St. Tib's Day

Ok maybe I should have waited to start this till after the 29^th of February…

I am sure that you can understand that it is a little difficult to actually get a holiday for a day that only happens once every four years, but I was able to find one religion (granted many people see this particular religion as a parody but anyway), Discordian recognize this as St. Tib’s Day.  Unfortunately I was unable to find anything about why this day is so recognized but will continue to look so as to be ready next leap year.

There seems to be some hints that, in years past, during leap year or just on leap day a women was able to ask for a mans hand in marriage.

Sorry for this particular entry, I just did not think this through very well.

Links:

Wikipedia 29th of February http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_29

Peace Memorial Day

Not all holidays are celebrations, some are days of remembrance.  Such is the subjects of today’s post.

Since 1995 when former President Lee Teng-hui formally apologized for the government, Taiwan has recognized the 28^th of February as Peace Memorial Day, this is to commemorate the “228 Incident”. 

The “228 Incident” is a reference to the 2^nd month 28^th day, when an uprising came to a head.  For 50 years it was forbidden to speak of the incident or the people who died/went missing during this time.  Because of the deep seated taboo of speaking about the incident many people who are descendents of those victims did not and to this day do not know anything about their relatives involvement in this.  Peace Memorial Day is a day to remember all those people. 

  

I am not intending to pick sides or lay blame or praise for what has been done by any government, but I do respect the ideal of remembering innocents lives that have been lost and that a government has at least admitted that innocent people where caught up in such a terrible tragedy.

Links:

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Memorial_Day

From the Taiwan govermnet web site http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/festival_c/228_e/228_e.htm

Maslenitsa

What better way then to start with a carnival type holiday, one that had been banned for nearly 85 years.

From my quick research February 27^th is the first day of Maslenitsa…

Which is a Russian holiday that has both pagan and Christian lineage.  As all religious holidays, it was forbidden during the Communist reign but has been making a come back since 2002.

This is a time to celebrate both the ending of winter for one tradition and the last chance to indulge before Lent in the other.  Both of these lead to enjoying ones self.  There seems to be a lot of emphasis on blini, a Russian pancake.  Being golden and round, it represents the sun and from some of the sources looks like the name could derive from butter, a staple of the pancake toppings.

There seems to be a number of different things to do during this time other than eating just blini, masquerades, snowball fights, sleigh rids and even fist fighting.  All of these in good fun of course.  In addition a lot of attention is placed on young couples or the lack of young being a couple, with logs draped around the necks of singe men and women and newly weds having to kiss in public.

I did find reference to this also being a sort of Halloween as well with things done to appease the spirits of those who have passed, even inviting them to dinner if only in a ceremonial way.

 The end of the festival is referred to as The Day of Forgiveness or Forgiveness Sunday.  This is the time when you ask to be forgiven by all those around you and of God.  Also the end is marked by the burning of a straw effigy of Maslenitsa and/or the tossing of a young girl dressed as Maslenitsa into the snow, this also marks the beginning of Lent.Some of the links I found

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslenitsa

http://www.maslenitsa.com/english/

http://goeasteurope.about.com/od/russia/a/maslenitsa.htm

Why I am writting this Blog

I have had this idea spinning around in my head for some time now and have finally decided to do something about this.

It is my belief that with all the nations and cultures around the world that there must be at least one holiday celebrated every day of the year.  I would like to spotlight at least one of these every day.  We may not have the same beliefs or reasons to celebrate but we all have some reason and I hope that you can find some common ground to share with others from around the world.

I also believe that if we can find this common ground then we might just be able to understand one another better and perhaps get along just a little bit better.  I do not believe I will stop any wars or cause any group to put aside their differences with another but maybe one person will try to see that we have may things in common and what better way then what we feel is worthy of a holiday.

 I will also be starting a podcast soon, once a week to start with, but hope to be able to do it daily if I can get it going well.  I am think of doing about five minutes, just to give a taste and maybe prompt people to find out more on their own.

I would love to hear any feedback as this is my first real blog and soon to be first podcast, as well as any suggestions for content.

 Jeffrey