Children's Day and Cinco De Mayo
Children's Day is celebrated in Japan
Thanks to Ruma,
http://www015uppso-netnejpcalligraphy.blogspot.com/2012/04/childrens-day-may-5with-child-japanese.html
I now know that on May 5th in Japan they celebrate Children's Day. What a wonderful celebration and makes me wonder why we don't celebrate this day. We have Mother's Day , Father's Day... and about everything under the sun to celebrate so why not Childrens Day.
Children are our future and we should embrace our children and take this time to celebrate.
History of Children's Day
On the 5th day of the 5th month in Japan, Children's Day is celebrated. This festival used to be Boy's Day, but is now a holiday to celebrate all children being happy, and to say thank you to their mothers. However, for most people, 5th May is a day to pray for the health and happiness of their sons.
On this day, the sky is crowded with fish-shaped kites and flags called koi nobori. Koi means carp, a kind of fish. They are usually made of white cloth decorated in red or blue. This is because of an old legend about a carp fish that swims upstream and becomes a dragon.
When the wind blows the carp kites and flags it looks as if they are swimming. Outside each house there is one carp flag for each son in the family. The biggest is for the oldest son.
Inside the Inside the houses, there are dolls dressed like soldiers of hundreds of years ago. This is because hundreds of years ago, it was important for boys to grow up to be strong and brave. There is special food to be eaten on this day: different kinds of rice cakes.
The second celebration is Cinco De Mayo.
Cinco De Mayo is the anniversary of the Mexican army’s victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War in 1862, making today the 150th anniversary of the win.
Mexico, like the United States, struggled to find its footing after it won independence. After trying a number of different types of governments, the country divided more or less into two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Conservatives tended to side with the policies of the former European rule, including a number of privileges for the Catholic Church. Among those privileges: exemptions from tax. In contrast, the Liberals weren’t keen on the granting the Catholic Church any special privileges and sought to limit them.
In the mid-19th century, the Liberals rose to power. Part of their agenda included passing a number of “Liberal Reform Laws.” The first of those laws, called the Juárez Law (named after Benito Juárez, the Minister of Justice), was meant to restrict the authority and scope of the Church courts. A second law, the Lerdo Law (named after Miguel Lerdo de Tejada) allowed the government to confiscate Church land and – you guessed it – tax it. Another law, the Iglesias Law (named after José María Iglesias, not Julio), further restricted the clergy.
As you can imagine, as more and more laws were passed restricting the rights of the Church (which was linked closely to the military), the Conservatives became agitated. Eventually, the two factions went to war. The civil war happened at roughly the same time as the one in the United States – a significant matter.
Wars, of course, are expensive. And while most of Europe was happy to stay out of conflicts in the Americas, they weren’t keen on losing money. So when then President Mexican Benito Juárez defaulted on a series of debts in 1861 owed to European countries, they sent the equivalent of armed thugs to make sure they got paid.
Here is a culture that is enriched with passion, color and dance.
I find that we should embrace each others cultures and beliefs instead of opposing them.
Heck it's even Lemonade Day!
