Mango Languages

Happy Thanksgiving – Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

As Thanksgiving is only one day away in the United States, all of us at Mango want to express our gratitude to you for your constant support and passion that make our job  so enjoyable!

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful but it is also a time to celebrate culture. And what a better way than to explore how people from all over the world celebrate their own Thanksgiving and how people all around the US add their unique traditions as well.

Growing up in a Mexican-American household, Thanksgiving is a perfect example of how two culture can fuse together while still bringing unique traditions to the table (no pun intended!).

While we have the traditional Turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, you can’t expect to sit at my family’s table without also having tortillas and Mexican rice. And instead of only saying Happy Thanksgiving, we also say “Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias”, with a combination of Spanish, English, and even Spanglish conversations all around the table.

And with so many different cultures in the United States, I know my family isn’t the only one to incorporate different cultural foods or traditions into a very traditional American holiday. Take a look at how Arabic cuisine can incorporate “…hummus, tabouli salad, garlic dip, batata harra, which is sautéed potatoes, as an alternative to the mashed potatoes,”  as  Denise Hazime, of Mediterranean cooking website DedeMed.com explains.

Other countries also celebrate Thanksgiving in their own way. The day and way of celebrating may be different, but it is clear that traditions, culture, and most importantly, giving thanks, are always the main components of this special day.

In what ways do you add your own flavor to Thanksgiving?

Happy Halloween from Mango

Some of us here at Mango have dressed up to wish everyone a very fun-filled and happy Halloween!

In that spirit, check out these fantastic photos of Halloween Around the World from The Huffington Post and fill us in on your favorite Halloween traditions!

Cheers to Oktoberfest

“O zapft ‘is!” These are the words (a Bavarian term meaning, “it’s tapped!”) that each year mark the start of Munich’s massive Oktoberfest celebrations.  And when we say massive (or riesig, as Germans would say), we really mean massive.  Last year’s Oktoberfest pulled in approximately 6.4 million visitors, who collectively consumed about 7.1 million liters of beer!  (In addition to almost 90,000 liters of wine, more than 119,000 pork sausages, and over 500,000 units of chicken!)

While many tourists of course focus on beer as the primary attraction of Oktoberfest, the festival truly has so much more to offer in terms of entertainment, culture, and fun.  Take for example, the fantastic Bavarian bands that play in the beer tents from morning to night.  They keep the crowds alive with a hearty mix of traditional songs, Schlager (kitschy pop music popularized during the 60s and 70s), and modern hits….stopping every so often to lead the crowd in a “Prosit”, or musical toast, after which the crowd lift their massive krugs of beer in the air and chant the phrase “oans, zwoa, drei, g’suffa!” (a toast in Bavarian dialect which means “one, two, three, drink up!”)

But the music isn’t the only thing to envy about the Oktoberfest.  They also serve an array of fantastic food, including Hendl (roast chicken), Schweinehaxen (pork knuckles), Kartoffelsalat (potato salad), Schoko-oderglasierteFrüchte (chocolate-covered or glazed fruits) and Lebkuchenherzen (heart-shaped gingerbread cookies).  The Lebkuchenherzen are sold on hanging ribbons and each are emblazoned with a term/phrase of endearment written in icing (like Ichhabdich so lieb = “I love you so much,” or Schatz = “sweetheart,” literally “treasure”).  Oktoberfest-goers like to purchase these treats for their significant others, so it’s not uncommon to see men and women walking around with a Lebkuchenherz hanging from their neck.  Some choose to eat the gingerbread right away while others hang it on their wall at home as a souvenir from the festival, allowing it to dry out and become an ornament.

And you can’t forget the rides!  Each year a number of carnival rides, including a full roller-coaster, are constructed on the Theresienwiese (meaning “the field, or meadow, of Therese”) in Munich.  The Theresienwieseis often just called “theWiesn” for short, so if you hear somebody saying “I’ll meet you on the Wiesn,” that means that they’re planning to meet you at the Oktoberfest!

In celebration of Oktoberfest, we are offering an Oktoberfest course for a limited time. So  jump into your lederhosen and learn how speak, and not just yodel,  German for Oktoberfest. Click HERE to start learning!

Do you have a special way of celebrating Oktoberfest?  Have you ever been to Oktoberfest in Munich?  Please share with us your favorite stories about this festive time of year!

Happy Kwanzaa

A lot of people know the religious and commercial aspects of Christmas but there is another holiday that is very important. It is observed for seven days from December 26th-January 1st. Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture and began in 1966.

The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning first fruits of the harvest. And according to wikipedia celebrates “African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of African traditions and Nguzu Saba, the “seven principles of blackness” which Karenga said “is a communitarian African philosophy”.

Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:

* Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
* Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
* Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
* Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
* Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
* Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
* Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Do you celebrate Kwanzaa? Please share a picture or one of your traditions with us!

Passover: Hebrews of the World, Eat Up!

Many believe that Hannukah is the Jewish parallel of Christmas, but the
real festive event of the Jewish calendar–when families unite,
children get the best presents, and grown-ups are going mental over
preparations–is Passover.  The Passover is celebrated in memory of the
biblical Exodus, when the Israelites were saved from a life of slavery
in Egypt.  In the days of the ancient Jewish kingdom this holiday was
merged with agricultural spring festivities.  One of the reasons that the
Passover has become so important is that it commemorates the key event
in the birth of the Jewish nation.

The ancient and complex traditions of Passover, combined with the modern
way of life, creates interesting holiday customs.  Many know that Jews
are not allowed to eat leavened bread during the week of Passover and
that they have to opt for matzos instead.  It is a little known fact that
in order to fill the commandment instructing Jews to look for leavened
products and take it away before the holiday, some housewives hide small
sacks with breadcrumbs around the house and let their husband look for
them, carrying a traditional candle.  The Seder gathering itself, which
is the main Passover event, is conducted after everybody is ridiculously
tired because of cleaning, cooking, preparing or long distance
traveling.  It begins with a long reading and singing of the Haggadah, a
compilation of ancient texts about Passover, around the dinner table–
the family members are taking turns reading it–and it ends with a
mammoth-sized traditional dinner.  One ornamented silver cup is filled
with sweet wine and left on the table for the prophet Elijah, who should
come when everyone’s asleep (through the traditionally open front door)
and take a sip.

The children get a special treats during the Seder. They are supposed to
find a specific matzo, called the Afikoman, which was hidden away, steal
it carefully, and negotiate with the head of the family for its return
in exchange for a generous present.  My memories as a child from the
Passover Seder include haggling with my grandfather, who was a vicious
negotiator, over the gifts I wanted and losing miserably; my uncles and
aunties fight each other passionately and bitterly, and my grandmother
trying to make peace; singing all the songs; my father telling the same
jokes he tells every year; the great food, including squeezed grape
juice, Gefilte Fish with horseradish, roast beef with potatoes,
eggplants in tomato sauce; and Elijah’s cup in the next morning,
standing on the table half empty.

My uncle told us years later that it was him, sneaking in the middle of
the night and drinking Elijah’s wine, but all the other uncles and aunts
agree that he is a well-known liar and no-one should believe a word he
says.