So I woke up this morning feeling good and rejuvenated from a good night’s rest, didn’t make breakfast this morning but I did get up just in time to start getting ready to go to the museums. The first museum that we did visit was Museum Rotterdam which was some kind of experience learning about all the different kind of rituals and things.
In some well-situated families pregnancies were announced in a veiled manner, for instance, Hansje (“Johnny”), would then float in the wine and that’s how the people would know that the lady of the house was pregnant; most of the times pregnancies were welcome. Up to the 1950’s, the presence of the future father at birth was taboo. I also learned that children born on Sundays or at Christmas were said to be children of fortune and it also said that they could see into the future, when I think of that, I wish I was born on one of the two days so that I could actually see into my future so I could make changes right at hand before I made any more mistakes. But most ritual festivals and celebrations are held annually, and they are events that people look forward to. Special moments required appropriate attire such as for Summer carnivals, regular groups make new costumes every year as for the costumes of the Chinese, they were used year after year. A typical family festival was Christmas, which is celebrated at home with a decorated Christmas tree, a German novelty from the nineteenth century, at the centre of the activities. Among the four elements, fire played a role in many rituals, mostly done in the winter and for the purpose of routing evil spirits, to welcome good spirits, to commemorate, to make a wish or just for the sake of cosiness.
These are just a few examples of some of the rituals that I learnt of and there are plenty more where they came from. And I got to admit that it was amazing to learn of such rituals sometimes I wish I was born back in time but then again I don’t because I feel like my generation has it easier than they did back in the day. But I’m still grateful regardless.
