It’s almost Sinterklaasdag in the Netherlands, and for anyone who isn’t Dutch, here’s a description of the event;
It’s basically a secondary Christmas celebration, but more for kids. It’s when Sinterklaas (Santa Claus to the rest of us) comes to town and showers kids with little gifts and sweets. The tradition is a nice one – on December 5th we get some nice little presents, and historically Sinterklaas rewards children that have been good (those who have been bad, incidentally, are put in his sack and taken to Spain! – I think I’ll be bad this year – I could do with a free vacation!).
Unfortuantely the traditional view of Sinterklaas is marred by his helpers. Where in other places around the world Santa is helped by cute little elves, here in the Netherlands he’s helped by Zwarte Piet. The dutch don’t seem to realise the racial slur that comes with painting a white guy black and having him work as your slave….
During the festive time there are lots of little Sinterklaas reminders, including stores dressing their frontages and selling loads of branded trinkets – this is hubby finding it all rather humorous as an American, who’s country have spent the last hundred years moving away from this sort of racial issue and he’s finding the experience rather amusing (not to mention the black woman in the background working behind the counter, rather missing the irony of the situation);
The traditional gift for adults at this time of year is a small item, along with a poem written about the person receiving the gift… the peom should be slightly acidic and pointing out what the person can do better next year… ready for a rythmic bitch slap anyone?!
You’ve not been well informed about Sinterklaas.
Or you just don’t want to integrate well =)
In America anything is a reason for a lawsuit.. discrimination etc.
The colour of Zwarte Piet has nothing to do with his skin colour…
It’s about the opposites… the black of Zwarte Piet and the White of Sinterklaas… It’s Dark and Light, Summer and Winter, Good and Evil.
Zwarte Piet is the Dark… the Evil…
But he listens to Sint now… and only does funny tricks… to make you laugh…
Hope you’ll have a nice Pakjesavond!
Thanks for the clarification, Dutchy – I’m pretty integrated, but some of the nuances of tradition still elude me
[...] word meaning sit around drinking and chatting) for Sinterklaas. As mentioned in my previous post this is a Dutch celebration mainly for children, so the drink was really just an opportunity to get [...]
Hi Dutchy. I was at a ‘borrel’ this evening, and none of the dutch people there had heard of your ‘dark vs light’ theory of Sint and Piet either – I feel much better knowing that this was nothing to do with my inabilty to integrate, or my limited knowledge of my new country’s culture – it seems that this is a very little known theory (perhaps only known to you?
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