I have a little day-planner that I use (when I can find it!) to schedule workshops and events. Today I was going over this spring's schedule with a Japanese colleague. I like the day-planner I have because it lists every international holiday in the corners of the date boxes. It's always nice to know when the Chinese New Year goes down (Jan. 26th) or Tomb Sweeping Day in Taiwan (April 4th) or something called Whit Day in France and Denmark that falls on June 1st.
Anyway, my Japanese friend was looking at some of these funny holidays, and asked about one that falls on April 6th called "Good Friday."
Hoo boy. Fortunately I went to Catholic School so I know the answer to all this kind of stuff.
"Well, that's the day Christians mark the death of Jesus. It's two days before Easter."
"And what's Easter for?"
"Uh, it's the day that Jesus came back to life. And then he walked around for a few days and went back to heaven. There's a special day for that too. (Ascension)"
"What was he doing for the two days?"
"He was in a cave."
"Why?"
"That's where they used to put the dead bodies after they died. I don't know why..."
"Why did it take two days to come back?"
"I don't know. He needed a break?"
It went on like this for a few minutes, and the more I talked the more ridiculous the whole thing sounded.
My friend was genuinely puzzled that anyone would believe this stuff. I didn't go into how people kill each other over it.
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