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How did Halloween get to be so popular worldwide?

arthwollipot said:
I'm pretty sure that if America suddenly vanished and took all of its pop culture with it, Halloween as we know it would definitely die out. America created it okay America didn't create it but America created it, and American pop culture sustains it. Without America, there wouldn't be the Halloween that we see today. You might see it in some form, but in no way would it be sustained the way it is today. I am absolutely convinced of that.
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I agree that Halloween as it is currently celebrated world-wide is a uniquely American export. As currently celebrated, it exists as a direct result of the spread of American pop culture, and owes very little to it's roots in paganism.

However, if (for some strange reason) America suddenly stopped doing Halloween, Halloween would not only continue to exist in places where it currently is celebrated in American fashion, it would continue to spread, although the rate of new communities adopting it would almost certainly slow down. FMO's point about other American cultural exports (Jazz, etc) is valid. People that now celebrate Halloween may have adopted it from the US, but they continue because it is fun.
 
sarge said:
I agree that Halloween as it is currently celebrated world-wide is a uniquely American export. As currently celebrated, it exists as a direct result of the spread of American pop culture, and owes very little to it's roots in paganism.

However, if (for some strange reason) America suddenly stopped doing Halloween, Halloween would not only continue to exist in places where it currently is celebrated in American fashion, it would continue to spread, although the rate of new communities adopting it would almost certainly slow down. FMO's point about other American cultural exports (Jazz, etc) is valid. People that now celebrate Halloween may have adopted it from the US, but they continue because it is fun.
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Blame Irish children for this. They took their English, Scottish Jewish etc friends with them tricking or treating and the holiday changed into what we see today.

Nobody worships Samhain anymore anyway.
 
sarge said:
I agree that Halloween as it is currently celebrated world-wide is a uniquely American export. As currently celebrated, it exists as a direct result of the spread of American pop culture, and owes very little to it's roots in paganism.
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True, but like with most traditions, you can see the roots in various ways, bonfires, masks, parties full of food etc. Those are all essentially the same as they were, just modernized and adapted.

In the UK, bonfires tend to be lit during early November with the coming of Guy Fawkes night, but they almost certainly are connected to the huge bonfires that would be lit across the land way back when such things were done to bring light into the dark for luck against the harsh Winter ahead.
 
gypsyjackson said:
When making pumpkin and carrot soup, remember to use very freshly cut pumpkin. If it has gone even a little bit brown (or has been frozen due to pumpkins being too big for two people to share at once), then you end up with soup that tastes nice, but looks like diarrhoea.

[/marthastewart]
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I didn't know that. I think I usually do try and get it as fresh as possible, although the first time I made it I may have waited a couple of days. I'll definitely remember that though, cheers.
 
arthwollipot said:
The Indian Festival of Colour (Holi), while lots of fun and a feature of many Indian movies and TV shows, it has not been widely adopted in non-Hindi speaking areas.
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I lived in Nepal for two years, and Holi was always a lot of fun, until late afternoon when there were enough badly behaved drunk people to make it a bit frightening.

Holi is sort of catching on in the U.S., or at least a highly modified version of it that can happen any time of the year - Color Runs. Do a run, a 5k, or in the case of my kid's elementary school in Utah, a 1/4 to one-mile run. People on the sidelines throw colored powder, the same sort as was used in Holi.

I was always taught (in Nepal) that Holi started out as the celebration of the defeat of one Hindu demi-god by another (I can't remember which two). In Nepal, the powder had traditionally been red (other colors becoming more common in recent years), and I was told it symbolized the blood spraying from the neck of the decapitated demi-god. (I gather the origin stories of Holi vary widely around the Hindu world, this version seems to have been unique to the area I lived in.)

I got a kick out of the color run in Utah, watching all of my devout Mormon neighbors running around getting covered in the symbolic blood of slaughtered Hindu deities, or perhaps surviving the fire of Hindu demons, or just being Krishna seducing milkmaids.

As for pumpkins as food - selective breeding is everything. I ate pumpkin when I lived overseas, usually as curry. The pumpkins grown and sold for jack-o-lanterns tend to be much too tough to taste very good. Pumpkins for food are sold in some grocery stores, but those don't taste as good as the ones in Nepal either.
 
crescent said:
Holi is sort of catching on in the U.S., or at least a highly modified version of it that can happen any time of the year - Color Runs. Do a run, a 5k, or in the case of my kid's elementary school in Utah, a 1/4 to one-mile run. People on the sidelines throw colored powder, the same sort as was used in Holi.
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I can see a few problem with Holi that would prove a barrier to having it catch on widely in the west; aside from the general lack of knowledge of Hindu culture. For starters, it's messy, and it wouldn't take very many complaints from non-consensual participants to get municipalities to crack down on it. Particularly if those complaints were accompanied by lawsuits for indelibly stained clothing. Second, the environmentalists would likely have something to say about the amount of potentially harmful colour pigments flooding the local environment, particularly where they're likely to end up in local bodies of water.

Government interference has certainly had a fairly chilling effect on our local Mardi Gras celebrations; and there's a lot less mess involved with that holiday.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Yeah, like what if the aboriginals in Tasmania had the Sopwith Camel. Things'd sure be different, eh?

There is an America. If it ceases to exist right now, do you lose jazz, the blues, rock and roll? Or do all the achievements get to stand? If so, then Halloween will continue on its merry way. It's a secular holiday now, and just as it was dying down in the 18th and 19th centuries only to be revived by the Americans in a new form, it'd likely continue as Harrow Ween in Japan and everybody just loves hip, trendy, Japanese stuff so would happily purloin it rather being victims to the eeeeeevil American Imperialism.
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I'm not going to continue this wander down Hypothetical Road, because I'm pretty sure it leads to Reductio Ad Absurdum Square and I've been mugged there a few times.

Instead I think I'll retrace my steps and return to the Garden of Sensible Arguments for a while. It's less stressful.
 
Because it's part of the deal we struck with Boogaloo and his demon minions thousands of years ago.

We celebrate Halloween as a remembrance of them or they will return from the Netherworld to destroy us all.

Seriously, did nobody watch The Real Ghostbusters back in the 80's?
 
arthwollipot said:
I'm not going to continue this wander down Hypothetical Road, because I'm pretty sure it leads to Reductio Ad Absurdum Square and I've been mugged there a few times.

Instead I think I'll retrace my steps and return to the Garden of Sensible Arguments for a while. It's less stressful.
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Or you could try a different approach. "Hmmm. Hadn't really thought of that, and honestly hadn't realized the traditions from Scotland and Ireland."

This isn't just you and me. Don't take it personally. Others have pointed out that while it may be recently American, it's not something that American Hegemony, Inc. is actually promoting, but something that countries and cities that like to party have taken on. All they know from "USA Halloween" is the pictures of the big parade/street party in Greenwich Village. That's essentially what this modern spreading has stemmed from.

These are the two most famous in Asia, but you will find bars, pubs and discos in every capital hosting Halloween parties, sometimes sponsored by organizations, sometimes just as an excuse to have a bash.


http://www.lankwaifong.com/halloween/
 
alfaniner said:
Isn't pumpkin pie filling from a can always like that? I seem to remember hearing that canned pumpkin is nutritionally better than fresh.
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No idea, I have never seen pumpkin pie filling (is that pre-mixed, blended, what?). Sometimes preserved goods can be better - especially flash freezing - but I'm not sure about pumpkin.

Actually, now I think about it, I haven't ever had pumpkin pie, just pumpkin pie latte at that time of year.
 
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