Saturday, November 1, 2008
All Saints and All Souls Day
November 1st and 2nd are two of the most important days in the Filipino calendar. Those two days represent a celebration that has close ties to the Catholic Church and the Spanish occupation. The day of November 1st is All Saints Day and November 2nd is All Souls Day. These two days are marked for the remembrance of relatives that have passed on and the celebration of their lives. Many people start the two day holiday on the night of October 31st when they go caroling at night. Many of the carolers that I have seen are people between the ages of 12 and 20 with one guitar player for every ten people. The first order of business on November 1st is to attend mass and pray for your deceased relatives. After Mass people make their way to the cemeteries where their relatives are buried and start by cleaning the area around the tomb. This usually includes weeding and sprucing the area up so family members can place balloons, flowers, and other mementos on the tomb. At some point during the day families take time to pray for the souls of the deceased and pay their respects. After all the hard work the family members eat a picnic style meal in the cemetery which is closer to a feast than a meal. There are usually people playing games, telling stories, and lots of kids around. The atmosphere is anything but somber since this is a celebration of the dead. The feeling is more of July 4th celebration than a funeral procession.
I had a conversation last week with one of my coworkers about holidays in America and their seemed to be many similarities such as Christmas, New Years, an independence day, Thanksgiving is comparable to a Fiesta, but there seemed to be a point of contention about All Saints/All Souls Day, the conversation went something like this:
coworker: so you don't have All Saints Day?
me: no but we have Halloween.
coworker: what's that?
me: well, i guess its a day where little kids dress up in costumes and get free candy by knocking
on strangers doors and saying trick or treat.
coworker: what?? (very confused look)
me: well, kids dress up like ghosts and princesses so they can get free candy.
A long silence
coworker: so if you don't have All Saints Day when do you clean your relatives graves?
me: umm, not sure, I only know a couple people that do that and nobody in my generation seems to do it at all. I can only think of a couple of times when I've even been to a cemetery.
Another long silence (look of shock)
coworker: you are bad people.
me: (chuckle) it's not that we don't care, it's just different that's all, I mean we have funerals and things like that but it's just different.
conversation slowly changes topic
It's funny how many of my conversations seem to end in the phrase ibang iba (it's very different)
A couple of pics from All Saints Day
I had a conversation last week with one of my coworkers about holidays in America and their seemed to be many similarities such as Christmas, New Years, an independence day, Thanksgiving is comparable to a Fiesta, but there seemed to be a point of contention about All Saints/All Souls Day, the conversation went something like this:
coworker: so you don't have All Saints Day?
me: no but we have Halloween.
coworker: what's that?
me: well, i guess its a day where little kids dress up in costumes and get free candy by knocking
on strangers doors and saying trick or treat.
coworker: what?? (very confused look)
me: well, kids dress up like ghosts and princesses so they can get free candy.
A long silence
coworker: so if you don't have All Saints Day when do you clean your relatives graves?
me: umm, not sure, I only know a couple people that do that and nobody in my generation seems to do it at all. I can only think of a couple of times when I've even been to a cemetery.
Another long silence (look of shock)
coworker: you are bad people.
me: (chuckle) it's not that we don't care, it's just different that's all, I mean we have funerals and things like that but it's just different.
conversation slowly changes topic
It's funny how many of my conversations seem to end in the phrase ibang iba (it's very different)
A couple of pics from All Saints Day
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