It's my Beloved's birthday this week. I've planned a few
little celebration treats for her that she doesn't know about yet. You won't
tell her, right? It's not a 'big' birthday, either in milestone terms (i.e.
she's not twenty, thirty, forty or any other round number) or in the number of
years (she's only twenty-one... again), but it got me thinking.
Do people in other countries celebrate birthdays? And have
we always done so here? Well the answers to both of these was pretty much a resounding
yes in both cases. Bob Geldof once famously asked of people half a world away,
Do they know it's Christmas? No, but do they know that it's their birthday?
Absolutely! As long as we've had calendars we've celebrated the anniversary of
our birth day. Even in places where the calendar differs from our Gregorian one
they congratulate the birthday boy or girl, add a year to their age and hold
some kind of party or feast. It's a 'gathering of the clans' thing, a bonding
of family and friends. An excuse for bringing loved ones together and
strengthening the ties between them. It's a time for letting people know that
we care about them even if we only send a card.
Is age important? After all, it's just a number isn't it? Or
do people only start saying that when they get to 'a certain age' (whatever
that may be)? Well the number of years that we've been alive can indicate what
kind of celebration we hold; there are hundreds of different coming of age
rituals around the world, and many different ages at which to recognise them.
Fortunately my Beloved is beyond most of them now but I could still help her
celebrate her 'normal' birthday in the way they do in other cultures.
I could grease her nose with butter as some Canadians do or
try the Argentinian tradition of giving her earlobe one tug for every year
she's been alive. The Nepalese daub the face of the celebrant with yoghurt
that's been coloured with paint or dye. I'm not sure I'd get away with that
one. I don't think that I could do the Israeli thing of lifting the chair that
she's sitting in high in the air for as many times as the years she's had
either. And she's certainly not getting any red envelopes stuffed with cash as
they do in China and Vietnam. I think I'd better just settle for baking her a
cake.
The actually date of our birth is a much more official
matter though. In most countries knowing precisely what day you were born on is
a national social requirement, a part of an individual's unique personal
identification. You have to know your accurate date of birth pretty much everywhere
these days although that wasn't always the case. You only have to trace a
British family tree back more than a few generations to see that the date of a
baby's Christening or registration of birth was often logged in the official
records just as regularly as that of the birth itself. But curiously enough
people have always celebrated birthdays even if they weren't too sure of the
precise date. In a few countries it's still quite common for people (as it is
for racehorses the world over) to have their official date of birth noted as
the first day of the year, despite any evidence to the contrary. That's far too
close to Christmas. You have to space your celebrations out a little.
And she'll be celebrating this week. Happy birthday, love.
© Shaun Finnie 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment