British Expat Newsletter

2 November 2005

Hello, and welcome to those who have joined up since our last newsletter.

In this issue

This week: A week of celebrations
On the website
Virtual Snacks
Sponsor
Bizarre Searches
Joke and quotation

This week

It's an important week for several of the world's major religions. First, there was Halloween on 31 October. Halloween is, of course is the Celtic (and Pagan) New Year, also known as Samhain. Similarly, this year's Diwali, sometimes also known as Deepawali, began on 1 November. For Hindus this festival of lights is the most important time of the year, when the triumph of good over evil is celebrated. And finally, it will be Eid on the 4th, with Muslims celebrating the end of their Ramadan month of fasting during daylight hours.

All this, of course, makes it a little confusing when the fireworks start flying towards the end of October. Go back thirty years and it would have simply been kids letting off a few freelance fireworks they'd got hold of in advance. When we saw a lot of them being let off on Monday night we initially assumed that that was what was happening. Yesterday, though, there was a big display a few roads away which we can only imagine was to celebrate the first day of Diwali.

No doubt on Friday there will be another big display for Eid - always assuming the moon is sighted. I understand that in Saudi Arabia these days, if the sky's cloudy (which can't happen that often, let's face it) they simply send up some mullahs in an aircraft to confirm that there really is a new moon. That certainly wasn't the case in Bangladesh when we were living there in the mid-nineties. They had a national moon sighting committee sitting ready to receive phone calls from anywhere in the country. This occasionally led to some extra long months during monsoon time...

Most religions have fasts and feast days. The fast is usually intended to focus the mind on devotion and cleansing. The feast often comes in celebration afterwards. This in itself is fine, people can choose to believe what they want and how to celebrate it. What is annoying is how everything has been taken over by such hype and gross-commercialisation. No longer is Christmas about celebrating the birth of Christ, or even the one time a year some families get together for a meal. It is all about buying cards and presents, buying a new settee in time for Christmas... It seems that everything from September onwards revolves around doing things or buying things in time for Christmas. And then when the day itself arrives, what do people do? Open their presents (and chuck half of them into the back of a cupboard, never to be seen again), stuff themselves stupid on turkey for the next two days and drink themselves to sleep in front of the telly. Hardly a meaningful spiritual experience, is it? (Especially as many of the adults will have had plenty of food and drink at the office parties in the run-up to Christmas.)

Halloween is no different from the commercial point view. It's all about pumpkins and fancy dress costumes these days. But at least it can't be argued that the fault for this lies with the Pagans with whom the festival originated - they were marginalised centuries ago with the Christianisation of the British Isles. And BE shuns the witches' hats, pumpkins and trick-or-treating - we've added a few intelligent commentaries on the occasion to the website this week. (Please see below for details.)

Just a brief aside. I'm not a Pagan myself, but I do find it quite shocking how deeply the Christian Church's indoctrination against Paganism all those centuries ago has taken root. The other night they showed "The Wicker Man" on ITV2. The warning message before the film began was that the film contained "sexual scenes and Pagan rituals". Substitute the word "Jewish" for "Pagan", and there'd be an uproar about ITV's anti-Semitism. And can you imagine them giving a warning about Kali worship before showing "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom"? Yet no-one seems to have batted an eyelid. The assumption seems to be that Paganism is somehow irredeemably imbued with human sacrifice and licentiousness. Yeah, and Jews eat Christian babies too.
(How authentic the rituals are, I have no idea. But given that the film was released in 1973, I'd guess they're fairly sensational.)

Despite my comments about Christmas being over-commercialised, since we can't beat the system we might as well join it. If you're going to avoid the overcrowded shops and buy Christmas presents online, please consider doing so using our links. Well, we have bills to pay too and the commission would help us.

How do they celebrate the big religious festivals where you are? Do you have anything to say about this topic, or do you have some suggestions for other issues we might discuss in our weekly email? Why not tell us about it on the forum?
British Expat Forum: BE Newsletter discussion

On the Website

This week we've added several great new articles on the theme of Halloween.

Jayne's latest "waffle" describes how Halloween in Portugal is a day spent at the cemetery - which has been turned into a vibrant market place for the day. She then goes on to explore the theme around the world. Fascinating stuff! Have a look:
Godzilla's Waffles: Halloween

Mike Clark, our gardening columnist, in his usual inimitable style, writes that it is neeps, not pumpkins, which should be assciated with Halloween. In the latest article in his Clark's Caledonia column, "Gralloching a Pumpkin", he takes a wry look at the origins of Halloween and the traditional celebrations running into Guy Fawkes Night.
Gralloching a Pumpkin

In Miranda Irving's latest column, Halloween Horrors, she laments all the hype surrounding the event these days, both in the UK and also in Abu Dhabi. Things weren't like this when we were all kids. Were they?
Halloween Horrors

All the new articles and features are listed on our What's New page:
What's New on BE?

Each week I delve into the dark cavernous interior of the BE website to see what gems I can unearth - good things you may have missed first time around. Here are my picks for this week:

Scottish author, William Meikle gave us a short story for publication a while back. Well worth a read if you haven't already seen it.
Just a Par to Win

If you're in the mood for a laugh, check out this piece on Jesus's ethnicity in our Fun Stuff section.
Jesus's Ethnicity

If you're looking for travel features on the site, a good place to start is our Expat World page.
Expat World

Virtual Snacks

"Hell Houses are a relatively new evangelistic technique used by many hundreds of conservative Christian churches in North America. One intent is to proselytize the unsaved public. Another is to promote certain conservative Christian beliefs..." You can find out more about this extreme and frightening practice on the Religious Tolerance website:
religioustolerance.org: Hell Houses

If you're interested in reading about the Pagan religion, try this link for an interesting and intelligently written introduction.
tylwythteg.com: Introduction to Paganism

Or find out more about Diwali here:
Kansas University: Diwali

And for a bit of fun - this optical illusion is magic! Try it. (Read the instructions and stare.) Note to Mike Clark - you need a colour monitor to see this. :D
Mark Levinson's Cool Illusion

(Apologies to any whose religion has been missed out but we normally only have two or three links and there's already four here this week. Perhaps next time the subject arises...)

Sponsor

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Bizarre Searches

Some strange search terms which have led people to visit British Expat recently:

how to be a good wife hoax
underhill john geology ithaca
chewy flapjacks
spouse bangers
inksy winksy spider
hilarious ski slop signs
happy birthday eel games
lace slip stories
lotus blossom penis
why we nightmares psychology
smelly dishes
suicide jacks choppers

Till next time...
Happy surfing!

Kay
Editor
British Expat Magazine

Quotation

"If you don't define yourself or your religion, someone else will do it for you!"

(Old saying, author unknown)

Joke

Q: How do you tell a New Age witch from a NeoPagan Witch?

A: You throw them both in the water. The NeoPagan Witch will float, whereas the New Age Witch will sink under the weight of all their overpriced crystals.