Day of the Dead

The Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead is celebrated from midnight on October 31 until November 2.

On November 1 (All Saints Day), deceased children are celebrated (called angelitos); on November 2, (All Souls Day) deceased adults are celebrated. In order to make the holiday appear “more Christian", Day of the Dead combines both days and all deceased family members are celebrated. The idea is that the spirits return on this one day of the year to be together with their families. Festivities take place in cities and villages throughout Mexico, though each location may have different customs and ways of honoring their dead. Many years ago, relatives used to be buried close to families or sometimes, in a tomb, located under the family home.

After cleaning the house and setting up an altar in one’s home, offrendas or offerings are displayed on the altar and offered to the ancestors. It is believed that the deceased relatives consume the food by its essence or aroma.

By far, the most popular offering is the sugar skull. These skulls are made into a sugar mixture and then pressed into a skull shape, dried and iced with icing. Although they are edible, most sugar skulls are used for decoration only. Sugar skull art is very popular in Mexico. The name of the celebrated deceased is written on the sugar skull and then placed on the altar.

Pan de muertos (bread of the dead) is also placed on the altar as an offrenda. It is a sweet, soft bread often decorated with pieces of dough shaped likes bones. These bones represent the dead loved ones and there is also a tear-shaped piece of dough baked on the bread. The bread is often flavored with anise seeds or orange flower water.

 

Marigolds are in bloom in Mexico at this time of year and are also placed on the altar.

Although at first glance Halloween and Day of the Dead seem similar and both are rooted from early cultural beliefs about death and Christianity, unlike Halloween, the Day of the Dead celebrants don’t view the spirits as malevolent; they welcome and celebrate them.

Day of the Dead is not at all scary. It is joyous, loud and especially colorful! I am an avid collector of sugar skulls and Day of the Dead crosses. They are so bright-looking and joyful. I even hang sugar skulls ornaments on my Christmas tree! The pictures in this blog are all things that I own.

 ¡Feliz Día de los Muertos!

Halloween, Asian-style

Halloween, Asian-style

Halloween, my absolute favorite day of the year, is one of the world’s oldest holidays and dates back to pagan times. Trick-or-treating actually originated in Ireland.

In Western countries, Halloween is often observed by pumpkin patching, trick-or-treating and dressing up as scary alter-egos on October 31. It is a time when we eat pumpkin-flavored everything. In Eastern countries, spirits are acknowledged and commemorated but not in the same way as in the West. Halloween has a more whimsical feel to it in the United States.

In Asia, the equivalent of Halloween is not celebrated on October 31 and is usually spent honoring the spirits of the lost and deceased ancestors.

Japan

The equivalent of Halloween would be the Obon Festival (お盆), celebrated in July/August. Lights are lit so the spirits will be able to find their families and memorial stones are cleaned, as the Japanese believe their ancestors will return to their birthplaces. Fruit and vegetables are laid upon a butsudan (Buddhist altar) as an offering. Obon is one of the most important Japanese traditions. Bon odori, a type of folk dance, is also widely practiced during Obon.

China

The Hungry Ghost Festival (中元节 ) is held during the 7th lunar month. During this festival, it is believed that the gates of hell or the underworld open and ghosts are allowed to roam the Earth, looking for food. The Chinese take this festival very seriously. During the festival, they offer prayers and paper money to their deceased ancestors. They all honor the hungry ghosts (in order to bring luck and keep safety within their families) with a feast. Wayang, or Chinese opera is usually held outside and is very loud, as to attract the hungry ghosts and appease them.

It is considered unlucky to get married, travel or move during the Festival time. Hell money (fake paper money) is burned and offered to the deceased ancestors as well as paper cars and houses. The Chinese feel this will help their ancestors become more comfortable in the afterlife.

Korea

South Korea’s Halloween-esque celebration is called Chuseok and is celebrated in September or October.  Families pay respect to their ancestors by visiting their graves and offering fruit, rice and other foods. This holiday also resembles the American Thanksgiving in some respects. New harvests are offered to local deities and ancestors, so Chuseok may originate from ancient shamanistic moon celebrations.

The real difference between these celebrations in the West and in the East, is that Halloween is considered a light-hearted, fun holiday; whereas the festivals held in Asia seem to have a much more serious tone. We also celebrate spirits/ghosts but more as a form of entertainment.

Oh and one more difference. Candy. There is no other holiday where you can dress up as whom or whatever you choose and knock on a stranger's door and receive free treats!

Life is too short...

So…

-         eat popcorn in a movie theater, regardless of the carbs;

-         wake up every day with a smile regardless of your circumstances;

-         always maintain who you are in every relationship and don’t “chameleonize” yourself, looking to fit in;

-         don’t keep saying that you want to do that “someday”;

-         don’t stay with the wrong person too long because you are afraid to be alone/lonely;

-         paint your room bright orange;

-         always have a piece of birthday cake at a birthday party, regardless of the calories;

-         limit your time with that person who is negative and drains you;

-         go to a movie alone if you want to see a movie; don’t wait for someone to “do things with”;

-         enjoy every moment with your children because one day you will miss all these moments;

-         if you like something, wear it. Who cares if no one else wears it? Be BOLD;

-         don't tolerate behavior from your spouse that you wouldn’t even tolerate from a stranger;

-         take that dream vacation;

-         learn the musical instrument or language that you've always wanted to learn;

-         go whitewater rafting;

-         climb a mountain;

-         leave a job that no longer suits you even when comfortable;

-         let that difficult person’s comments/opinions roll off your back;

-         limit your alcohol intake;

-         give up smoking;

-         limit your caffeine intake;

-         never debate your feelings about something or explain yourself-you don't have to;

-         ask that person out that you have the secret crush on without any attachment to the outcome;

-         go to Disney World;

-         use the good china for pizza;

-         enjoy ice cream occasionally without guilt;

-         limit the time spent with joyless people;

-         try to do one kind thing each day;

-         exercise daily;

-         laugh often;

-         forgive;

-         LIVE!

Robyn's Top Ten List of Horror Films

Halloween. My favorite day of the year. What I love most of all is that all the cable channels continuously show hidden horror gems that you can’t find any other time of the year.

I went to see my first horror film when I was 7 years old. Ever since that day, I was hooked. When I catch my 11 yr. old son watching “Paranormal Witness” marathons, I think to myself, he was born with the scary movie gene.

I also collected horror comics for years until I sold them all on eBay about 10 years ago. My favorites were “Unexpected”, “The Vault of Horror”, “Tales from the Crypt", “The Haunt of Fear” and “The Witching Hour”. I can honestly say that I read them over and over again from about ages 9-17. Absolutely loved them. They just don’t make them like they used to! “Tales from the Crypt” comics were also made into an HBO series in the 80’s but they were neither good nor scary. The original comics and film of the same name are very different.

I don’t consider slasher films to be horror films. Horror films, to me, deal with the supernatural and sometimes what you can't see is scarier than what you can see. I am also a huge 1970's horror fan. The best horror films came out of the 70’s, in my opinion.

Here are my 10 favorite horror films of all time (from least to most favorite).

10) The Vault of Horror-(1973) This anthology film was based on the comic book of the same name and contains five different stories. My favorite? The guy who is constantly warned to stay inside after dark because “they come out” who ends up in a restaurant for vampires. After he tries the three course meal and realizes they all involve blood, the other patrons turn him upside down, put a spigot in his neck and start drinking!

9) Tales from the Crypt-(1972) This is also an anthology film (containing several stories) and also based on the comic book of the same name. My favorite? When a murderous, youngish Joan Collins is chased by a homicidal Santa on Christmas Eve.

8) Horror Hotel-(1960) This film stayed in my head for years. I didn’t know the name of it and I had seen it on TV on a Sunday afternoon when I was a child. When I was about 30, I found it somewhere on DVD and realized this was THE movie. On the recommendation of her professor,a young female student travels to the Whitewood, MA to do some research into witchcraft. She finds the town occupied by the reincarnation of an infamous witch burned at the stake in the 17th century; in order to sustain her immortality, virgins must be sacrificed and this year, the student has been the chosen victim.Christopher Lee stars!

7) Insidious (2010)-This is the only new film that really held my attention the way films in the 1970s had. It contains some really scary images. The story centers on a couple whose son inexplicably enters a coma and becomes a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension. I thought this story would bore me but there are so many visually scary scenes; I absolutely loved it. There is a whole sub-story with the father also going through something similar when he was a child. And there is a creepy dwarf.

And again, the end scene? Crazy-good.

6) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)- A recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again. Truthfully, she isn’t losing her sanity. A very pale, strange redheaded woman shows up one day and it later turns out is a vampire who is living on the townspeople. All of the men in town have these strange bandages on their necks, arms, etc. Extremely creepy movie. The scene at the end where the redhead emerges from the water in a full 1800's wedding dress is crazy-good.

 

5) Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)- A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own. Not the remake with Katie Holmes; no! The original TV movie that was on when I was a child and terrified me. Really hard to find and very, very good!

4) Trilogy of Terror (1975)-This is a Karen Black (I loved her when I was a child) anthology movie that I think everyone in my age group remembers. It was also a TV movie. All three stories were chilling but the scariest one is the one with the Zuni Fetish doll that comes to life and chases her around the apartment with a knife. The end scene? That crazy smile, those long teeth? Nightmares for months!

3) The Sentinel (1977)-The benign description on the back of the DVD goes something like this, “Not ready for marriage, a fashion model moves into an unbelievably nice Brooklyn Heights apartment, where scary occurrences turn into a much more frightening turn of events.” However, it is so much more than that. A creepy, evil Ava Gardner. Burgess Meredith, whom I loved so so much as a kid. Basically, this woman moves in an inexpensive Brooklyn apartment that just also happens to be the gateway to hell. 

 

2) The Stepford Wives/Rosemary’s Baby(1975/1968)-Both based on novels written by Ira Levin and both are tied for the number 2 spot in my horror film heart! The common thread in both of these is a husband’s sacrifice of their wife for their own benefit. Who can forget the quiet paranoia of Joanna in the small town of Stepford? And all the wives who stopped wearing jeans and magically wore dresses and whose boobs increased by 2 sizes seemingly overnight? And Rosemary’s Baby? I love this movie. I can actually recite whole bits of dialogue. Sad, tragic, scary, evil and so very entertaining.

I love that you never see the baby. Imagining it is so much worse!

And the winner is:

1)Burnt Offerings (1976)-BEST.HORROR.FILM.EVER! It is about a family who moves into a summer home that rejuvenates itself with each injury and death that occurs inside of it. It is the most unique, imaginative film/book I have ever read. Vastly underrated. I re-watch it every October. Scenes of a tall, gaunt chaffeur still haunt me. And the end scene? Completely, chillingly unexpected (the first time you see it, of course) and nightmare fodder for years. Karen Black was one scary woman back in the day!

Living again after emotional loss (Plan B)

I spent the first 25 years of my life planning. What I will wear tomorrow. When I will have my next child. Where my next job will be. How much money I will make. Where I will go to college. Where I will go to graduate school. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was thought about and brought in through sheer willpower, determination and hard work.

One late autumn day, several years ago, a hole in the ceiling of my beautiful home opened and let a cold wind in. All my plans, hopes, and dreams as I knew them flew out that hole as I watched helpless, for the first time in my life. I was very, very scared.

My soulmate/the love of my life/my best friend/my partner of 15 years/my husband of 10 years/the person I loved and trusted most in this world "let me know" that he had been having an affair for years.

Betrayal isn’t as clean and cut and dried as it appears on Lifetime movies and chick flicks. You don’t cry for a weekend, eat ice cream and then met a new fabulous guy that same weekend. It hurts. It really hurts. It is extremely hard to put in words and a kind of pain that I have never felt before. It’s not a void easily filled by another person, nor should it be. When you love and trust deeply and you discover that every intimate thought, feeling, touch, discussion you’ve shared with your husband was shared with another woman, it's unthinkable. Devastating.

As unconventional and liberated as I am, I was a completely loyal wife. Never looked at another man, never thought about another man because the tall, smart, funny, handsome man I had at home was the man for me. No one else compared. I spent all of the years with him up until the point of full disclosure happy and very much in love. Was it perfect? No. Was it worth fighting for? Yes. I will not say I was miserable the whole time or I married the wrong man. None of that holds true for me. That is what people tend to think from the outside when a marriage fails.

I remember thinking...How could this happen to me? I was loyal, loving, hardworking, energetic and in many ways, his cheerleader. I had waited until I was 31 to get married after living with him for five years and had sown all of my wild oats (every single one, believe me and some of them two and three times). I had done everything right. Really, how could this happen to me? I didn’t PLAN for this. I plan for everything and I had no backup plan. I felt lost.

Within a month, he was gone and I was left with my two very confused children and a very expensive home.

What jolted me finally was my son standing over me saying, “Mommy, can you please stop crying TOMORROW?” It was as if he was giving me one more day to have a pity party but he fully expected me to pull myself together and he was giving me until the next day.

This is when Plan B kicked in. When the sadness and depression wane, the old joy started creeping in.

 I:

-dug up all my books on Buddhism and spirituality from their special box in the basement and started reading them again

-surrounded myself with joyful pictures of the children everywhere

-painted the interior of the house the happiest, boldest colors (we are talking tangerine, bright yellow, red)

-got back into therapy

-joined the gym

-thought about how I contributed to the demise of the relationship

-ensured my children constantly that we would be OK

-realized that this was not the worse thing that could happen to a person; death of a child, sickness, etc were much worse

I DID NOT:

-throw myself into the first available man

-stop being who I am

-behave in inappropriate ways

-go out and leave my kids with a babysitter while I tried to recapture my lost youth

After a while, I was happy again. There were many things tried since that time (he moved back into the house, he left again, he moved back in, marriage counseling, etc).There are flashbacks from this time that still haunt me and there are times I think I will never love that way again nor do I want to, but then there are times when I know I can love more and will again. When I am ready. I still believe in love.

Since I am almost out of the woods emotionally, studying Chinese, preparing to go back to graduate school next year, happily working, taking all kinds of spiritual classes, walking daily, hiking and just LIVING, I thought it was time to write this blog entry. Perhaps it will help someone else who is afraid to tell their truth or speak about their sadness. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. It has taken me a long time to get to this point.

Would I do it all again? Absolutely. Everything you go through creates who you become. This was all supposed to happen, I believe and my gorgeous, smart, funny, engaged, joyful, loving children were supposed to be born and I was meant to be their mother. I could not have done that without their father. God bless my Griffin Ty and my Pyper Roan.

A few special thank yous:

-to the friend who called me from China even though it was crazy-expensive to ensure I was okay
-to the friend who came right by my side and slept in my bed next to me for support
-to the friend who sent me books on how to cope from Amazon
-to the friend who banged on my door when I wouldn't answer, brought me coffee and dragged me to the gym
-to the friend who brought me a Valentine on Valentine's Day because "everyone should have a Valentine"
-and most of all, to my mother, my angel, I could not have made it through this without you.

So what do you do when your life as you knew it is over and all your dreams are gone?

It's simple; you dream new dreams and you life happily ever after.

快乐黄金周! (Happy Golden Week!)

 

After 17 years in the localization industry, I have often heard translators in Japan and China say that they will be closed for Golden Week. Working in the localization industry and dealing with people all around the globe, all day, every day, I should be keeping track of when these holidays occur so I can schedule accordingly.

This week, I am having difficulty getting my Chinese translations completed on a timely basis because it is Golden Week in China.

So, what is Golden Week, you ask? Let's focus on Chinese Golden Week.

According to my research and by "my research", I mean "googling", Golden Week is the name given to two annual 7-day national holidays, implemented in 2000 in China. Three days of paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are rearranged so that Chinese workers always have seven continuous days of holiday. These national holidays were first started by the government for the PRC's National Day in 1999 and are primarily intended to help expand the domestic tourism market and improve the national standard of living, as well as allowing people to make long-distance family visits. The Golden Weeks are consequently periods of greatly heightened travel activity.

Chinese National Day, know colloquially as ‘Shíyī’ – (which means 10-1 since it falls on the first of October) celebrates the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 10/1/49.  This day kicks off Golden Week in October in China.

On that day, Mao Zedong stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) waving a red flag and announced the new Republic to a million fanatical followers, broadcasting a message of victory after decades of war.

Shíyī is officially marked with parades, political rallies and a flag-raising ceremony on Tiananmen Square which attracts approximately 250,000 people. Individuals, families and employers might mark the day with displays of lights, posters and fireworks. Red flags sell like crazy.

After many claims of these holidays disrupting the economy and not really promoting internal consumption as was the original plan, in 2008, the Chinese government whittled down the two Golden Weeks (one in January or February and one in early October) to one. The one in October remains. There are now a total of 11 national holidays in China.

Just in case you were wondering, what to do in Beijing during Golden Week (this week)? Here are some of the offerings found:

-Go see the Chinese version of "Mamma Mia”

-See the characters from the popular Chinese cartoon “Xiyangyang” perform live

-Go to a Dutch architecture exhibit

-Hike and raft at the Yesanpo National Park

And last but not least:

-Check out the Guanyuan market (not for the faint of heart, I am told, as there is a variety of animals, including fish, birds, reptiles, scorpions, kittens, puppies and even squirrels on leashes).

Happy Golden Week! Or as the locals say, 快乐黄金周!