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As October draws to a close, Mexico also celebrates the annual Day of the Dead. In the local culture, the Day of the Dead is an extremely important festival. Even though death is a symbol of coldness and ruthlessness in most people's minds, in Mexico, people parade and parade, and the Day of the Dead is more like an annual life education class.
It is understood that the Day of the Dead is the product of a combination of Indian and Spanish cultures. Native Indians Day of the Dead falls between July and August. The indigenous Aztecs of Indians believed that only by treating the undead well and letting them return home for the holidays would the living be blessed in the coming year, free of disease and disaster, and with a great harvest of crops. In the 16th century, the Spaniards conquered the Aztec Empire, and they combined all Saints' Day, All Souls Day and Day of the Dead in the West to create today's Day of the Dead. Every year, November 1 and 2 are "Young Spirits' Day" and "Spirit Day", which are used to remember the passing children and adults.
Although the Day of the Dead has a long history, the Day of the Dead parade is an event that has emerged in recent years. According to The Guardian, in 2016, Mexico hosted its first Day of the Dead parade, inspired by the movie 007: Ghost Party. Mexico City Government, the capital of Mexico, "reproduced" the Film's Day parade, and hundreds of volunteers dressed up as skeletons and took to the streets with props in hand to experience, moving the bridge section that originally existed only in the movie to the real world.
Three years on, the Mexican Day of the Dead parade has matured and become more grand. According to the Mexican Daily, there were 2 marches in Mexico City this year. The first session started at 2 p.m. on the 27th and was smaller. The parade proceeds from Syntagma Square to Chapultepec Park, then turns north to end in the Polanco district, which is full of colonial Revival-style buildings, and the second session takes place on 2 November, when the procession will make a huge crossing of the Reforma Avenue to The Syntagma Square, a total distance of about 1 km.
Careful people will find that the date of the Mexican Day of the Dead coincides with the Western Halloween "collision". Also a festival for the dead, Mexicans prefer local festivals and are increasingly enthusiastic about participating in the Day of the Dead. According to data from Mexico's circus survey, in 2014, "Halloween" entries appeared 51% more frequently than "Day of the Dead" on major social media. But in 2018, the "Day of the Dead" flip won, and the entry appeared 9.5% more than "Halloween".
According to the BBC, judging from the situation in recent years, the streets of Mexico at the end of October are no longer covered by Halloween elements such as pumpkins, black cats, and bats. Canadian anthropologist Shawn Haley says there are fewer and fewer Halloween vendors in Mexico every year. Instead, altarpieces, carthrina skulls, marigolds and Papel Picardo paper cuts, ornaments with indigenous Mexican colors, are sought after.
At the same time, major advertisers have also seized the opportunity to launch "Dead Day Limited Edition". Whether it is eaten, drunk or dressed, it is full of the atmosphere of the Day of the Dead. Every year, nike, a well-known sports brand, releases sneakers in exclusive colors for the Day of the Dead, including air force 1, air max 95 and nike cortez. Nancy Gonzalez, a clothing wholesaler in Mexico City, said: "During the Day of the Dead, schools require children to wear Mexican-style clothing, and everything in Mexico seems to be returning. Humberto Polar, president of the Mexican advertising agency Gray Mexico, said: "I don't think the next generation of Mexicans will celebrate Halloween anymore, it's a fading holiday." ”
According to a number of foreign media reports, the animated feature film "Dream Quest" produced by Pixar Animation Studios in 2017 has a great role in promoting the popularity of the Day of the Dead. Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Day of the Dead, the film tells the story of a young boy, Mig, who stumbles into the world of the dead in pursuit of his musical dreams. The film not only gained super popularity and word of mouth in various countries in the world, but also enhanced the popularity of the Mexican Day of the Dead.
Octavio Paz, a famous Mexican writer and Nobel laureate in literature, once said: "Death is actually a reflection of life." If death is meaningless, then so must be the life. "This has not only become a cultural phenomenon with The characteristics of the Mexican nation, but also expresses the values and philosophical concepts of Mexicans. In the movie "Dream Quest", on the Day of the Dead, the living will build an altar for their deceased relatives and friends. That night, the undead will walk on the marigold-paved bridge back to the human world to reunite with their families.
The same is true of real-life Mexicans, who gather in cemeteries on the eve of The Dead to chant hymns, repair the graves of their ancestors, offer the food they loved when they were dead, children wear marigolds and eat skull-shaped candy, and the cemetery is filled with music, laughter and prayers.
In Mexico, where death does not have any pathological or unnatural significance, people celebrate the completion of the life cycle with joy and joy, welcoming the reunion of the living with the dead. This wisdom comes from the native Mexican Indians thousands of years ago, who saw death as part of a natural continuation, as a complement to life. "These are very different from Halloween." American Magazine columnist Sonja Livingston wrote after experiencing the Mexican Day of the Dead this year: "If Halloween feels eerie, then The Day of the Dead will tell you that death also has a temperature." ”
Livingston excerpted a Mexican poem in the article to sum up the meaning of the Day of the Dead—"Our lives are full of candy and skulls, flowers and dust, love and loss." When darkness and light become one, you cannot embrace only one and not allow the other to happen. ”
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