Gelukkige Verjaarsdag. Gratulerer med dagen. Feliz cumpleaÒos. Janamdin mubarak. In any language, it’s a happy birthday.
This week, International Program co-chairs Omer Ijaz ’10 and Brittany Rancour ’09 organized an event to highlight the ways in which birthday celebrations have managed to transcend many cultural, social and national boundaries.
Over thirty students gathered in the formal lounge of Andrews Hall on Monday, Sept. 22 to socialize and share their own traditions, as well as sample one of the most popular celebratory staples in Western culture: birthday cake.
Several students told stories of personal and family traditions, including surprise parties, fancy meals and special cakes of their own. Others, particularly those whose families are far away, enjoyed receiving phone calls from home on their birthdays.
Other birthday traditions were perhaps less pleasant for the honoree, but no less celebratory. Ijaz explained that each year on his birthday, “My friends kidnap me, put me in a sack, put me in the trunk of a car and throw a surprise party. It’s not a surprise anymore,” he laughed, “because they’ve been doing it for five years now.”
Mohammad Saif Zaraar Ahmad ’12 shared another tradition, one emerging out of the Jamaican schools he attended. In Jamaica, friends try to throw the ingredients of a cake ‚Ä” including flour, eggs and milk ‚Ä” on a birthday honoree. “You make the cake on them,” one student explained.
But, Ahmad pointed out, “In Jamaican schools, if you throw flour, eggs and milk on someone, you get suspended.” The challenge has now become to carry out the tradition without getting caught.
Other students shared their experiences from semesters abroad. Sarah Garcia ’09, who spent a semester studying in Australia, described “fairy bread,” a special treat customarily served to girls on their birthdays. “It’s basically white bread, topped with butter and what we call sprinkles but they call ‚Äòhundreds and thousands,’ cut into triangles,” she said. “And it’s really only made on birthdays.”
Eva Hendrix-Shovlin ’11 also shared an experience from her stay in Ghana over the summer. She explained that in Ghanan culture, one of a person’s three names indicated the day of week on which he or she was born. That day of the week is then incorporated into a song that is sung on his or her birthday.
The song, she said, held a little more significance for her. “My host mom didn’t speak any English,” she explained. “But I could sing the birthday song, so that’s something we could connect with.”