A legendary winged chubby child with arrows, mythically known as Eros in Greece, heralds in the month of February. In old Rome, a holiday to honor the queen of Roman gods and goddesses of women and marriage, Juno, was held on Feb. 14, the day before a fertility festival named after a mythical god, Lupercus.
Names of girls were written on paper and put into a jar from where young men would draw names to pick partners for the duration of the festival. Names of young women and men were matched and eventually ended in romance or marriages. However, reigning Emperor Claudio 11 had other plans for young men to strengthen the Roman army. He noted that the probable reason Romans did not join the military was love for their sweethearts or families, and thus cancelled marriages and engagements thinking that married men were not as good soldiers as single men. St. Valentine, a priest during the emperor’s dreaded reign, came to the lovers’ rescue, marrying them off in secret, against the orders of cruel Claudio 11. For this, St. Valentine was dragged before the Prefect of Rome, condemned to death, beaten with clubs, and beheaded on Feb. 14. When he died, he left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter and signed it “Your Valentine.” In time, St. Valentine was remembered instead of the feast of Lupercalla, on Feb. 14, when through the ages and today, lovers declare their undying love on Valentine’s day, one of the more popular festivals in the world in February.
Tourists, wherever they are traveling on St. Valentines day, whether to Italy, France, Germany, US, Tahiti, or the Philippines, arrive in countries in romantic moods, where flowers in bouquets are arranged and sold by vendors, romantic cards are exchanged, akin to the French cartes d’amities or the old American “penny postcards” mailed with one penny postage stamp, heart-shaped red chocolate candy boxes, teddy bears, gifts, and whispering echoes of the French Je t’aime’, Italian te voglio bene, Spanish te amo, German ich liebe dich, Japanese kimi o ai shitern, the Filipino mahal kita, or the Pangasinan inaro taka, I love you, sweet nothings exchanged between lovers in private dinners in cafes, hotels, or under shaded trees in parks. It is a common belief by many that on this day in Spring, birds begin their chirping and mating. Young men and women in olden days drew names from a jar to see who their valentines would be, wearing the names on their sleeves for a week. Hence, came the expression, “wearing your heart on your sleeves.” In the past, in England, many children dressed up as adults on Valentine’s Day and went singing from home to home, while in Wales, love spoons were carved and given as gifts on Feb. 14. Keys and hearts were favorite decorations on spoons, to indicate that keys unlock hearts. In some countries, if a young lady accepts clothing from a man, and keeps the gift, it only means that she was going to marry him. In Denmark, people swap poems, candy drops, and funny notes called gaekkebrev. Men buy expensive gifts, sweets, and bouquets of flowers for their sweethearts.
In Italy, Italians get engaged on Valentines day, while Spaniards, Americans, Austrians and Germans give roses, chocolates to lovers and wives. In Great Britain, women used to pin four bay leaves on their pillows to dream of their future husband. In Tahiti, a ‘love marathon’ is celebrated on the Ile de Moorea, and the “District of Love” in Thailand attract many amorous couples. In America, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, an interesting tourist spot if groundhog “Punxsutawney Phil” sees his shadow at Gobbler’s knob, a wooded knoll outside the town, winter is yet to stay longer. Elsewhere in Europe, after a dreary winter, the groundhog or candlemas festival has been observed for centuries to celebrate the beginning of Spring in late February. On this day, the groundhog or anteater, leaves hibernation, but when it sees its shadow on a bright and clear day, he goes back to his burrow and 6 more weeks of winter are expected, an event which may forecast weather. The custom started when the clergy blessed candles on this day, a tradition passed by Romans to the Germans, in turn brought to America by earlier German settlers in Pennsylvania.
While St. Moritz hosts the Alpine World ski championships at the Slalom in Feb, beer festivals are raucous at the Chicago Brewpub Shootout, at the Real Ale festival in New Haven, Lucky Baldwin’s Belgian beer festival, Beer Can & Brewerian show in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Battersea, Bodmin, Chesterfield, and Dorchester beer festivals in England, as it is springtime for flowers. In the Philippines, “Panagbenga”, a flower festival in Baguio City display flowers and blossoms grown in abundance in the highlands of Mountain province, adorning colorful floats, arraying pretty young beauties in multi-colored costumes mimicking local flowers, with the ambience of a spring festival, is a tropical version of the Festival of Roses in America. The happy moods are completed by native shows of 11 ethnic tribes in the region. Nearby, high up in Cordillera mountains, picturesque Sagada town celebrates her fiesta with festivities of cultural sports fests, a market trade fair that displays and sells to tourists plants and colorful flowers richly grown in Sagada, as tourists visit and mill around this quiet mountain town, long preserved by German and Belgian missionaries. In Zamboanga, the Subanon tribe, who once ruled the area, are feted with the Talak festival with a native dance for bountiful harvests, as wedding and healing rituals are also held. In Jaro, Iloilo’s old district, local folks join the traditional blessing of the candle ceremony and lined up a grand evening procession to honor Nuestra Seńora de Candelaria. Across the oceans, in Holland, in the small town of Lisse, the land of flowers, the Dutch hold the world’s biggest indoor flower show highlighted by tulips in bloom. The Civic Garden Centre in Canada offers visitors an array of thousands of orchid plants with blossoms arranged in natural settings, while in Chiangmai in Thailand, the spectacular Annual Flower Festival, colors and paints the city with resplendent leaf and floral decorations. Indeed, in Feb, Spring sprouts forth flowers to cover the earth after a grey, icy and dreary winter.
In Venice, funny, colorful and wild events feature the Venice festival at a crowded plaza of Pizza of San Marco, a 10-day affair, when ordinary folks, weirdos, and hippies dress up in specially tailored costume outfits to parade around Venice’s centre. Tourists spend the day watching the parade while sipping Expresso coffee with brandy, standing around instead of getting a table, to save on money and ever aware of pickpockets. At the Carnival de Quebec in Canada, a 10-day festival of parades, ice sculptures and parties, are held in this French influenced city. In Sapporo, Japan a snow festival with giant ice sculptures in Hokkaido are a tourist curiosity, as hot rice wine or sake is served.
February, at tail end of winter and onset of spring, has the distinction of both gearing toward an end and a new beginning, bearing man’s hopes as he looks through the rush of spring colors, flowers and green buds, symbolic of hopes and new life in God’s original and majestic nature world, aware that when there is an end, not far away, is yet, another beginning.
[ Jaro Wiki ]
|
