Cultural stumble

[mbarker]

That was kind of interesting. Last evening we had dinner with a Japanese postdoc who works fairly hard on his English. While we were talking, he admitted to being puzzled about the difference between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Mitsuko (my wife) and I took a moment or two to catch on, and then double-checked. Sure enough, he thought they were the same holiday. And he was fairly sure that other Japanese also thought they were the same.

So I explained what I know of the origins -- All Halloweds (the celebration of unknown saints), then the mirror celebration of evil on the night before with ghosts and such. Trick or treat. He asked how pumpkins got involved, and I suggested it was the Headless Horseman, and summarized that story. We also pinned down the date -- Oct. 31.

Then we went over Thanksgiving. Pilgrims and Indians, turkeys, corn, etc. A harvest celebration. And the date is the fourth Thursday in November. Aha! He also associated pumpkins with this, and I admitted, pumpkin pie and such are usually part of the feast. But it's mostly a time for eating.

Interesting confusion. Both are in the fall, and both involve corn and pumpkins. From living in America, they are distinctly different. But from a distance, somehow they got merged.

Comments

[dialyn.livejournal.com]

The pumpkin tradition didn't start with the Headless Horseman. The tradition of celebrating Samhain goes back 2,000 years, back to the Celts.

History of Halloween (http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=713&display_order=1&mini_id=1076):

In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o'lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o'lanterns.

What the U.S. has done is adopt a European tradition in Halloween (festival of Samhain) and then created its own holiday in Thanksgiving. One has not much to do with the other, though I can see why it would seem pretty much the same to someone in another country.