Tag: holidays

  • 3 Cambodian Alternatives to Traditional Holiday Meals

    3 Cambodian Alternatives to Traditional Holiday Meals

    What is better to eat during the holidays than a meal that warms your heart? During the holidays, my family always sticks to non-traditional holiday meals. Instead of fruitcake, eggnog, candied yams, and roasted potato, we have traditional Khmer meals. There is nothing that can warm my heart more than a meal that reminds me of my heritage.

    1. For the main course, instead of having beef wellington or a roasted turkey, we have Yao Hon. Yao Hon is a Cambodian Hot Pot. Each Khmer family makes their Yao Hon differently, but my family makes it from chicken stock (we also have an abundance of vegetables to cook within the hot pot). It is a quick meal to make since we only need to prep the stock and the sides to put in the pot.


    2. For an alternative to a warm cozy bowl of soup, we have Nombajok. Nombajok is similar to ramen, but the noodles are made from rice. Nombajok has different types of broth: the traditional Khmer broth is made from fish, but throughout the years, Cambodians have picked up different spices. It all depends on the family; for example, some Cambodians put curry in their nombajok.
    3. For dessert, instead of fig pudding, we have Nom Som Jayt, which translates to dessert banana. It looks like sushi but is considered dessert. It is made from rice, mixed from condensed milk, banana, and beans, then wrapped in banana leaf. When you leave the Nom Som Jayt out for a while, the banana turns purple and becomes much sweeter to eat.
  • Mythology: Holiday Edition

    Mythology: Holiday Edition

    Dionysus

    On Christmas Day, a Greek God called Dionysus was born. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele. Unfortunately, when Semele was pregnant with Dionysus, Semele was burnt to crisp; however Zeus managed to save Dionysus by granting him immortality and from then on, he was referred to as “the one twice-born.” (which referred to his prenatal birth and then his actual birth from Zeus).

    As a God, Dionysus was known as the god of wine, pleasure, festivity, vegetation, and frenzy; Compared to the rest of the Gods, he seemed the most fun to be around, mostly because Dionysus spent his life traveling around the world and was one of the very few Greek characters who were able to successfully bring back a dead person from the underworld.

    Dionysus made a lasting impact on Greek society. Four times a year, the Athenians and citizens in Greece would come to worship Dionysus. The Greeks would sing, drink large amounts of wine, dance, and revel in a state of madness to honor Dionysus. At a point, a contest was formed to honor the best tragedy, where three tragedies and one satyr play would be shown. Due to these celebrations, Dionysus drove the development of Greek Theaters. To this day, Dionysus has an impact on Western society, as greek theaters would then influence western theaters, giving us a platform to watch the Nutcracker and a Christmas during the holidays. 

     

    Huitzilopochtli
    Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and the sun, was known as a principal deity in Aztec society. Huitzilopochtli is interpreted as “The Hummingbird of the South” or “Blue Hummingbird on the Left” where Aztecs believed that deceased warriors reincarnated as hummingbirds and Aztecs considered the south to be the left side of the world. Thus, his name takes a deeper meaning as the “resuscitated warrior of the south.” Huitzilopochtli is also known as Uitzilopochtli, Xiuhpilli (Turquoise Prince), and Totec (Our Lord). His calendar name is Ce Técpatl and his nagual, or animal spirit, is an eagle.

    In one version of events, Huitzilopochtli was the son of Omecίhuatl and Ometecuhtli– the male and female aspects of the primordial god Ometeotl. Alternatively, Huitzilopochtli is the son of the earth goddess Coatlίcue, born in the Coatepec Mountains. Huitzilopochtli avenged his mother after she was killed by her children Centzonhuitznahuac and Centzonmimizcoa. Huitzilopochtli dispersed them in the heavens to become the northern and southern constellations. His sister, however, Coyolxauhqui was the first to fall as he defeated her as he was born from his mother’s corpse and flung her head to the sky, which resulted in the creation of the moon. The conflict between Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli was thought to happen daily as the exchange for the control of the sky between the sun and the moon. Huitzilopochtli was thought to be accompanied across the sky by the spirits of fallen warriors (later reincarnated as hummingbirds), and from noon was accompanied by Cihuateteo or spirits of women who died during childbirth. Night arose as Huitzilopochtli moved through the Underworld until dawn, where the cycle continues.

    The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli guided them from the sacred cave of Aztlan to the Valley of Mexico, founding the city of Tenochtitlán in 1325 CE. During the journey, priests carried his image of a hummingbird on their shoulders, with his voice giving orders at night. Huitzilopochtli’s first shrine was built on a spot where priests found a eagle poised on a rock devouring a rock devouring a snake, an image so striking that it is portrayed on the Mexican flag.

  • Artists of the Decade

    As we prepare for the end of 2019, and the end of the decade, numbers were released from Spotify, a music streaming platform, showing which artists, songs albums listeners streamed the most during the past 10 years. The most streamed artist was, of course, Drake, followed by Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, Ariana Grande, and Eminem. Since 2010, Drake has released nearly an 18 track album each year, not count counting singles and features. His album Scorpion gained 745.9 million U.S streams and the first week it was released. Within the decade he has gotten over 28 Billion streams on Spotify. For over a decade he has had a dominant presence in the music industry, which helped him become one of the most influential people this decade.

  • Not Home for the Holidays

    Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy New Years! Happy to be home for the holidays! But wait…. instead of being able to be reunited with loved ones people are faced with deportation. Wow what a Christmas miracle!

    If you couldn’t tell, I was being ironic. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to be with their families during the holiday season due to Trump’s Administration embracing the bill, R.A.I.S.E. (Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy). The bill is meant to raise American wages by ending chain migration and by reducing the amount of Green Cards by 50%, yet, the bill ultimately fails to address an important aspect of deportation… the human within the statistics of “illegal aliens.”

    This holiday, we want to be able to celebrate the end of the decade with loved ones, but in order to do that our community must rise up against the tyranny occurring in our backyards. Instead of Santa Claus, children catch a sight of I.C.E. in front of their homes. Instead of Santa quietly sneaking in and stealing cookies, children are faced with the disruption of I.C.E. barging in their homes and taking their parents away. Instead of tears of joy, the community is encountered with tears of sorrow.

    In the fiscal year of 2018 more than 256,000 people were deported. According to the Washington Post, “I.C.E. said that 2,711 who were traveling in families and 5,571 unaccompanied children were removed from U.S. soil.” With the end of 2019 arriving, we can only hope that the amount of families separated decrease.

    With a large number of students at Poly being first generation Americans, this situation hits close to home. As opposed to former president, Barack Obama, who only deported immigrants convicted of serious crimes, Mr. Trump wants more rigid policies that would break up families.

    Peoples aren’t only deported for coming to America illegally but even legal immigrants are being deported if they have committed a numerous amount of misdemeanors, not accounting for how long ago it occurred and whether the person has changed or not. The measures that have been taken to deport family members away are unjust and some of the immigrants being deported are refugees who came into this country not knowing much. As a result, they were destined to suffer in this failed system called America, the land of the free! Family members and immigrants shouldn’t suffer from a failed system that is not set up to assimilate refugees and immigrants.

    In order to stay safe this holiday, you should know your rights. I highly suggest you search up a know your rights card and if an I.C.E. officer does try to instigate a situation show them the card and attain a lawyer. Remember you have the right to remain silent during this holiday season.

  • The Truth About Thanksgiving

    Most of us have heard the story of the pilgrims as kids. As we have been told, the pilgrims were immigrants from England who traveled to America seeking religious freedom. An English-speaking Native American named Squanto helped the pilgrims find food and learn how to use the land so they could survive in the new world. As thanks to the Native Americans, the pilgrims held a feast with a turkey, united together as one people to show gratitude for their bountiful harvest and good friends.

    Today, however, many of my friends are against the celebration of Thanksgiving because they believe that we are not celebrating friendship, but instead the oppression of the Native Americans. By coming to America, the first settlers brought diseases to the native people, attacked them, and stole the land that was rightfully theirs. Therefore, to celebrate Thanksgiving is to support the slaughter of the “real Americans” and forceful takeover of their homeland.

    However, many historians believe that this story that we have been told about these first settlers is indeed false. For one, the pilgrims did not come to America seeking religious freedom. According to the Plimoth Plantation, a museum dedicated to preserving history of the Plymouth Colony, the pilgrims had already fled religious persecution from England by immigrating to Holland. While there, they had complete freedom over what religion or church they followed or associated themselves with. No, they didn’t come seeking religious freedom, but instead because they feared they would lose their culture. Many of their children had begun to move away from their families and associate themselves with the Dutch culture. To preserve their identity as an English people, they decided to take the journey to the Americas.

    Most of the rest of the story is true. There was indeed a Native American named Squanto that helped the pilgrims, and they did have a three-day feast of Thanksgiving with each other where they ate and hunted together. But you also might not know that the epidemic that killed Squanto’s people had come and gone before the pilgrims arrived. They had nothing to do with that slaughter that so many people attribute the first Thanksgiving with.

    It is undeniable that our country has some corrupt, bloody history. But that first feast of the pilgrims was not symbolic of any of that. Even if we are wrong about the pilgrims, that doesn’t mean that the holiday is corrupt. For years, Thanksgiving has been celebrated by sitting down with family and friends for a meal to show gratitude and joy for each other’s company. It doesn’t matter if that feast actually took place or not. You can still give someone a gift on Christmas without believing in Christ or go trick-or-treating without believing in ghosts or spirits, so it is perfectly okay for you to give thanks this holiday season and share a good meal. Just don’t forget the pie.