May 1, 2008
Embarrassing my native country in the eyes of the world.
For in Germany, for some strange reason even long, in-depth research (Wikipedia) could not elucidate, Ascension day is celebrated as Father’s Day, or Men’s Day. In fact, here in heathen Eastern Germany the majority of people would only know it under that designation, I am sure.
As the feast it is called “Christi Himmelfahrt” customs include making a trip to somewhere in the country. Prefarably in non-motorised vehicles with a large transporting capacity - prerequisite for being able to get terribly drunk (for who would carry bottles and bottles of bear through the landscape, or who would be able to drive?). And getting drunk, it appears, is the thing men most want to do at their feast day.
Having the best of fathers who never would do such a thing, I am not personally affected by this custom. Nevertheless I find it somewhat disturbing.
May 1, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Maybe this makes me weird, but I don’t understand what’s weird or embarrassing about it.
May 2, 2008 at 7:37 am
I want one of them “non-motorised vehicles with a large transporting capacity”
May 2, 2008 at 9:38 am
Re James:
Handcarts, cycle trailers and the like.
Re Agellius:
Firstly, men of all ages getting themselves absolutely drunk in large numbers and numbers of people getting hurt in frays exploding for that day would be enough for me to be slightly embarrassed.
Combine this with the fact that here in Eastern Germany you could make a poll in which 95 % of people would be able to tell you that this was Men’s Day, i.e. Getting-yourself-drunk-in-some-open-air-place Day, 60 % (to err on the optimistic side) would maybe add that it was also some kind of Christian holiday, and less than 3 % could tell you what kind of Christian holiday it was.
As my mother once experienced when she tried to find an Easter greeting card for her daughter without bunnies or easter eggs. After long search she found one (only one!) with a painting of the resurrected Christ. When she went to the cashier to pay for it, the young woman looked dazzled on the postcard and asked what on earth this had to do with Easter?
(My mother, non-baptised herself, explained it to her and recommended watching Mel Gibson’s “Passion”, then in the cinemas, to learn more.)
May 2, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Oh dear, Notburga, but I suppose fifty years of atheist communism must have something to do with general ignorance about Easter.
I must say I am impressed that they think to have non-motorized transport, although I am sorry no horses are employed. I had a vision of two large horses drawing a cart full of singing, drunken German men.
Men in Canada and the US would not even imagine a non-motorized conveyance. For drinking holidays (St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Eve) there are cabs and abstemious “designated drivers”.
From what I have read of the mores of contemporary Britain, you don’t need to be embarrassed about the drunken men. As for the exploding frays, the city of Montreal has a riot whenever its hockey team wins a very important game in the Stanley Cup Finals. Personally, I cannot understand why they riot and destroy things when they WIN.
And, of course, there is Saint Patrick’s Day. Almost no-one who goes out to get blind drunk on green beer has any idea that Saint Patrick was actually English. And the drunkenness is entirely urban and brutal. There’s no nice pastoral, day in the country, aspect to it.
Possibly Chrisi Himmelfahrt excursions (and equally drunken vacatons in Portugal) are a necessary escape from cold, formal German working culture.
May 2, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Notburga: Now I think I’m getting a better picture of what goes on, thanks. : )
I think I was imagining me and my few friends spending a day getting back to nature and enjoying a few beers or some good wine.