The Holidays Season question

[thekfc]

With the Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday coming up.
I know that this is mainly a USA thing but I would just like to ask a few questions.

Are there any similar holidays (to thanksgiving & BF) in the Philippine or other parts of Asia?

Will anyone of you brave souls venture out & shop on Black Friday?

The majority of my shopping will be done online but I will go to a few stores, (no early camping or long lines outside). I have to work that day (9am-6pm), so I will stop in a few stores on my way to/from work - VS, Best Buy, Staples, Body Shop are a block from my Job and Target, TRU, Apple Store, NBA store and a few others are on my way home.

I know that X-Mas is big. How do you celebrate it with your "new" family? any different from how you celebrate it in the USA?

And while I have your attention - have any of you ever eaten balut?

And to all of you and your family:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING  

[Capstone]

They of course don't celebrate Christmas in China however I went into a Chinese Wal-Mart the day before Chinese New Year last year and it was absolutely crazy. The store was wall to wall with people so that you could barely walk - much worse than any store that I have been into on a Black Friday in the US. Most people were buying food items for the New Year's meal as well as small gifts and lots & lots of candy & fruit.

[jm21-2]

I haven't even heard the term 'black friday' in years. Don't know why people would like to go out en masse like that, especially with the internet being what it is.

I would keep celebrating x-mas, but it's not a religious holiday for me. Just a cultural one. I don't see why I would celebrate it any differently. I see it mainly as a time for getting together as family, good food, and some gifts...that translates well into every culture.

I see thanksgiving as a harvest festival, which is a pretty common cultural event. In China there's the mid-autumn festival. Totally different methods of celebration but I think some similar ideas.

[Bear]

My wife's family was way too poor to give presents and Thanksgiving isn't celebrated there so none of your question would apply.  I do know that they consider the Christmas season as any month ending in "ber" and they celebrate All-Saints/All-Souls where we don't (to that extent). 

As for me I buy my family the big presents in February when I get my bonus' and we get little things in the days before Christmas to tide us over till then.  Since my wife never gave presents before marrying me this works fine with her.

The Bear Family

[Bob_S]

Will anyone of you brave souls venture out & shop on Black Friday?

I expect to spend Black Friday laid up with the swine flu.  My wife had it last weekend, so no doubt it is incubating in me.  I'm using positive imagery and vitamin C to keep it at bay until after Thanksgiving, but probably can't keep it away longer than that.  Stocked up on gallons of Dayquil and Nyquil.

[Capstone]

I see thanksgiving as a harvest festival, which is a pretty common cultural event. In China there's the mid-autumn festival. Totally different methods of celebration but I think some similar ideas.

Oh man, I love the Mid-Autumn Festival as it = lots of food, drinks and gambling. In Xiamen, where my wife is from, the Mid-Autumn festival is considered by most people to be more important than Chinese New Year. Everywhere you go at night (homes, restaurants, bars) everyone is playing a dice game for prizes and all you hear is the sound of dice rattling around in bowl at every table. I'm not much of a moon cake guy though.

[Ray]

Are there any similar holidays (to thanksgiving & BF) in the Philippine or other parts of Asia?

Nope. As far as I know, only the USA and Canada celebrate Thanksgiving.

Filipinas here in the USA enjoy Thanksgiving and probably 95% like turkey, even though they don’t eat it back home.

Will anyone of you brave souls venture out & shop on Black Friday?

Hell No!

I know that X-Mas is big. How do you celebrate it with your "new" family? any different from how you celebrate it in the USA?

Christmas is huge in the PI. We follow many of the Filipino Christmas traditions here also, including hanging a parol in the window and attending the Simbang Gabi mass in Pilipino at 5 a.m., at our local church,  for 9 days before Christmas.

About the only time anyone goes caroling at Christmas time around here anymore is when some of my Filipino neighbors go around the neighborhood with their guitars.   

...have any of you ever eaten balut?

Yes. And it doesn’t taste like chicken…tastes like duck. LOL!

Duck baluts at our local Filipino supermarket are $.89 but I never see anyone buying them…(?). Some Filipinos claim that they work better than Viagra... 

Ray

[thekfc]

Hell No!

Don't you wanna be out there having fun with all these people? getting run over, battered & bruised?

Yes. And it doesn’t taste like chicken…tastes like duck. LOL!
Duck baluts at our local Filipino supermarket are $.89 but I never see anyone buying them…(?). Some Filipinos claim that they work better than Viagra... 

While chatting, one of my girl nieces was eating an egg & I saw something brown in there, so I asked her & she said that it was a balut.
They said that there is a dozen waiting for me when I come to phil

If Andrew Zimmern did enjoy it - maybe I will to.....not.

[jm21-2]

It's my understanding there are different maturation levels to balut. Some just have a speckling inside, others you might get a little beak with. Be a man and suck it up . So far I've done shrimp's heads, crab membrane, chicken's feet, etc...though I bet they'd gag on a fresh oyster shooter which is pretty normal. The first time they were telling me to eat the shrimp's head I thought they meant eat the whole shrimp, shell and all, and ended up eating it much to their amusement. Crunchy.

[robert angel]

With my wife's family, while Christmas and birthdays are huge events (birthdays are significant calendar markers) they are not material gift giving events. My young sister in-laws 13 birthday was 'celebrated' by them killing and roasting a whole chicken and that's sort of the way. meals and family gatherings are the focus and giving thanks, of course. At Christmas, gifts are few and weren't wrapped. Yet Christmas feelings and Christmas music on the radio starts in September! Money has always been a bit tight, but even when it's not, they just don't buy into material gifts giving. It seems there's always a more pressing need, such as tuition, books, school uniforms, fixing the house, farm improvement needs or other relatives needs. They share every thing--they are givers and my wife tells me when I count the things I have given that "it's not good to be a counter"...


Back to calendars, it's amazing how many Filipinos you ask either don't know or have forgoten that there's 365 days in a year--it's just not an important fact. They measure time by birthdays, festivals, holidays and religious evets, quite often. My wife has a 5 year computer engineering software and hardware degree can do calculus easily and it took HER a long time to remember how many days in a year!! It's always struck me as very odd that she doesn't know if there's 600 or a 1000 people in her barangay. Her father was the barangay captain for many years, but certain numbers and facts just don't mean much to her or to most of her family.

While the weather channel is the most watched channel in the USA, it would be a total flop in the PI--it's either raining or not, hot or cold. If there's a typhoon coming, they find out somehow beforehand. Major news events? No need for computers, newspapers or magazines--if it's important--somehow they all find out via 'the grape vine'.

For halloween, they don't even think of dressing up, but they do visit graves and acknowledge those passed. In some metro areas, all of this is a bit different, most likely more among the wealthy.

I about got slapped once in Ireland (in the country side) when I asked "How do you celebrate St. Pattie's day?"--they take the saint's reverence very seriously and some Filipinos are a lot like that, you don't make jokes about saints and certainly not about God around most of them.

Yet among some people, they can mix 'sin' and devoutness at times. I know someone who was prepositioned in a large city by no less than 3 ladies (all at once!) who practiced  shall we say 'the world's oldest profession' in day light. He refused their offer. About that time, the nearby church was about to convene Mass. Seeing THAT opportunity, the girls went to Mass.

But back to the Philippines in general, as Dave H will probably tell you, the more you think you know, the more you realize you don't really know. Never mind having had a Filipina wife for close to twenty years (14 years the first time), I still have a lot to learn yet, and I at least 'know' that!

[thekfc]

It's my understanding there are different maturation levels to balut. Some just have a speckling inside, others you might get a little beak with. Be a man and suck it up . So far I've done shrimp's heads, crab membrane, chicken's feet, etc...though I bet they'd gag on a fresh oyster shooter which is pretty normal. The first time they were telling me to eat the shrimp's head I thought they meant eat the whole shrimp, shell and all, and ended up eating it much to their amusement. Crunchy.

I was born & spent my first 15+ years on an island and I have eaten shrimp heads, chicken feet, frog legs (mountain chicken), conch, escargot (snails), crab membranes, eel, fish head/eggs, pig/cow/goat intestines, pigs snouts, lamb fries(testicles), among others. But to eat balut I will have to do a lot of stomaching. Penoy I may try because it do not have the chick in it. If I decide to try it - I hope that they have Guinness.

There is both a Vietnamese and Chinese grocery store here in the Bronx that sell balut but by a different name.

[Dave H]

As Ray said "Christmas is huge in the PI."

There is Christmas in the Philippines...and then their is Christmas.  Christmas seems to start in September and "officially" ends on the Feast of the Three Kings in early January. But in reality it seems to linger on and on and on... In the Philippines, Christmas is more about religion, food, family, and fireworks...yes fireworks! "Boom tarat tarat, boom tarat tarat tararat tararat, boom boom boom..."

Dave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9vWNIXSt2k&feature=player_embedded

[Jeff S]

One Two Three Pour - Let's Farty!

[crashfirepm53]

One Two Three Pour - Let's Farty!

Now thats funny!!!

[thekfc]

How was everyone's (in the USA) thanksgiving?

Christmas is almost upon us..
I was chatting with my girl today & told her about how the stores decorate their windows. Now she want me to take a few pics.
I will wait until next week as the x-mas tree @ Rockefeller Center will be lit this Wednesday, and take pics of it, Macy's, Saks, and all the other stores x-mas windows and send the pics to her.

[Bob_S]

How was everyone's (in the USA) thanksgiving?

Well, the swine flu gave me a pass, hit the rugrat instead.  She was over it in less than 24 hours, but was too contagious to get together with the extended family for a big Thanksgiving dinner.  So we postponed it to this following weekend.

Christmas is almost upon us..
I was chatting with my girl today & told her about how the stores decorate their windows. Now she want me to take a few pics.
I will wait until next week as the x-mas tree @ Rockefeller Center will be lit this Wednesday, and take pics of it, Macy's, Saks, and all the other stores x-mas windows and send the pics to her.

Oooo, post some here if you can.  I would also love to see New York all dolled up for the holidays.

[robert angel]

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving in their own way. We traveled about a thousand miles north, up to Michigan. At times, it was melancholy, as my Mom's Parkinson's disease is giving her problems, my wife's younger brother's merchant marine ship, the MV Filitsa, was seized earlier in the month by Somali pirates and the Greek shipping company isn't saying much--I guess it could be 4 to six months, from what I've read.

Still, seeing family and getting away to a different climate was nice. Contrary to popular belief, Detroit is still alive--in fact the new base ball and football stadiums are right downtown. Out in the suburbs, we went window shopping at the over the top, huge luxury mall, The Somerset, with Louis Vuitton, Tiffanys and all that. My 13 y/o son was amazed, saying he'd never seen as many Asians in one place, that he really felt 'at home' amongst the many Asians there shopping.

After five days, it was still nice to get back home and in our own bed...

[thekfc]

Oooo, post some here if you can.  I would also love to see New York all dolled up for the holidays.

I took some pics today - Macy's & Lord & Taylor. I will do Sak's 5th Avenue & The Rockefeller Tree Next week.
I showed them to my girl today and........she want to see more.

I was trying to upload some to the gallery but I am getting errors. I will upload them on Flickr tomorrow & share the link.

[thekfc]

Here is the first link - Macy's, Lord & Taylor and Misc:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24445255@N03/sets/

[sbcheflino]

I do know in the Phil that they get excited about Christmas....Balut is considered a delicacy in the Philippnes...It is a duck egg that has an almost developed embryo in it  They cook it and it is like eating a boiled egg with a surprise in the middle....wasn't for me...If I remember correctly..I didn't even take a bite.....