Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Zwarte Piets, Holland

Tomorrow is Sinterklaas festival in Holland and these are the Zwarte Piets, the helpers who go around giving lots of candy and presents to the kids. My 5-month old loves hanging out with them - I guess it is the colours - or maybe it is love...
There has been a lot of debate about the political correctness of the Piets, to be honest - as long as they put smiles on the faces of little children - there must be something right about them....Happy Holidays!

6 comments:

  1. Never heard of this! I am liking this theme already :)

    What an interesting concept...is the debate over the issue of slavery at one point or?

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes basically - zwarte means black, the fact that the helper is called black-face is the main grouse against them.

    they started piets with mult-coloured faces but, the concept so ingrained that it does not appeal to the kids nor their parents ...kind of like making santa coloured...

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks for sharing it....this is where I first learnt of them...and that was yesterday :)

    http://ginniehart.blogspot.com/2007/12/sinterklaas.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Like Shaira said - I love this blog for bringing such interesting aspects of our world oto one forum...

    ReplyDelete