Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYBODY!!!

Today, on the 4th Thursday of November, Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving. To Austrians, this is not a very well known holiday, so I decided to briefly tell you about its history.

HISTORY

The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in 1621.  In 1620, the Pilgrims, a group of people who had left England mainly for religious reasons, had come to America on the Mayflower. Initially, they had intended to sail to the Colony of Virginia, where they had already obtained permission to settle. However, they were put off course and anchored in today’s Massachusetts. There, they founded the Colony of Plymouth.

Unfortunately, the Pilgrims did not have an easy start in this new land where they hoped to find freedom and a new, prosperous life. About half of the settlers died within the first winter. The other half would probably have died as well if it had not been for the local Native Americans, who gave them food and taught them how to hunt, fish and grow food.

So let’s fast forward to 1621. In honor of their fist successful harvest, the pilgrims invited the Native Americans to share a meal. This meal probably consisted of birds, seafood, fruits, grains and vegetables, but the key elements of todays Thanksgiving Day meal (e.g. turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes) were missing.

After this feast Thanksgiving was not celebrated for a long time. In 1777, after winning a battle in the Revolutionary War, George Washington announced November 26^th a “holiday of sincere humble and thanks”.  Especially the American Puritans liked this idea of a holiday on which people give thanks to God for all kinds of blessings. However, the date on which Thanksgiving Day was celebrated varied from state to state.

In 1827 Sarah Josepha Hale (the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”) started a campaign, promoting a nationwide Thanksgiving holiday. In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln realized the unifying potential of such a holiday and declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday on the 4^th Thursday of November.

NOW

Parades
Nowadays, Thanksgiving is an extremely popular holiday in the US. Some famous traditions that have developed throughout the past centuries are the Thanksgiving Day football games and the Thanksgiving Day parades. The most popular parade is probably “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade" in New York City. It involves fleets and giant balloons and is even broadcast on TV and radio. 

Turkey Pardon

Another tradition I found particularly interesting is the Presidential Turkey Pardon. President Kennedy was the first to keep a turkey he was given for Thanksgiving Day, instead of having it cooked. President Bush senior officially started the tradition of pardoning a turkey and sending it to a farm where it can live happily ever after. Yesterday, president Obama pardoned the turkey Popcorn:

 Family

Apart from traditions and entertainment, Thanksgiving Day is most of all about FAMILY. People reconnect with their loved ones and share a celebratory meal with them. Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel holidays, since people drive home to visit their families. The meal are enormous and consists of the staples roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

Saying "Thank You"

From my point of view, the concept of Thanksgiving Day is great. I think we all have so much to be thankful for and especially in today’s hectic world, we often forget about this. We rush through our daily lives and keep complaining about the stress, our problems and everything that goes wrong in our society. But since today is Thanksgiving Day, I would say we should – to coin a phrase – count our blessings.

In 2011 Austria was ranked 19^th in the world for its Human Development Index. Most people in Austria are wealthier than most people in the world. We should be thankful for having a safe place to live, not having to worry about how to provide food for the next day, having the freedom to travel and basically do whatever we want to do. We have the chance to life our dreams, work for our goals and to actively pursue what makes us happy. We have access to good education, which is the first step to a wealthy future life. We are healthy and have access to good healthcare. 

And what I am thankful for the most are the people I love. I am blessed to have met so many great people and I do not know what I would do without my family and friends.

In my view, consciously thinking of these blessings and giving thanks for our lives is what Thanksgiving Day is all about. Or - as President Obama mentioned in his speech - 

"We have more to be thankful for than we can ever say 

and more to be hopeful for than we can ever imagine!" 

So once again, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

The Power of Language

Language has power! This video will probably be of particular interest to all the language students out there. It certainly is to me, because it points out how important our choice of words actually is and how language can even influence our attitude.

The point Stephen Fry makes in this video is that the way we refer to issues or people can change our attitude towards them. Throughout history, we can find a lot of negative proof for this. Language was often used to dehumanize a certain group of people. And sadly, it worked. Germans called Jews "ape men", "subhuman", and "rats" and by this made people think that Jews are "not human" or "less worthy than others". And only with this attitude it is possible for "ordinary people" to do horrible things to others. As Stephen Fry mentions in the video, the same tactic was used in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

The examples given above are, of course, very extreme cases and  these words would not be used under normal circumstances. However, also in our everyday language there are terms that can be misleading, offending or distorting our awareness of reality, even though we might not mean to do that. For example, talking about “discovering America” implies the idea that Europeans came to America, tried to find out more about it like curious scientists, and eventually had the right to take what they found, because they “discovered” it. However, this ignores the fact that Europeans invaded land that was already occupied by Native Americans and took it from them.

Another example is how black people are referred to in the US. The term “negro” was mainly used before the Civil Rights movement in 1650s and 1960s. Nowadays it is associated with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination, when African Americans were treated as second class citizens or worse. The same applies for the word “colored”, since in times of segregation, black people had to sit in the “colored” sections of busses or restaurants, for example. In essence, the term stirs up painful memories. Nowadays, accepted terms are “people of color”, “African American” or simply “black”.  

Another issue is the use of exclusionary language in terms of gender. It is not such a prominent issue in English, since many occupations only have one term (like teacher, lawyer, dentist…). In other languages, however, male and female versions exist, for instance for occupations. In German, a male teacher is called “Lehrer”, whereas to indicate that the teacher is female the suffix –in is added, therefore it would be “Lehrerin”. Nevertheless, often only the male version is used when talking about a group of people in general. Nowadays, many people oppose to this and try to promote the use of both male and female titles. When I first heard of this concept I was thinking “isn’t this kind of fussy? I’m not offended if somebody uses the male form, I know women are meant as well.” However, I have slowly come to realize that using a universal title or both titles does make a difference. When I hear “stewardess” I automatically think of a woman, although I know men are practicing this profession as well. The term “flight attendant”, however, evokes a much more neutral concept in my mind.

So basically what I am trying to show is that language reflects as well as influences our attitudes. Language not only expresses ideas and concepts, but actually shapes our thoughts and therefore its power should not be underestimated. With this in mind, I think we can become a lot more sensitive and detect manipulations more easily. And, even more importantly, we can reflect on our own choice of words, because they do have an impact on the world around us.

Exploring North America

Since American Culture is a big part of my English course at university, I was encouraged to look for “facts about America that foreigners find hard to believe” on this website: 

How Americans Are Different

I have been to America in summer 2012 (I visited distant relatives in Michigan, Chicago (IL), Las Vegas (NV) and Toronto and travelled along the West Coast). As a result, I decided to pick five points that were mentioned a lot on this website and that I personally can relate to and summarize them for you.

1.       CARS (nobody walks)

People go everywhere by car. This claim was made by many people who commented on the website I mentioned before. Personally, I noticed too that many people use their cars for long as well as really short distances and even to get to a nearby gym (kind of ironic, don’t you think?).

However, what amazed me even more, were drive-thru pharmacies and banks. Concerning drive-thru banks, for example, I could not believe that people actually drive to a pillar (often they cannot even see the teller but can be watched by him through a camera), have their deposit slips or cheques sucked up through a tube and get their money or receipt a few seconds later through the same tube!

In this funny videoclip Nancy shows you how it's done: 

2.       INTEREST IN GUNS AND MILITARY

People in the US can buy guns without much of a background check. Many American citizens are kind of obsessed with their guns and carry them around, because it makes them feel safe. However, some people also don’t hesitate to use them and I think this is where the big problem lies. Every now and then we hear stories about shootings on the news. Recently, such events triggered some serious discussions concerning the NRA (National Rifle Association), a nonprofit organization that is based on the idea that firearm ownership is a civil right and concerning owning firearms in general.

Also, what surprised me when I visited the US was the public interest in military. In Austria, military personnel are not treated differently than anybody else, but in the US they are. When I went to a baseball game, after playing the national anthem all veterans and people who currently serve at the army were asked to stand up and were given a flag as a sign of respect. Furthermore, I once watched a TV show called “Stars Earn Stripes”, in which celebrities accompanied real soldiers on a simulated fight, in order to show how dangerous and exhausting the job as a soldier really is.

       3.       HUGE AMOUNTS OF EVERYTHING

Everything is just bigger than in Austria – the stores (e.g. Walmart), the sizes of products sold there (even the cereal packages ;) ), the cars, the food portions served in restaurants,…

However, this is somehow understandable, since the US is much bigger than Austria. AND I have to admit that usually there are smaller sizes and amounts of things available as well, you just need to know where to find them.

4.       FRIENDLINESS

People are super friendly. No matter where you are or what you are doing, you can be pretty sure you will interact with at least one nice person a day (at least that was my impression). Americans like to make small talk and usually their first question is “How are you?”, followed by a welcoming smile. If, for example, you are wandering through a city, having a lost expression on your face, there will almost certainly be somebody who approaches you and offers to help you. Let’s face it – how often does this happen in Austria?

5.       DIVERSITY

One of the things that fascinate me the most about the US (and Canada for that matter) is the diversity of cultures, climate, landscape, people, beliefs, … basically everything.
I met a 70-year old man who loves to travel but has never been outside the US, because he thinks that there is enough to see and experience in all the different parts of the US. Even though I think every part of the world is worth visiting, I am sure he will never get bored.

Diversion

„A diversion can be something that takes you off the course you are on, like a detour while you are traveling, or a game of tennis that takes you away from the stress of work.“ (© vocabulary.com)

I studied this word for our first progress check and some days later I came across the following picture while I was browsing the Internet:

That’s when I realized that basically our whole life consists of diversions. I mean whose plans always (or ever) work out just as they were intended to in the first place? Mine hardly ever do, but still I always reach my goals somehow.

And you know what? – I’m pretty sure most of the time what happens in my life is even better than the plans I had.


Usually I’m a very organized person, which means I really like having plans and being in control of my life, but I think we need to be open to some “detours” as well. I realized that it is impossible to plan out your life, but I believe that everything happens for a reason and in the end things will turn out to have developed in a great way. The only thing we can do is to accept the diversions and try to make the best of them :) – You know what they say: The journey is the reward!

So enjoy every moment of it :)