So Table Mountain is going green on St Patrick’s Day – great idea.  In case you missed the story, the Ireland Tourism Board persuaded the Cape Town authorities to light up Table Mountain with green spotlights for four hours on the evening of their national day.  It’s to publicise and celebrate the humanitarian work done by Irish agencies in South Africa, to promote Ireland as a tourist destination and to boast that Cape Town is becoming a Green city.  A satisfyingly win-win story all round. Celebrating international anniversaries is a great way for our own product owners to add a little flavour to their tourism dish.  Not only will the nationality concerned feel flattered and important, but other guests should enjoy it as well.  As well as celebrating Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and the like, there are many other lesser-known festivities to put the sparkle in a tourist’s eye.  Here are some examples: New Year’s Eve is synonymous with parties but the Chinese New Year is actually a nicer celebration.  It’s between January 21 and February 20, depending on the phases of the moon.  Traditionally, everyone celebrates their birthday on this day, so your guests can dress in red and gold, feast with chopsticks and dim sum, and get a birthday present. This year is the venerable Chinese year 4708, the Year of the Rabbit. Most countries have a day that sums up their culture, and in Scotland that day is Burns Nicht on January 25, the famous Scottish poet’s birthday.  Men wear skirts, someone murders a set of bagpipes, and the Master of Ceremonies reads poetry to a haggis, ending with a sing-song of Auld Lang Syne.  Despite the peculiar-sounding festivities, the enduring popularity of Burns Nicht has much to do with the obligatory sinking of much Scotch whisky. For the Welsh among your guests, you can always nod in the direction of St David’s Day on March 1 – two days ago, in fact.  Did you wear a leek in your hat or a daffodil in your lapel?  Thought not.  St David, the patron saint of Wales was, according to legend, related to King Arthur, and on his day the Welsh sing in the valleys and speak only Welsh. Coming up soon is the Greek Day of Independence, commemorating Greek freedom from Turkish rule in 1821 and therefore all things Greek.  Greece as we know it has only existed since 1945 – their whole history has been one long fight for independence.  Another important day for Greeks is St George’s Day.  We tend to think of St George as the patron saint of England who slew the dragon and married the princess, but St George is probably more celebrated in Eastern Europe as the saint of agriculture.  So you can cover any number of nationalities with St George. May or June sees international Dragon Boat Festivals, and South Africa has one or two very active Dragon Boat Societies in Gauteng and the Western Cape.  The purpose of this Chinese Festival is to mimic dragons fighting in the heavens and to trick them into letting loose some rain for the crops. July 4 is, of course, the Fourth of July and needs no explanation.  Americans celebrate with picnics, barbecues and fireworks. We can do the same with a red-white-and-blue braai. The Jewish New Year in September or October has some complicated customs that require a bit of research and are bound up closely with the religious significance of the holiday, but it is also regarded as a day for casting off old sins, examining your life and eating apples dipped in honey in hopes of a sweet new year. October, in fact, is chockful of holidays, which will keep any respectable party-goer quite occupied.  There is Oktoberfest to celebrate the hop harvest with sausage, sauerkraut and beer; and Halloween, which is largely a harmless American adoption of an ancient Celtic ritual.  Kids have enthusiastically embraced Halloween because of the promise of sweets, and Halloween parties are a good excuse to dress up more scarily than usual. No one in South Africa should miss Diwali, the festival of lights, one of the prettiest and most affirming festivals, whether you are Hindu or not.  Each of the four days in October or November celebrates something different.  For Hindus it is an explosion of life, joy and goodness, for the rest of us it is occasion to be nice to everyone, sample those most wonderful Diwali sweetmeats, look back on our successes and vow not to repeat the failures, and make our resolutions by lamplight. And finally, on November 25 we can celebrate St Catherine’s Day – the patron saint of single ladies.  Catherine was a Christian who was martyred around AD 307 because she refused to marry a heathen Roman emperor.  Ever since then, unmarried women have celebrated that fact that they don’t need the company of any Roman emperor with leaves on his head in order to be fabulous. So… roll around St Catherine’s Day so that I can drink to that!