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Happy birthday King Wangchuck and other national holidays
Going to a far-flung destination and want to connect with the people and see something special? One easy way is through local and national holidays. These are often unique to a particular country and provide insights into its culture and history. But it can often be hard to find out what's going on next week in Tuvalu.The Holidays Around the World blog is your answer, providing daily updates on all the major happenings. Today, for example, is the birthday of the fourth King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. He abdicated last year, but his birthday is still a national holiday. The website does more than list holidays, it goes into detail about what you can expect while you're there. Today the people of Bhutan are celebrating by eating emadatse (chili pepper and cheese stew) and chang (warm beer made from barley, millet or rice). If it's anything like Tibetan chang, be careful. With the high altitudes in the Himalayas this stuff gave me the worst hangover I've ever had.
November 11 is, of course, the anniversary of the end of the First World War. The ceasefire started on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The soldiers on both sides knew it was coming, but instead of keeping a low profile until the war officially ended, they blasted away at each other with a massive artillery barrage. People are weird. This holiday is known as Armistice Day in France, Remembrance Day in Canada, and a more general Veterans Day in the United States.
So head on over to this cool little blog, and don't forget to dance in the streets tomorrow to celebrate Azerbaijan's Constitution Day.
Filed under: Arts and Culture, Learning, Festivals and Events, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, France, Canada, United States, Travel Trivia
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shawn Douglas Nov 12th 2009 2:04AM
Holidays are often one of the first things a new government makes decisions about. Despite that, I'm continually surprised with how difficult it is to gather information about a country's holidays. I think the site owner of A Global World has a wonderful idea in this blog. The writing there can be hit and miss at times, but I do believe that the standard of quality will go up with enough time and motivation.
Olivier Beltrami Nov 11th 2009 11:25PM
A quick comment about the listing of Azerbaijan's Constitution Day. This was cancelled as a public holiday 3 years ago, in 2006 (http://www.qppstudio.net/public-holidays-news/2006/azerbaijan_001036.htm). For quasi-realtime updated lists of worldwide public holidays, see: http://www.qppstudio.net/public-holidays-news-updates/most_recent.htm.
Sean McLachlan Nov 12th 2009 4:27AM
Thanks for the update. It appears from that news article you linked to that it still exists as a "holiday", but that workers don't get the day off, a bit like Flag Day and Presidents Day in the U.S.
Olivier Beltrami Nov 12th 2009 5:12AM
"Flag Day" seems a good analogy.
"Presidents Day" would not be as many governement agencies are closed on that day in the US, as are many stock and commodities markets (the NYSE and the NASDAQ, for example).
In Azerbaijan on Constitution Day everyone is working.