I know that most of us like celebrate our usual holidays such as Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the first day of football season. I’ve come to realize that other countries have similar and different holidays they love to celebrate in very different ways. One of my favorites has to be something they have in Germany called Vatertag or Father’s Day which is a federal holiday. Not only do Germans make great beer but they know how to make a dad happy.
Vatertag is always celebrated on the Thursday. 40 days after Easter. Unlike the Father’s Days I’ve experienced where people give a gift and card accompanied with a hug and nice comments Germany does things a bit different. It seems they give their fathers exactly what many dads would want on their day of recognition, sanctioned binge drinking. On Vatertag guys fill something called a Bollerwagen (imagine a little red wagon with wheels) with an enormous amount of booze. They then pull the booze filled wagon through the woods drinking until the wagon is empty and then go home. My guess is that this symbolizes the brain cells dads have destroyed just from having kids.
In South Korea they have a very well developed appreciation for mud. For a full week in July 1.2 million tourists travel to Boryeong, South Korea for the annual mud festival. I would suggest that germaphobes avoid such a party. During this event people can participate in things such as mud skiing and mud soccer. For those who love to fill their house with tourist-type junk there is also mud oriented arts & crafts. As a kid I didn’t need an event like this to celebrate mud. For some reason my mother never felt like celebrating when I came home covered in the stuff.
Here we have water parks and water guns usually used by children. In Thailand they have something called the Songkran Festival. This is part of the Thai New Year’s celebration and involves anyone daring to go into the street being open game to get doused with water. Buckets of water, hoses and water balloon barrages are not uncommon. Sounds like the ultimate in a water fight experience. I would like to celebrate this during the summer months. If this we tried this on New Years where I live it would turn into the ultimate ice fighting experience.
I used to think that the 4th of July was the perfect day for the pyromaniac in us all. I was wrong. The Greeks have a celebration that would send most pyromaniacs into a state of nirvana. Rouketopolemos is a celebration that combines religion and rockets. At midnight before Easter Sunday the congregations of Panagia Erthiani and Agios Markos churches line up facing each other armed with rockets made of wooden sticks loaded with an explosive mixture containing gunpowder. During the night these home made rockets are launched from a platform tilted up and angled toward the opposing church. The goal is to hit the other church’s bell tower with more rockets than yours gets hit. Now that easily beats any Easter egg hunts I’ve ever been on.
“What should we do for a fund raiser?”
“There’s the outreach spaghetti dinner.”
“No.”
“How about we hold a bake sale?”
“Boring.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Let’s challenge the church down the road to an exploding rocket battle.”
“Could we hold it on Ground Hog day?”
“Sure.”
In Spain they have an annual tradition that has been celebrated since 1620 and consists of jumping over babies. In the Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia it is done to mark the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi. A guy playing a drum is surrounded by some very well-dressed solemn looking men. They all walk through the street to the beat of the drum. In front of them is a rather nimble person dressed in bright colors who represents the devil. As they process through the street the devil guy chases the children who laugh and run. At the end of the procession there are babies laid out on mattresses in the middle of the street. The devil guy then jumps over the mystified babies who all feel they could use their bottle. If it was my kid on a mattress I would also need my bottle just to watch such a thing.
Now when it comes to celebrations Russia has one that could become quite popular over time. It seems the national birthrate is on a dramatic decline in that country. Not one to provide an environment where people want to have children the government has gotten involved. The Governor of Ulyanovsk in Russia has declared September 12 to be the Day of Conception. It a day where citizen are to spend time with their significant other using their biological equipment to produce more Russian citizens. September 12 is perfect because it is nine months before Russia Day, which is designed to be a day of national Russian pride. Women who give birth that day are given prizes including cash, appliances and once someone even got a car. I bet if Russia ever had Mexico on their southern boarder their population problems would be over within a few months.
I think all these celebrations prove people are so desperate to escape their day-to-day routine they’ll do just about anything. I think I’ll start my own holiday and call it JMK Day. It’s a day where people will give me money and I say thank you. The reason is for people to experience the extreme joy associated with giving someone money and changing their life. I just hope the IRS doesn’t find out about it. Unfortunately they have their own holiday celebrated every April 15th.
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