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Singles Day 光棍节由来的介绍 2010年11月11日09:50腾讯外语论坛我要评论(44)

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Singles Day falls on every November 11th, and as the name indicates, this relatively new holiday is one exclusively for people who are still living the single life.I was a bit surprised when I googled 'Singles Day' on the Internet, to find that China is the only country in the world that has set aside a special day for singles to celebrate their lives.To find out more about this celebration, read on.每年的11月11日是“光棍节”。节如其名，这个新鲜的节日是专门为那些还过着单身生活的人们设立的。我在GOOGLE上搜索一下，惊讶地发现中国是世界上唯一一个专门为光棍们设立节日的国家。来一起了解一下这个节日吧~ Origin of Singles Day 节日起源

Betting 打牌

An old story goes that once there were four single men, leading very boring lives.None of them were married, or had lovers, or did anything exciting.They just sat around all day and played Mahjong.故事从四个过着单调生活的单身汉说起。他们没有人结婚，连女朋友都没有，日子过得无精打采，终日打麻将度过。

One day they played Mahjong from 11 in the morning until 11 at night.During the game, no matter who won, the winning card was always the 'four columns' card(the card shows four independent, parallel columns in two lines).Even more of a coincidence, it was Nov 11, or 11/11.In order to commemorate the day, they nicknamed it Singles Day.有一天他们打麻将从早上11点打到了晚上11点。奇妙的是，不管谁赢，都赢在了“四条”上。更加巧合的是，这一天正是11月11号。为了纪念这一天，他们给它命名为“光棍节”。

University culture 大学传统

Singles Day was first celebrated at various universities in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province during the 1990s.It got the name Singles Day because the date is comprised of four “ones”.These college students have since graduated, and carried their university tradition into society.Singles Day is now a special day for all fashionable youths.光棍节最先在90年代的江苏南京各大高校兴起。之所以叫“光棍节”是因为这一天的日子有四个光棍一样的“1”。大学生们毕业了，把这个传统带到了社会上，光棍节就成了时尚青年们的一个特殊节日。

The main way to celebrate Singles Day is to have dinner with your single friends, but it's important that each person pay their own way to show their independence.People also hold 'blind date' parties in an attempt to bid goodbye to their single lives.主流的庆祝方式就是和光棍朋友们一起搓一顿，而且一定要实行AA制。为了脱离单身，人们也会举办相亲会，介绍单身男女认识。

Creative celebration 新奇庆祝

For breakfast on Singles Day, singles often eat four youtiao(deep-fried dough sticks)representing the four “ones” in “11.11” and one baozi(steamed stuffed buns)representing the middle dot.光棍节的早上，单身青年们会吃四根油条，代表11.11的四个“1”，再吃一个包子，代表11和11之间的那个点。

Many singles also choose to say goodbye to their single lives on this day.Many attend 'blind date' parties and many people choose to marry on this day.In addition to meaning 'single' the four 'ones' of the date can also mean 'only one' as in 'the only one for me.' Some people will use this date and this

meaning to tell their special someone that they are the only 'one' in their heart.很多单身朋友选择在这一天告别单身，一些人参加相亲会，一些人则在今天结婚。四个“1”不仅可以代表单身，还可以代表“唯一”，这也成了一些人的爱情告白日。

每年10月31日是万圣节(Halloween)，也叫鬼节，万圣节这一天家家会吊起南瓜灯并无限给小孩子派发糖果，也因此万圣节是小孩子们最爱的节日之一。万圣节的由来是在公元前五百年时，居住在爱尔兰、苏格兰等地的人们相信，亡魂会在10月31日这一天回到生前所居住的地方，并在活人的身上找寻生灵，以获得再生的机会。人们担心鬼魂来夺取自己的生命，故当10月31日到来时，会将所有灯光熄掉，使得鬼魂无法找寻到活人，人们还将自己打扮成妖魔鬼怪的样子以将鬼魂吓走。

随着时间的流逝，万圣节的意义逐变得含有喜庆的意味。因此现在象征万圣节的妖怪及图画，都变成了可爱又古灵精怪的模样，如南瓜妖怪、巫婆等。喜爱发挥创意的美国人，在这一天则极尽所能的将自己打扮得鬼模鬼样，让鬼节变得趣味多了。

万圣节这一天，美国到处都会举办万圣节嘉年华会，街上四处可见精彩的现场表演、戏台上演的幻觉魔术、逼真的游尸和鬼魂，及各种恐怖电影的放映。到了晚上，便赶紧将蜘蛛丝架起来，再帮负责吓人的演员上妆。鬼屋的内容，则大多与电影主题有关，如：神鬼传奇、星际传奇、鬼故事…。这些场景的布置、化妆技术和戏服，有如真的情境，一不留神，肯定令人惊声尖叫。

The word itself, “Halloween,” actually has its origins in the Catholic Church.It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve.November 1, “All Hollows Day”(or “All Saints Day”), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints.But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31.The holiday was called Samhain(sow-en), the Celtic New year.One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to poe for the next year.It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife.The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.Naturally, the still-living did not want to be poeed.So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable.They would then dre up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as poible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to poe.Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit poeion, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been poeed, as sort of a leon to the spirits.Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own.But in the first century AD, Samhain was aimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman godde of fruit and trees.The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized.As belief in spirit poeion waned, the practice of dreing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine.At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling.On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes,” made out of square pieces of bread with currants.The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of t

he dead relatives of the donors.At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's paage to heaven.The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore.As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree.Jack then carved an image of a cro in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree.Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied acce to Hell because he had tricked the devil.Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkne.The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.The Irish used turnips as their “Jack's lanterns” originally.But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips.So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite “holiday,” the day itself did not grow out of evil practices.It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans.And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids.After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.