Columbus Day

I accidently found on my calendar that today is Columbus Day. The US has so many holidays that it's very easy to miss a few every year. And yes this is my first time to notice the Columbus Day, in memory of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the America in 1492. Columbus actually arrived on Oct 12, but Columbus Day is set at the second Monday in October, and its date varies by years. Native Americans may not want to thank him for his "discovery", but all the immigrants here should be grateful to him - for bringing a  virgin land to civilization, a rich land to modernization, and a big land for residence. Some states have parades to celebrate the Columbus Day but some don't even acknowledge it. Anyway I checked on internet but didn't find any typical food for this holiday, and obviously neither companies nor schools allow their employees or students to take a day off. So the conclusion is: it's not a popular holiday in the US.

Many holidays in the US sound very young: the Veteran's Day, Martin Luther King's Day, Memorial Day, etc. But they do remind people of milestones in the American history and respectable people in the country. So are holidays in China, though they are now a weird mixture of nostalgic traditional holidays, imported Western festivals and Communist ones. Interestingly, Chinese people tend to memorize and celebrate holidays with profound historical implications rather than the modern ones. For example, we are willing to travel thousands of miles to get back to our families during Spring Festival in spite of the expensive tickets, terribly crowded carriages and poor public security; or staying in the long line in grocery stores to buy Zongzi (a Chinese rice dumpling) for Duanwu and mooncake for Zhongqiu. We say "happy holidays" to each other on these days, and call family members even they are not around. When I was a kid, I enjoyed getting together in my big family, meeting cousins that I hadn't seen for a long time and competed with them on reciting poetry related to the holiday. By contrast, very few people take modern holidays, like National Day or Labor Day seriously. The government does hold ceremonies to celebrate modern ones like the Army's Day or Party's Day, but ordinary people seldom feel culturally connected to them. We travel in National Day holidays because we're given a 7-day vacation for it, but we celebrate traditional ones because they are true holidays. In recent days, young generation start to embrace Western holidays in China more than ever before. Valentine's Day and Christmas are the two most popular ones. Actually it's funny to think of their popularity in China, an atheistic country. But they're never listed as official holidays, but more like means to stimulate consumption and encourage businesses.

My connection to these Chinese traditional holidays was more or less cut off as we relocated to the US. I still celebrate the Spring Festival, Zhongqiu and other important Chinese holidays with Gang and Chinese fellows here, but it's so different from celebrating them in China, where everyone else is doing the same thing as we do. Meanwhile to me, the US holidays are only vacations when we can take days off and plan another road trip, but can hardly evoke my empathy. I guess it's easy to give up old knowledge and accept some universal values, but difficult to abandon culture and tradition.