They Know How to Party

And you were complaining the holidays just aren't the same anymore. Were they ever? Really? Did Norman Rockwell’s America ever exist? Never mind, that’s another story. This one is about how normal our quiet little celebrations really are. Comparatively speaking, of course. Festivals from around the world will make you wonder why you ever complained that your neighbor uses purple Christmas lights.

Batalla de la Rata Muerta: The Dead Rat Party

I have often thought that the teaching of children that life is happily-ever-after and “yes that’s a wonderful finger painting of a brown blob, dear” may be wrong. Life isn’t like that, right? There are pitfalls, road bumps, and rats. Brown blobs aren’t always made of chocolate.

If you don’t want your kids to have to learn the hard way, then maybe Batalla de la Rata Meurta is the way to go.

This is an annual festival with piñatas. Only half the piñatas don’t have candy. They have a dead rat. Make of it what you will, that’s a life lesson right there.

This is technically the Festival of Saint Pedro Nolasco. But the Dead Rat Party is way more hipster. The rules of the party are that if the piñata in question is of the rat variety and not the mm yummy sweet goodness variety (never the twain should meet cuz everyone knows rats hate sugar), then the “winner” of the rat piñata celebrates by throwing the dead rat at someone. This leads to a sort of dead-rat hot-potato game. Fun for all.

Las Bolas de Feugo: Fire Ball Party

In El Salvador they remember their saint saving them from the demons of an erupting volcano by throwing balls of fire at the demons. (I read once that an eye witness to a plane crash stated that the pilot pulled a can of carb heat out of the glove compartment and sprayed it on the engine. Memory is a funny thing.)

To celebrate, the residents of Nejapa, the town saved by Saint Jeronimo, throw flaming kerosene-soaked rags at each other. Wahoo. They do wear water-soaked gloves. Safety first! And you thought dodge ball was too intense. Wussies.

Bous a la Mar: Sea Bulls

Here’s a little-known fact: Bulls are fairly chill. Sure if they think you are tryin’ to get at their cow they go a lil testosteroney on you. Or if you’re poking things into them. Or… yeah OK there are several ways to piss off a bull.

Anyway, angry bulls can generally be avoided by staying out of the corral. Simple.

Unless you’re at Bous a la Mar. At this party, fun is had by all when you get the bull to chase you… into the sea. It’s kind of like running of the bulls, only the bulls aren’t all that keen on jumping into the water. They only make the big leap into the waves if you make them angry enough. As the bull gets increasingly irritated, he gets less intelligent (like the rest of us) and eventually chases one of his tormentors right into the sea.

I suggest this process would go more quickly if the guys wore thongs. They irritate me instantly.

Lantern Festival: Sounds Nice

Lanterns. In China that means those pretty paper things with candles in them, right?

Usually. But a good festival also has fireworks, unless your village is too poor to afford fireworks. In that case, just throw molten iron at a cold wall. It’s cool. Try it. (No don’t try it.)

Anyway, while in the rest of China fireworks are the order of the day, in Nuanquan this festival starts with the collection of old things made of iron each year, to be melted down for wall throwing. I suppose a cynical person might think that the local blacksmith invented this party as a way of keeping iron circulating since a cast iron pot has a nasty habit of lasting more or less forever. Those Nuanquan guys always had to be different.

Once the iron is melted and the night is dark and the wall is cold, the fun-loving iron smith dons a sheepskin coat and hat (I’m just going to go ahead and assume that these are fire-retardant) and throws ladles full of the molten metal at the wall. The iron shatters into thousands of flaming slivers that bounce back off the wall in beautiful patterns.

As expert molten-iron thrower Wang Fu so eloquently put it, “So long as you’re not afraid to die, it’s OK.”

Festival of Colors: I Can Take It

See all the pretty colors? You very well might if you participate in the festival of colors in India and Nepal. This spring festival celebrates the arrival of spring by painting everything in lovely spring colors. Buildings, people, the ground, but mostly people. Purple-pink-yellow-red-orange people. Fun! (Saw it once after a plate of really spicy Indian food, but that doesn’t count because it wasn’t March and I was asleep.)

In the awake Indian and Nepalese version, people throw these colors all over each other, resulting in a human color explosion that both Mother Nature and the Haight-Castro can envy. I get impatient for spring flowers, too. I’d have to hope they stain and that people show up in bikinis for weeks of interesting tan-line fun. But that’s probably just me.

While the traditional recipe for this festival calls for dyes made of natural herbs [and spices (an American cannot say “herbs” without saying “and spices”)], the reality of the world is that the dyes sometimes include oxidized metals, industrial dyes (Remember when they got rid of that dye in rat poison because it caused cancer?), acids, and other not-natural nor herb nor spice things. Some of these can cause blindness, illness, and irritate the skin.

Nothing says spring like a colorful rash.

Entroido: Fire, Dirt and Ants

If there were an award for randomness in festivals, this would be the winner. Like most spring festivals, it involves people going a little crazy. We approve of that. But pick a theme!

The festival of Entroido is celebrated in Galicia as an extended version of Carnival. Those crazy Gauls.

• Peliqueiros: The festival begins with the donning of these costumes, which include a very large hat adorned with a strange picture, a scary mask, a whip, ruffled pants and cowbells.
•  Fire and Dirt: Because this bit is so fun, it’s repeated a few times. On Fridays (Who doesn’t go a little crazy after work on Friday?) leading up to Lent, people run through the streets carrying burning hay torches. Other people throw dirt from their second-story windows. Yeah, I got nothin’. You make sense of it.
• Feast Day: The Saturday before Ash Wednesday, it’s a feast! Dancing, singing, and eating lots of grilled meat are the order of the day. (Can one come to just one day of this festival?)
• S&M: The following day, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the peliqueiros line the streets and whip passersby. All in fun, of course. *wink* Afterwards, more fun is had by all when the peliqueiros go from house to house and eat up people’s food. It’s like trick or treat if the trick or treaters had whips.
• Farrapada: The fun-loving Galicians are not done yet! Monday’s party (while the rest of the world is putting the final sequins on their Carnival outfits) is a street fight. The weapons of choice are flour, ash, and balls of dirt filled with biting ants. It’s important to first douse the ants in vinegar. This infuriates them and makes them more bitey. The afternoon sees the entrance of the morena, a guy with a mask holding a cow’s head on a stick, dressed in a tarp. He lifts women’s skirts and tries to scare people. Add in more food and party-type things just for good measure.
• But Wait There’s More: I’m exhausted, but the Galician’s aren’t done yet. There’s still Tuesday before Ash Wednesday dawns and has everyone behaving for a month and a bit. Tuesday evening is celebrated with a satirical distribution of the (imaginary) parts of a donkey. That’s slightly less random than it sounds. The donkey parts are “distributed” in verse that makes reference to events at the previous year’s festival. (Apparently by someone who can remember the previous year’s festival.) If someone lost something, they might get the donkey’s eyes to keep better track of things. Again, no donkey is harmed in the verse-making.

And that concludes the Entroida.                                               

                                       

Whew. I need the length of that festival to rest up after writing about it.

Now don’t you feel normal?