shabat shalom

last week I went with lucas to a "party in the woods" here in Asturias.
they called it "Celtic night".   there were bands playing live traditional celtic music.   bagpipes, accordion, flute.....   very much like Irish and Scottish music.    you might think, hmm, a relaxed cultural evening with sophisticated - sensitive 40 and over year-olds.
totally wrong !   looking at the very young, very energetic, heavy-metal-shirts ravers jumping up and down, head banging when the cool sunglassed bagpiper gives his best, I started wondering.

another thing, you know sidra ?  probably only if you visited this region of Spain.   it´s an alcoholic apple drink, something like apple beer, which has a unique way of drinking.   I almost got expelled from the country while expressing a wish to pour the drink simply to the glass.   the ONLY way to do it is holding the bottle (same bottles, no labels) high above your head and pouring a SMALL amount of it to the glass (same glasses, no labels), low under your waist.   you drink in one drag, leave a bit in the glass and empty it on the ground (wherever you are).   you use only one glass even if you´re sharing with twenty friends.
you might think, hmm, another traditional-tourist-attraction.
wrong again!

this combination of wild parties with hundreds of happy sidra drunkers dancing wildly to traditional music made me wonder even more.   why in Israel, for example, it doesn´t work this way ?   I searched for the reasons in history, mentality, wars, even the weather...   in the end I realized it´s much more simple than that.
I mean, in Israel, (for example, yes ?)  the traditional folk music is either imported russian communistic songs from the forties-fifties, with very boring round-circles-holding-hands dances, "public singing" performed in big spaces, all people, 50 and more year-olds, sitting happily with the texts printed in copy machines little books, singing the same songs for 60 years.   or the other part, which is a bit happier but still has problems recruiting the young and lets say more advanced, is the "mediterranean style" which is very often just a low pop version of other, greek or arabic-like music.
and the traditional food ?   gefiltefish ?   falafel ?   hmmmm, I doubt it will have the same effect as sidra.

so, to conclude.   if you happen to find old traditions still practiced by "contemporary" people, or a younger generation, you don´t have to be a philosopher or an ethnic historian to realize.....  they´re simply GOOD.