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Nikhar
12-30-2012, 12:31 PM
I like meeting people of different countries, regions, religions etc and know more about their cultures, their kind of lives and stuff. I'd be really glad if you could tell us something about your country in this thread. One thing per day. It could be anything, a certain festival, the way you celebrate it, is there a holiday today in your country for something or even something that you might think to be banal for your countrymen but might be interesting to others.

I'll begin...

I'm from India. We celebrate a festival called 'Diwali' every year. We call it the festival of lights. But I'm not going to talk about Diwali but the day after it. We celebrate what we call 'Dhog Padhwa' on this day. This, I have gathered after meeting people from various regions, is something that is probably unique to our city so I hope other Indians would also find something new and interesting in it.

On this day, we go to all our relatives' and friends' places in the city, touch the feet of the elders ('dhog') and seek their blessings. If you are of the younger generation, it's a great day to get you wallet heavier by a few ounces as the elders often also give the younger ones some money along with the blessings :D. And no, I'm not saying what is it that I seek for more when I touch their feet. :P Delicious sweets are exchanged amongst families, often transitively transferred from one family to another.

When I was younger, all us kids (me and my friends) would gather together, go to each one's house, take blessings from each one's parents and their other relatives and eat some delicious snacks and refreshments that would be kept in each house. Later on in the evening, we would either go to the theater to watch a movie or play cricket.

Ah...those were fun days. :)

Delta40
12-30-2012, 06:53 PM
We have Sorry Day which I'm hoping will be marked as a public holiday. It's where we commemorate the mistreatment of Indigenous people and remember the The Stolen Generation, where Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families under the White Australia Policy to effectively breed out Indigenous People's. Although we have only had this day since 1998, Kevin Rudd was the first Prime Minister in 2008 to actually stand up and deliver a public apology speech (go Kev!) On that day, people everywhere embraced Indigenous people and just said 'sorry mate'. I think this day is as important as Australia Day and goes miles toward reconciling the people of our nation and that's why it deserves the rank of national public holiday.

OrphanPip
12-31-2012, 04:34 AM
The weather ****ing sucks.

JBI
01-01-2013, 01:16 AM
The weather ****ing sucks.

Too many Wasps too, they like to sting everyone. That basically marks the root of our problems, I would imagine.

qimissung
01-01-2013, 02:32 AM
Meh, the United States. Well, this summer I lived through an outbreak of West Nile Virus. It can kill you, so I feel brave and strong for having survived. :D