are quite a few holidays we have in common, most notably the Christian holidays, like Christmas or Good Friday. Then there are holidays we expats could care less about, like the Andean-Amazonic New Year in June or Agrarian Reform Day in August.
There are other days that are celebrated, although we might not necessarily get any time off for them, like the Fiesta del Gran Poder. This is the festival that has grown into an international celebration. Parades and processions with the dark figure of the Christ, music and costumed (usually scantily clad) dancers honoring cultural and ethnic backgrounds. People eat and drink until they resemble parade floats themselves, and foreigners need to watch themselves, as public drunkenness and pick pocketing become quite common.
Then there are holidays that – while partially observed - have been invented, plain and simple. Take Halloween, for example. Only the upper crust of Bolivian society can afford to buy costumes and spring for candy for hundreds of trick or treaters. And just who would benefit from holidays like Halloween? Down the road, the dentists, no doubt. The most obvious candidates would be the factories making candy and the stores selling them. Okay, so November 2nd, All Saints Day, is a holiday, albeit one that does not compare to Halloween.
When I was living in Nepal, there was an ongoing campaign to make Christmas a national holiday in India and surrounding countries like Bangladesh or even Nepal. Never mind that Christmas itself has little in common with the Hindi faith and that Christ's birth might actually rank lower to these people than the birth of a snake – here it's the thought that counts. That, and the possibility of the windfall of billions of dollars for selected merchants when the season starts. It's a clumsy concept, to say the least, and one that is better not rammed down the throats of the populace who can't spring for dozens of Christmas presents.
Here the idea is already being floated of celebrating Thanksgiving. Not a bad idea, except that I wouldn't expect people to dole out a week's pay just to afford a turkey. American football would have a better chance selling itself in Antarctica to the penguins, I'm sure. During the Aed in Arabic countries people are supposed to buy a sheep (often with money they don't have) for each household in order to slaughter it and watch its blood bless the grounds of the house. Though it is commendable that people would observe their holidays to a 't', it will often –literally – come at great expense to their pocketbooks.
Whether new holidays should be added or not is not for me to say. The additional financial burden on people might suggest that this isn't such a good idea.
One of the perks of working overseas is that you receive both your own and the local holidays. Okay, so it doesn't nearly match the time off any of the Euros get, but it still helps to have a three day weekend now and then.
There are quite a few holidays we have in common, most notably the Christian holidays, like Christmas or Good Friday. Then there are holidays we expats could care less about, like the Andean-Amazonic New Year in June or Agrarian Reform Day in August.
There are other days that are celebrated, although we might not necessarily get any time off for them, like the Fiesta del Gran Poder. This is the festival that has grown into an international celebration. Parades and processions with the dark figure of the Christ, music and costumed (usually scantily clad) dancers honoring cultural and ethnic backgrounds. People eat and drink until they resemble parade floats themselves, and foreigners need to watch themselves, as public drunkenness and pick pocketing become quite common.
Then there are holidays that – while partially observed - have been invented, plain and simple. Take Halloween, for example. Only the upper crust of Bolivian society can afford to buy costumes and spring for candy for hundreds of trick or treaters. And just who would benefit from holidays like Halloween? Down the road, the dentists, no doubt. The most obvious candidates would be the factories making candy and the stores selling them. Okay, so November 2nd, All Saints Day, is a holiday, albeit one that does not compare to Halloween.
When I was living in Nepal, there was an ongoing campaign to make Christmas a national holiday in India and surrounding countries like Bangladesh or even Nepal. Never mind that Christmas itself has little in common with the Hindi faith and that Christ's birth might actually rank lower to these people than the birth of a snake – here it's the thought that counts. That, and the possibility of the windfall of billions of dollars for selected merchants when the season starts. It's a clumsy concept, to say the least, and one that is better not rammed down the throats of the populace who can't spring for dozens of Christmas presents.
Here the idea is already being floated of celebrating Thanksgiving. Not a bad idea, except that I wouldn't expect people to dole out a week's pay just to afford a turkey. American football would have a better chance selling itself in Antarctica to the penguins, I'm sure. During the Aed in Arabic countries people are supposed to buy a sheep (often with money they don't have) for each household in order to slaughter it and watch its blood bless the grounds of the house. Though it is commendable that people would observe their holidays to a 't', it will often –literally – come at great expense to their pocketbooks.
Whether new holidays should be added or not is not for me to say. The additional financial burden on people might suggest that this isn't such a good idea.
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