ANZAC Day is equivalent to the US Memorial Day. For the week leading up to the holiday, businesses sell paper poppies that are to be worn on ANZAC Day and then placed on some sort of monument or statue in remembrance of New Zealand and Australian soldiers who fought in WWI.
On the morning of ANZAC Day, pre-dawn ceremonies are held at major cities and towns across New Zealand and Australia. The ceremony at the Auckland War Memorial Museum started around 6:30. It was kind of erie walking with hundreds of people up to this museum in the pitch black.
The ceremony itself was pretty short and focused. It seemed like it was an event that had been practiced dozens of times, but there was still meaning in every speech and exercise. The timing of the event made the biggest impression on me. Standing in the dark with thousands of people may be erie, but standing with such a large group in total darkness and silence for two minutes is completely sobering.
Personally, I much prefer the ANZAC Day ceremonies to Memorial Day ceremonies. Sometimes, memorial day speeches and ceremonies can get bogged down in making sure the attendees remember how much our soldiers gave to ensure peace and freedom. We are asked to remember the sacrifices that were made. ANZAC Day focuses more on the soldiers, not the sacrifices. People don't walk away feeling guilty or ashamed. I think a big reason the speeches are so short is because everyone has already made the gesture of waking up at 5:30. The thousands of adults, kids, college students, teenagers, grandparents that show up wouldn't wake themselves up that early if ANZAC Day didn't mean anything to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment