Thanksgiving in Other Cultures?

Thanksgiving is a very peculiar holiday to me. It has always been a holiday that my family, along with most other Americans, has celebrated and I usually don't think twice about it. In our culture, it is just so regular and so traditional. It has become so ingrained in our culture that I think many people don't really understand what it is about.

It is not until we can take a step back from our own culture that we realize that we don't really know what we are celebrating. This realization came to me when I was talking to a friend of mine. This is friend of mine is Israeli and moved to the United States just a few years ago. When talking to her on thanksgiving, she told me that being a foreigner, she doesn't really understand Thanksgiving and we celebrate this holiday. To be honest, I had never really thought about this. Thanksgiving is a holiday derived by American culture. It is such a big deal here but to people from other countries, it doesn't really make much sense. This prompted me to wonder if there are other cultures that have similar holidays to Thanksgiving or if Thanksgiving is strictly an American kind of thing. It seems that Thanksgiving is often stereotyped as a very "American" holiday, derived by American people as just another reason to celebrate and eat. Many foreigners and even many Americans don't seem to understand the point of this holiday. However despite much stereotyping towards the American holiday of thanksgiving, I found that many other countries have very similar traditions. Some examples of these traditions are as follows: link

1. August Moon Festival- China

2. Tet Trung Thu- Vietnam

3. Kwanzaa- Africa

4. Pongal- India

5. Chusok- Korea