CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN
Most Japanese are fairly ignorant about Christmas, just as most North Americans are fairly ignorant about the Japanese New Year holiday. (Our first Christmas we bought a small evergreen arrangement for a tiny "Christmas tree" only to find out later it was a traditional Japanese religious decoration for the New Year!)
But there is a certain kind of Christmas here in Japan. Let me describe it a little.
At the end of November merchandising heralds the onset (onslaught?) of the season. Santa's show up in some advertising and Christmas carols can be heard in stores. (In English!) Also advertisements appear for special Christmas eve and Christmas day hotel & restaurant dinners and shows, generally with a strong romance theme. More and more Christmas lights are going up each year (probably a thousand per cent increase in the seven years we've been here) on stores and at malls, though I've seen few if any on private homes.
Christmas trees (artificial --- there is no live Christmas tree market) however, have begun to appear in the occasional home, and can be bought in big department stores. Santa does not yet appear in person, only as an advertising foil. And the airwaves are not clogged with TV specials.
There are two special Japanese Christmas customs:
First, the Daiku, or Great Nine, which refers to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This is traditionally performed in many places at Christmas time (though probably as much in conjuction with the New Year), sometimes with huge massed choruses for the famous part with what American Christians sing as a hymn --- Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.
www.cvc.org
Friday, December 29, 2006
CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN
In Spain it is to very festive Time AT Christmas. On Christmas Eve, ace the stars eats out, tiny oil lamps plows lit in every house, and to after Midnight Mass and Christmas Dinner, streets fill with dancers and onlookers. There is to special Christmas dances called the Jota and the words and music have been handed down for hundreds of years. They dances to the sound of guitars and castanets. Children think of the Three Wise Man ace the gift bearers. Tradition there are it that they arrive on January 6th, the dates the Wise Men gave gifts to Jesus. Shoes plows filled with straw or for barley the tired camels that must carry to their riders through the busy night. By morning the camel food is gone and in pleases of the straw or barley plows presents. Shoes also may be you please on balconies on the night of the 6th January in the hope that the Wise Men will fill them with gifts. Most homes have to manger, like cathedrals and churches. These plows completes with carved you appear
www.santas.net
In Spain it is to very festive Time AT Christmas. On Christmas Eve, ace the stars eats out, tiny oil lamps plows lit in every house, and to after Midnight Mass and Christmas Dinner, streets fill with dancers and onlookers. There is to special Christmas dances called the Jota and the words and music have been handed down for hundreds of years. They dances to the sound of guitars and castanets. Children think of the Three Wise Man ace the gift bearers. Tradition there are it that they arrive on January 6th, the dates the Wise Men gave gifts to Jesus. Shoes plows filled with straw or for barley the tired camels that must carry to their riders through the busy night. By morning the camel food is gone and in pleases of the straw or barley plows presents. Shoes also may be you please on balconies on the night of the 6th January in the hope that the Wise Men will fill them with gifts. Most homes have to manger, like cathedrals and churches. These plows completes with carved you appear
www.santas.net
DRACULA
Due to some novels and film versions of Drácula, much people think that Stoker based its personage on an historical figure: Vlad Draculea, known like the Empalador (Sods), and in legend of vampires that circulated in Eastern Europe. Sods lived in century XV and were prince of Valaquia, that formed with Moldavia the kingdom of Rumania. He is a hero in his earth, by the ferocious resistance that opposed the advance of the Ottomans. Nevertheless, he was extremely cruel with his enemies, to whom it condemned the capital punishment of empalamiento. There is no indication, however, that it drank blood, like the vampires, nor never some with the vampirismo was associated to him of form. The Drácula name comes from Dracul (of the Latin "draco", dragoon), with which was known its father, who integrated the Order of the Dragoon, founded by Sacred Roman Emperor Segismundo of Luxembourg. The suffix "- to" it means "son of".
Thursday, December 14, 2006
BUSH VITS ESTONIA
Riga, 27 nov (Xinhua) -- the American president, George W. Bush, arrived the
night from Monday at the airport Ulemiste de Tallin for his visit at Estonia. Bush is the first president in functions that the Baltic Sea visits this country. The brief stay in Estonia is considered as a sample of the gratefulness of the United States by the firm support of this country in the fight against the terrorism. Bush will entrevistará Tuesday with the president estonio, Toomas Ilves, and with prime minister, Andrus Ansip. The American president will in the evening go Tuesday to Riga, after finishing the visit to Estonia, and he will be entrevistará with the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike Freiberga. Bush will at night participate Tuesday in the summit of NATO, where it will maintain conversations with leaders of other countries of the military alliance composed of 26 members.
Riga, 27 nov (Xinhua) -- the American president, George W. Bush, arrived the
night from Monday at the airport Ulemiste de Tallin for his visit at Estonia. Bush is the first president in functions that the Baltic Sea visits this country. The brief stay in Estonia is considered as a sample of the gratefulness of the United States by the firm support of this country in the fight against the terrorism. Bush will entrevistará Tuesday with the president estonio, Toomas Ilves, and with prime minister, Andrus Ansip. The American president will in the evening go Tuesday to Riga, after finishing the visit to Estonia, and he will be entrevistará with the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike Freiberga. Bush will at night participate Tuesday in the summit of NATO, where it will maintain conversations with leaders of other countries of the military alliance composed of 26 members.
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