Last Sunday night, one of my Scottish friends said she needed to get a winter coat by Tuesday. When I asked why, I got weird stares and “Fireworks!” in return. Fireworks? “For Bonfire Night!” they said, as if I should obviously know what that was. I still had to ask, and I finally found out that Tuesday was Guy Fawkes Day, the celebration of the fifth of November, 1605, when Guy Fawkes failed to blow up parliament. Apparently, Bonfire Night is a huge holiday in the UK and people gather from all over to watch fireworks to commemorate this day. When I was watching BBC at the gym, even, the weather forecasters were talking about rain possibly interfering with Bonfire Night.
It’s strange to me that I had no idea that such a huge holiday, such an important component of the culture I’ve been living in for the past two months, existed. The closest I’ve come to it is seeing “V for Vendetta,” and I think I had a vague notion that the Fifth of November was real, but I had no idea it was an actual holiday. But, when I told my British friends that we don’t celebrate Bonfire Night in the US and we have our fireworks in July instead, I was greeted with the same confused stares I gave them. They had no idea why we would have fireworks then, because the Fourth of July is, obviously, not celebrated in the UK. In fact, I had to explain to someone recently exactly what the Fourth of July is.
All of this is to say that tradition is a very strange thing—for the ones that you’re used to seem like second nature and therefore everyone else must do the same thing. It’s not even necessary to talk about it except for maybe the week before it happens, because it’s assumed that everyone will celebrate it, which is why I didn’t know about Bonfire Night. Since being here, however, I’ve learned that these assumptions are completely false.
The same thing happened on Halloween—I assumed there would be pumpkins and candy, but there was none to be found. Instead, they had a “Samhain” parade down the Royal Mile with strange costumes and makeup, and apparently a bonfire late at night, which is an old Scottish folk custom. There were very few people present at the parade, however, because Halloween has apparently become very Americanized in the UK. This does not extend to their word for costume: they refer to them to as “fancy dress” here. I almost showed up to a Halloween party in a ball gown, which I suppose I could have made work as a costume anyway, but that’s not what they meant at all.
At any rate, it’s strange to think about the fact that, even in a culture that sometimes seems deceptively like the US, there are so many differences. Without experiencing this new culture, though, there’s no way I would have known they even existed. Being able to learn about them while also having fun attending fireworks displays on Arthur’s Seat with my flatmates is, of course, exactly why I’m studying abroad.
