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<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"><font> </font></p><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
From: </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gI"><span class="gD">Roger Thijs</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:rogerthijs@yahoo.com">rogerthijs@yahoo.com</a></span></span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><a href="mailto:edsells@cogeco.ca" target="_blank"></a></span><p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">
Subject: <span class="gI">LL-L "Traditions" 2012.03.17 (01) [EN]</span></p><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
> Subject: Traditions<br>> Many cities have public ceremonies for kindling the Jewish <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hanukkah</a> lights,</div><div> </div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">Around New Year the greeting cards in the shelves at the Brentwood Target were:</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">1/3 New Year greetings</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">1/3 Christmas</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">1/3 Hanukkah</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">Some food at the Target is also marked "Kosher", other as "100% Kosher".</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">I don't know what is the difference between the two.</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">I
do not see people over here (Brentwood-Clayton area) in traditional
Ashkenasi dress, just incidentally (but exceptionally) though young
girls with long dresses (the boys do not have the hair strings at the
ears as one sees in Antwerp).</font></div><div> </div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">An other cultural mixture:</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">At
the "Sarku"s in foodcourts at the malls, many guys have a Japanese look
and do some exercises with their tools in the air. Sarku is an American
group though, and I guess the Japanese cannot pronounce the name
"Sarku".</font></div><div> </div><div><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">My preferred fastfood restaurants (all chains, some only present in the Midwest Heartland):</font></div>
<div><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif"><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace,
sans-serif">buffet</font>: <font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">Golden Corral</font></font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif"><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">mexican (TexMex)</font>: Chili's</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">hamburger Culver's</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">breakfast: Denny's</font></div><div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">sandwiches: St Louis Bread Co - Panera</font></div>
<div><font face="Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif">fish:
I'm still looking, the best up to now is the fish menu part of "Little
Italy" at Richmond Heights. The "Gulf Shores" in Creve Coeur has also
some fish, but the taste is not really cajun as announced, but rather
standard American.</font></div><div> </div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font>Regards,</font></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font>Roger<br><br></font></div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">----------</span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: "Fonken, Gael M. [<a href="mailto:foga0301@stcloudstate.edu">foga0301@stcloudstate.edu</a>]" <<a href="mailto:foga0301@stcloudstate.edu">foga0301@stcloudstate.edu</a>></span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L big "T" traditions & little "t" people</span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">Greetings once again,</p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> I’m happy to read so many comments from you all. These help to open up
<u>the odd way that Americans invent things</u>. I’m studying this invention process (of fake
<b>big “T” traditions</b>) in order to try to back it up so that we
might be better able to tell the difference between inventions and the
real thing. However, it’s shocking to explore this topic openly in
public here because it’s true that people really do
just casually absorb shallow bits and pieces of other people’s sacred
celebrations. This issue of wearing green in the US is so automatic now
and so very commercialized. It’s linked with the practice of drinking
‘green beer’ for one night. </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> That’s where St. Urho comes in as a spoof meant
on one level to get them to start a day early and drink wine instead.
At that level the gesture is more about who to salute on the onset, but
the result is the same—people seem to just
want to forget the world around them for a moment. At least that’s
how one might read all this green-talk and explain why it is so
superficial. On a more functional level, it’s a way to unify people for
a moment despite the very serious political differences
we experience—like who to elect as president. But you’re right it
excludes many non-white people and does so strategically, I think. The
tricky part though is that the path back to a real past for
Euroamericans needs to
<i>travel through</i> this willingness to identify as ethnic people (<b>little “t” people</b>).
Most of the time there is no reflection on anything ethnic, except to
hound people who are different. We’re deeply afraid of our own
differences. </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> So, it’s very rare that anyone tries even to
parody these automatic reflexes. I’d been living in central Minnesota
for 12 years before I heard of this Urho feast day, so I got excited
about it and I went around last Friday all over
campus with a made-up “Urho poster” trying to get people to take about
it. Only one professor was able to do so intelligently (and he even
spoke in German for a moment so as to reflect on his own hybrid
Mennonite-Norwegian heritage since I knows that I’m
interested). But for most people the conversation soon moves on,
sometimes the person steps away first though. Trying to talk with
people about these automatic reflexes threatens their sense of timeless
existence. So, it’s scary to bring up
<u>the past that really happened</u>. People don’t want to think about how much they lost by buying into the mainstream. </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> To be optimistic though, I do think the way
back to a real past is easy enough to discover. I’m grateful for all
your emails, especially those that carry ideas forward in languages
besides English. Gradually I’m learning to read them.
So yes, learning new languages is fun, Hanne. Thanks for helping me to
do the same. I hope you all know that I’m more than happy to engage in
the real past and not just propagate these fake ones. But locally here
in rural Minnesota, I’ve started to think
more about strategies for recovering painful memories—like those that
wounded Civil War veterans brought back to this area over 100 years ago
after fighting fellow Americans from the southern part of the country.
There are also intentionally obstructed memories
of a bloody war with the native Dakota tribe that resulted in their
banishment to the neighboring state. It is probably not coincidental
that these superficial invented traditions started to emerge about that
time. How does one move forward after so many
years???? I think you all in Europe and other places with intact,
realistic memories of the past can help us in the US. The question
remains how, though. Let’s keep talking.</p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">Sorry for writing too much, </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">Gratefully, </p>
<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">Gael </p>
<h3 style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span><span style="font-size:9pt">[BOOK]</span></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal">
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sfvnNdVY3KIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR6&dq=hobsbawm+%22invented+traditions%22&ots=ZQvsPQxnB7&sig=nJB1KZALwX52DN3BFpveVxAnrf4" target="_blank">
The invention of tradition</a> </span><span style="font-size:9pt;font-weight:normal"><a href="http://digilib.bc.edu/reserves/hs410/sava/hs41002.pdf" target="_blank"><span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;color:#0000cc">[PDF]</span></span>
from bc.edu</a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal"></span></h3>
<b style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:green">Eric J</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:green">
<b>Hobsbawm</b>… - 1992 - books.google.com-</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> More interesting, from our point of view, is the use of ancient materials to construct
<b>invented</b> <b>traditions</b> of a novel type for quite novel purposes. A large store of such materials
<b>...</b> <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6265332896718237641&as_sdt=5,24&sciodt=0,24&hl=en" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#7777cc">Cited by 10178</span></a> - <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:ya91DBPv8lYJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,24" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#7777cc">Related articles</span></a> - <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8763782" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#7777cc">Library Search</span></a> - <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=6265332896718237641&hl=en&as_sdt=0,24" target="_blank">
<span style="color:#7777cc">All 15 versions</span></a></span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span></span></span><p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span><br></span></span></p><font style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><div style="text-align:center">
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