What St. Patrick's Day looks like in Kyrgyzstan

It actually looks like every other day of the past four months: white and snowy. Actually, I hadn't even remembered it was St. Patrick's Day until just now, after dinner, when I noticed mention of the holiday by some Americans posting on Facebook. It's amazing what vanishes from one's consciousness when living in the Kyrgyz mountains.

It is no great tragedy that I have forgotten this day. St. Patrick's Day in America for most seems to be little more than an excuse for drinking copious amounts of green beer and eating plates of corned beef and cabbage. The two times I've visited Ireland and have asked people there about how they celebrate the holiday, they growl and curse at how we in America have erroneously appropriated leprechauns, invented culinary disasters like Shamrock Shakes, and have generally made a stereotypical mockery of Irish culture while simultaneously forgetting the importance and history of Ireland's patron saint.

I have probably also forgotten the holiday because of the slender thread of Irishness I possess. I am exactly 3 1/8 % Irish, probably represented by the reddish hue my beard used to have. Nevertheless, that 3 1/8 % probably makes me the second-most Irish person on campus of a total Irish population of two; but I must admit I am making assumptions about my colleague, Robin Higgins, based strictly upon her last name. If my assumption about my colleague is incorrect and I am the only Irish among us, then it must be depressing to the Hibernophiles reading this that a person with the last name of Krauss, who didn't even remember the significance of the 17th of March until he looked at his Facebook page, is the sole guarantor responsible for the observance of St. Patrick's Day in the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan.

Instead, it is Nowruz, the Persian-originated celebration of New Year's that's been on my mind. Somehow it seems much more wonderful to celebrate the new year on the first day of spring rather than on the first day of January. Nowruz has been much more my focus as I've been engaged in activities like working with the dining staff to organize an appropriate meal for our students on that day. It's surprising how quickly one's cultural references can shift.

So, as I sit at my dining room table, I have decided that there will be no green beer, no digging my green shirt out of the closet, no singing of Danny Boy, or cooking up of cabbage. I won't even root for Notre Dame in the NCAA Basketball Tournament as the "Fighting Irish" enjoy more support than they deserve. Instead, I feel, there's nothing more that can be done on this St. Patrick's Day than to brew up a pot of green tea and to contemplate the great distances one can travel across the years.