Remembrance Day is a significant day where people across the UK stop and think of those who have served previous wars including the 1st and 2nd world wars, and have sadly died in them. We think also of those who have died in recent years, battling on the frontline in conflicting countries across the Middle East like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here are 10 facts about Remembrance Day you may find interesting to know . I got them from a website (http://www.stgeorges.co.uk/blog/london-student-life/10-facts-about-Remembrance-Day-and-poppies) :

1. Remembrance Day is on the 11th of November every year.

2. It is an event that commemorates the end of World War 1, which ended on ‘the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’ in 1918.

3. A 2 minute silence is held at 11am to remember all the soldiers who died in all wars (not just the First World War). This 2 minute silence is normally observed throughout London and The UK and in some parts of The Commonwealth.

4. Today, Remembrance Day is on Tuesday, but ‘Remembrance Sunday’ is always held on the second Sunday in November (the nearest Sunday to the 11th of November)

5. On Remembrance Sunday, HRH The Queen, members of The Royal Family, top politicians and V.I.P.s attend a big ceremony at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London (this is very near to The Houses of Parliament, Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives and Buckingham Palace). This memorial service is always shown on live television in the UK.

6. It is also called Poppy Day. The poppy is the symbol of the fallen soldier from World War One.

7. Poppies grew in many of the fields in Flanders, Belgium where battles took place. The red colour of the poppies symbolised the blood spilled in the war.

8. Poppies were mentioned in the First World War poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Lieutenant Colonel John McRae from Canada. The poem was very popular at the time and so the poppy was used to raise money for soldiers.

In Flanders Fields

BY JOHN MCCRAE
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

9. Paper poppies are sold every year in the weeks before Remembrance Sunday to raise money for soldiers and families of soldiers.

10. All TV presenters, politicians and lots of people around the UK wear a poppy in the weeks before Poppy Day. You can even buy a Remembrance Poppy to put on the front of your car. 

My thoughts on Remembrance Day.

To lose a loved one; whether it be a brother, sister or a friend is tough. An immeasurable pain comes as a consequence to a passing of a loved one. When I think of those who’ve sacrificed their lives for the sake of the nation, I cannot begin to comprehend the aching hearts of their mothers, wives, husbands, fathers, children, siblings or friends. The life of each and every soldier who serves, is so worthy of being loved and recognised for their efforts on this special day. Through reflection, I realise how fortunate I am to be in a righteous country as the UK, whereby the dedication of past soldiers till present is so tenderly moving.

It’s emotional and every time I think of how many lives have been lost, my heart sinks. I sincerely hope for their families to live securely, comforted in knowing these soldiers are at peace, and they have left behind a legacy recognised by all of us. They are so loved. They are never forgotten, and I pray to the skies His presence can comfort the hearts of their families.

War is a struggle, but the bravery and courage of these soldiers shines, as the beauty of their character behind their name shines. I wish for peace in the world but above all I wish for peace in the hearts of those who need it most. A poppy, I wear with gratitude. A poppy, I wear for their families. A poppy, I wear for them, and the legacy each and every soldier has left behind.

God Bless All.

In the painting above, I copied a black and white photograph of a soldier on the frontline. I decided to paint his uniform with gold, bronze and shimmery white as I wanted to show how precious they are to us. Serving with courage to save their nation, they are eternal treasure to us all. I will leave you with a poem I wrote few years ago for Remembrance Day. I apologise for my calligraphy skills. I’m very beginner. I hope you can read it. Enjoy.

Halloween. An annual occasion that happens on the 31st October. Where does Halloween originate from? Well, taken from a site on Google, it mentions:

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. (https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween)

Interesting.

Personally, I never really know what to think about Halloween. Perhaps its because my mother always regarded it as something ‘silly’ for she never liked the concept of people dressing up in scary costumes. And so my siblings and I never got to celebrate it the way our neighbours did or the way our friends did. My mum never allowed us to go Trick or Treating, not that we were desperate to go or anything, so we were all pretty okay with missing out on the occasion. Besides, turning the lights off and pretending we were not in, always left us sniggering quietly as a game we’d like to play on the trick or treaters during our childhood. I guess we didn’t completely miss out on the fun on Halloween Day. At times when my mum forgot it was Halloween and there were no sweets in the cupboard, she would resort to placing tangerines in their hands so swiftly while saying (Korean accent)‘helsey lipe’ (healthy life) putting on her best fake smile in face of bloody zombie masks, witches, ghouls and skeletons. I think she was crying on the inside… hehe.

Well, I don’t like horror so much or anything surrounding these scary characters on Halloween. But I’ve always been so intrigued by people’s efforts into dressing up so scary looking and the culture of trick or treating.

One person smashed an egg on the window of the bus I was on this Halloween. My reaction was like…okay. They probably didn’t have many sweets and let their frustration out on the bus. Poor bus.

But yeah my sister took my nieces out down for Trick or Treating in Berlin, where they live. She mentioned they discovered their local area organises a proper police patrolled walk through the are with bagpipes and drums with kids shouting ‘Bonbon Regen!’ (Means ‘candy rain!’ And people throw sweets down from their windows and shops. And my gosh they got sooooo many sweeets!!!! I was shocked.

And then a little voice in the corner of my mind whispered..if only you did this when you were a child. Would have been a piece of heaven you’d have experienced…………o well. Life goes on. Haha

So. I will now leave you with a few photos of me, a ghoulish makeover I did to myself, to symbolically taste the thrill of looking a bit spooky on this continuing culture of Halloween. I’m not really looking happy because I didn’t go Trick or Treating haha…though I think I can do with a fried egg 😉

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful ‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

A Reflection on ‘Mirror’

This poem is beautifully conveyed, shedding light upon the bittersweet tension between our inner and outer selves. How she raises the complexities surrounding a woman’s beauty, reflected in a mirror is rather captivating. I felt in such a short poem, it made me think about the nature of being a woman and how delusional I can be towards beauty. And perhaps the notion of ageing beauty. How will I feel about myself in the next 30 years?

Here is a little summary I copy and pasted from a site :

https://www.gradesaver.com/sylvia-plath-poems/study-guide/summary-mirror

‘Most of the time, the mirror looks across the empty room and meditates on the pink speckled wall across from it. It has looked at that wall for so long that it describes the wall as “part of my heart.” The image of the wall is interrupted only by people who enter to look at themselves and the darkness that comes with night.

The mirror imagines itself as a lake. A woman looks into it, trying to discern who she really is by gazing at her reflection. Sometimes, the woman prefers to look at herself in candlelight or moonlight, but these are “liars” because they mask her true appearance. Only the mirror (existing here as lake) gives her a faithful representation of herself.

Because of this honesty, the woman cries and wrings her hands. Nevertheless, she cannot refrain from visiting the mirror over and over again, every morning. Over the years, the woman has “drowned a young girl” in the mirror, and now sees in her reflection an old woman growing older by the day. This old woman rises toward her out of the mirror like “a terrible fish.”The slippery and unnerving “fish” in the poem may represent that unavoidable, darker self that cannot help but challenge the socially acceptable self.

The mirror actually dominates and interprets its world, and thus has a lot more power than it seems to suggest. It does not merely reflect what it sees, but also shapes those images for our understanding

Overall, “Mirror” is a melancholy and even bitter poem that exemplifies the tensions between inner and outer selves, as well as indicates the preternaturally feminine “problem” of aging and losing one’s beauty.’

Sylvia Plath was one of the defining voices of the twentieth century poetry. She passed away in 1963. I do love her poems, I recommend you check her poems out.