Christmas and New Year have come and gone. We celebrated with other cruisers who had nowhere else to be and nothing too exotically exciting to do, but it was all good fun and very sociable, just the way it should be.
 |
| I found the ingredients to make a cake! |
 |
Christmas stockings
|
 |
| A few drinks at a pub before the 'no alcohol' Christmas buffet |
It's a strange thing. International news would have us believe that there is so much dissent amidst the Muslim and the non-Muslim population. Reports come through from many western or European countries complaining that Muslims are intolerant of our way of life and are deemed 'offended' of our ways. I'm sure there is some modicum of truth in these reports but likely from the radical minority only.
Here we are in a Muslim dominated country and we have been amazed at the importance placed on Christmas. Christmas decorations and music abound, it's even a public holiday here. I don't recall a single shop or office that didn't have some sort of decoration celebrating 'our' holiday. Even back down in Indonesia which is even more predominantly Islamic, I saw some of the most magnificent specimens of decorated Christmas trees ever.
We were openly wished Merry Christmas wherever we went, restaurants put on special menus for the occasion (turkey included but they passed on the ham) and everything was very festive. No sooner was our holiday over than this was all taken down and now that it's coming up to Chinese New Year, red lanterns are to be seen everywhere! Just before Christmas was the Indian festival of Deepavali where appropriate signage and decorations were to be seen all over too. I'm astounded at their openness, their welcoming nature and the general camaraderie amongst these very different religions which makes me question some of the so-called intolerance we regularly read about in the news. I sometimes fear that the news media incite situations in order to drum up more readership. I guess good news and harmony are not exciting enough.
 |
| All the shops are being decorated accordingly |
 |
| The Year of the Monkey |
We were openly wished Merry Christmas wherever we went, restaurants put on special menus for the occasion (turkey included but they passed on the ham) and everything was very festive. No sooner was our holiday over than this was all taken down and now that it's coming up to Chinese New Year, red lanterns are to be seen everywhere! Just before Christmas was the Indian festival of Deepavali where appropriate signage and decorations were to be seen all over too. I'm astounded at their openness, their welcoming nature and the general camaraderie amongst these very different religions which makes me question some of the so-called intolerance we regularly read about in the news. I sometimes fear that the news media incite situations in order to drum up more readership. I guess good news and harmony are not exciting enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment