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Alright, so it's come to my attention some of you cunts don't believe in evolution, so... Nah, this isn't going to be one of those threads. It's actually possibly going to be a nice one. I noticed that according to Google, it's Holi today, which is this weird Indian holiday where they just throw dyes at each other so they're all super multicolored. It's pretty cool holiday it seems.

Anyhow, most of the holidays and traditions we have, such as Christmas or New Years or lots of stuff like that all have a myriad of roots in various religions and that, many of which have pretty much died out. So I was wondering, do any of you know any cool traditions or holidays or anything really that exist in other cultures that you'd like to see in your own cultures? We've had a huge uptick in Eastern stuff like meditation and yoga that's been heavily westernized, so that's a major one that's happening right now.

A few examples that would be amazing, in Mexico one area has a tradition where in February they smash sledgehammers into explosives, which is amazing. There's also a bunch of foreign coming of age traditions that are really cool, especially since Western culture doesn't exactly have many, except for the Bar Mitzvah or the boring Communion and Confirmation. The Irish Wake is another great tradition, where funerals are turned to great big piss ups afterwards.

So yeah, please tell me about some other cool foreign things you'd like to see, or just any interesting ones. Or fuck it, yell at me about evolution, that'd also be fun.

Edit: Oh, and one more. In Ghana, they have a thing where they make someone's coffin into something they loved. So a pilot who loved his job has his coffin look like a massive plane, or someone who had a passion for sailing has his be a boat.

Jewish people have some holiday where they run around in costumes, get drunk in public and have a giant feast, so that seems pretty cool.

e: Purim

Steve...

Did you just eat some psychedelic mushrooms or something?

No. What makes you say that?

Just shut the fuck up, you unfunny faggot. Every time you try and engage in lighthearted banter it makes me want to kill myself 

Me?

I would like to see an actual Japanese tea ceremony.  I've heard they're quite lovely.

I also wish I could wear some of the traditional clothing from other places, though I've never been sure if it was appropriate, as I wouldn't want to insult them by wearing something I shouldn't.  People can get cranky about cultural appropriation, and I don't blame them, but surely there are good ways to experience someone else's culture.

That's pretty cool about the coffin thing, Steve.  I have to admit, as much as I want to learn about other cultures, I can't think of many things off the top of my head that I would like to actually see.  I'll probably think of something a couple days from now when I'm not trying.

My coffin would probably be a McDonalds box.

Over here in England there's Bonfire Night.  People set off fireworks and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, since that's apparently how you remember people who unsuccessfully attempt to blow up Parliament.

Although they're not associated with any particular holiday, they have Morris Dancers here.  They dress up in funny costumes with bells and dance while banging sticks together.

Wow, I'd literally never heard of Morris dancers before.

Bonfire night is cracking though.

It might be more of a Northern thing, since people in the south don't think of the north as being properly part of England anyhow.

Lol @ the north-south divide, I’m chilling in the midlands like the filthy fence sitter I am.

When does England stop being 'properly' England?

My wife tells me it's when you get north of the London suburbs.

I quite like bonfire night. Well, not the murder of people because of their role in sectarian violence, but fire's cool. We kind of have it here, but we just have bonfires, with the exception of a few prods doing it your way.

Getting more location specific, we had the Devil’s Night “tradition” in Detroit for awhile which was on the day before Halloween.

Technically this night was just “Mischief Night” which takes place on the same day in other areas of the US (And even parts of Canada I think) and usually just involves doing minor acts of vandalism like throwing eggs at houses and such.

Of course Detroit being Necromunda lite, had to one up this by having mass acts of outright arson. And they didn’t just limit it to one night, we usually had 2 or 3 nights of this sort of thing just before Halloween.

Each year you could watch fires burn all over the city. Granted fires weren’t that uncommon the rest of the year, but you often didn’t even have to leave your residence to see them this time. You probably didn’t want to leave your home unattended around this time anyway (Unless you were out setting fires I guess).

Things got so bad that by the mid 90s, the relatively good mayor we had the time tried to combat this, by changing the name to “Angel’s Night” and having a shitload of volunteers patrolling entire neighborhoods which helped bring down the arson rate. Surprisingly this has actually worked.

Either that, or arsonists have just really run out of shit to burn since its not like half the city wasn’t burned down by the time this was implemented anyway.

Detroit can't possibly be real.

Isn't that when the main character of The Crow and his fiance got murdered?

Yeah.