Letter from Seoul - 15

Thanksgiving and others

It is Wednesday here in Seoul, with a slight dusting of snow covering the ground.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which celebrates when Americans shared food with undocumented immigrants from England.

These immigrants were Christian radicals who vowed to “purify” the corrupt practices of the religion started in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Puritans fled to Holland in 1608 to escape persecution for holding services that were not sanctioned by the Church of England. Yet by 1620, the group had already offended the Dutch and sailed for Jamestown in the British colony of Virginia colony.

Of course the Captain of the Mayflower fucked up badly, and landed in-present day Massachusetts in the dead of winter. It is likely that Captain Christopher Jones (1570-1622) was drunk out of his mind; perhaps even putting the boots to a buxom wench and invoking the name of God repeatedly.

Regardless, Thanksgiving is all about how Americans, the Wampanoag people, welcomed the undocumented Puritan immigrants with a feast the following year. The event was modest, since so many of the immigrants died of starvation and disease.

Where is God when you need him?

In a very short time, the Jesus-loving Puritans showed their appreciation for the Wampanoag people by giving them blankets laced with smallpox. This was followed up by raping the women, killing the men, and stealing their food and land.

Once the British gave up the 13-colonies at the end of the American Revolution in 1781, those Caucasian people of European heritage who identified as Americans really “put a hurt” on the indigenous peoples who had lived in the present-day United States for thousands of years.

Regardless of political party, American officials perpetuated deliberate government policies of genocide for over a century on a level that makes war criminals like Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mao, Kissinger, Putin and Netanyahu seem like choir boys.As an expat, especially living half-way round the world from the United States, the combination of both different time zones and different cultural norms, makes it easy to overlook annual American traditions like Thanksgiving.

Convicted felon and department store rapist Donald Trump celebrates Thanksgiving with a leisurely walk in the company of his best friend, war criminal Vladimir Putin.

Native American leaders are our real Founding Fathers.

All immigrants to the United States deserve respect and dignity.

If this no longer applies to the American experience, then dismantle the Statue of Liberty and ship it to Paris, marked: Return to Sender.

If we are not the land of the free, and the home of the brave – and immigrants are not entitled to strive for the American Dream, then start the deportations by ridding our country of billionaire immigrant Elon Musk.

This South African is The Enemy of the People. Frog march him to a raft with one oar.

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There is a comfort in yearly gatherings among family and friends to mark one more victory of life over death, to honor immediate ancestors who are with us in spirit though not in body, and perhaps because of religious beliefs that inspire and sustain us.

This is universal, with some cultural variations.

The ability for billions of people to co-exist on this planet requires a conformity to both a common calendar, and the measurement of time.

Like every culture in the world, Koreans conform to the Gregorian Calendar – first established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. This concept, an improvement on the Julian Calendar, took centuries to achieve universal acceptance.

The Oriental world still acknowledges the Chinese Lunar New Year and, on January 29, 2025 – this will mark the year 4723 – and will be regarded as The Year of the Snake. Considering the present state of the world, this is more than appropriate.

An annual Korean tradition that shares some similarities with the American Thanksgiving is Chuseok (Autumn Eve), an annual celebration that gives thanks to ancestors for the upcoming harvest.

This annual Korean holiday is one of the biggest migration events in modern Korea. Over half of the population visits families and ancestral graves during the three-day holiday, which usually falls sometime in September or October.

While Chuseok is officially a three-day celebration, it usually lasts for a week to give people a chance to travel from large cities like Seoul and Busan to the countryside to be with the older generation – and to visit ancestral graves.

In Mexico, Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) combines the ancient Aztec custom of celebrating ancestors with All Souls' Day, a Catholic holiday the Spanish brought to Mexico in the early 1500s. The holiday, which is celebrated mostly in Mexico on November 1 and 2, is like a family reunion - except dead ancestors are the guests of honor.

Since November 1 in the Catholic world is All Soul's Day - a hallowed occasion, October 31 is really Hallow's Eve, yet more commonly known as Halloween.

The wearing of frightful masks on Hallow's Eve, an Irish tradition, is to scare death away. At one time, the Irish Wake was marked by drunken revelry with the deceased usually laid out across the kitchen table - as a defiant "fuck you" to death, and to show that life should be lived to its fullest.

But I am here to praise Thanksgiving, not to bury it – though eating dressing cooked in a dead turkey’s ass never appealed to me.

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