五月來了; May-day

五月天

告訴學生: 五月天的真正意思

May-day

 

Meaning:

1. The first day of May, a traditional European holiday celebrating the onset of spring.

春天的第一天

2. International Labor Day in some countries, mostly socialist ones.

國際勞工節

3. The international distress signal for aircraft and other vessels.

船難求救訊號

Notes: May Day is the ancient celebration of spring, whose origins are lost in the annals of time. By the Middle Ages it was a festival to bring fertility to the fields. The May Queen is a holdover from the selection of a virgin to be transported over the fields as part of that ritual in Europe. Prior to that young girls would roam the fields in hopes of transferring their fertility to the crops.

More recently, the holiday has been preempted by the labor movement as International Labor Day, officially celebrated in socialist nations. May 1 is not labor day in the United States despite attempts to make it such by the American Federation of Labor—the AFL of today's AFL-CIO—because labor unions declared the eight-hour work week on that day in 1884.