Most countries already have many holidays. In my country, China, we have nineteen official holidays. However, I believe that my new holiday, "Walking Day" would be very beneficial and should be added to the nineteen holidays China already has. In this essay, I will outline the three main reasons why "Walking Day" would be a very good holiday.
First, walking is good exercise. As we all know, people all over the world are becoming busier and busier. They are studying more and more so that they can have better jobs. When they work, they are working more and more. As a result, people have less time for other important things in their lives, including exercise. We can read reports in the newspapers everyday about people who have worse health and complain about poor health condition. Many of these problems could be reduced by exercising more and walking is one of the best and simplest exercises for people.
Second, by walking, we can reduce pollution and thereby protect the environment. As technology improves all over the world and people have more and more money, they are starting to use this money to buy automobiles. As a result, people are using public transportation less and less. Driving one's own car every day has had a very large impact on the environment as a result of the pollution created by gas burning automobiles. Walking is the perfect way to reduce pollution since there are so many other benefits as well.
Finally, by walking, people can slow down the pace of their lives. Perhaps this is one of the greatest benefits of walking more. Life at the beginning of the new millennium is stressful--people are competing with each other for better jobs, countries and companies are competing with each other for business. Many people start to forget about the importance of slowing down in their lives, of simply enjoying the moment. People need to contemplate life more. Walking is a perfect opportunity to slow down, think about life, and simply enjoy the big, beautiful world that we live in.
Finally, we could celebrate this holiday by encouraging people to walk instead of driving or taking the bus for at least one trip during the day. I believe that people could find at least one trip during the day that they could make on foot instead of some other form of transportation. For example, if people usually drive to a large supermarket to buy food, perhaps they could walk to a closer, smaller market to buy only a few things. I believe that while people were walking, they would be able to enjoy the exercise and the fresh air and would be able to think calmly and clearly.
In short, if I had to create a new holiday, I would create "Walking Day" because of the many simple benefits it could provide us.
October 24 is Union Nations Day. The day is noted in the calendars, but not observed as a holiday around the world. I want the entire world to celebrate the birth of the United Nations because of its attempts to promote peace, education, and health around the world.
Peace is the most important thing that we can have today. The sooner that we can stop war the sooner we can all have better lives. There are countries around the world that have been at war for generations. In some of these countries, UN Peacekeepers have temporarily stopped the violence so people can go about their lives. If this peace could be made lasting, the lives of these citizens would be much richer.
The UN actively works to promote education. Universal literacy is one of its important goals. Every child in the world deserves to know how to read and write. The UN is also involved in job training for adults. The age of information technology demands new job skills.-The UN works with continuing education programs around the world so workers are not left out of the job market.
The UN has played an instrumental role in the eradication of smallpox. Polio vaccines and AIDS-awareness programs have also helped reduce the incidence of these diseases. There is a lot to be done in these areas.
Much of the work of the UN is unknown and underappreciated. If we want to live in a peaceful world, where every child can attend school and where every citizen has access to health care, we need to support the work of the UN. We need to recognize its importance and celebrate its birthday.
If I could create a new holiday, it would be a holiday that honors the freedom and progress of the Afghan women. I would established the holiday to multiply efforts of the Feminist Majority Foundation with the Campaign to help Afghan Women and young girls to ensure that women's rights are fully and permanently restored after the fall of the Taliban regime, which symbolized the brutality against the women in Afghanistan in the past years.
When the Taliban took control in 1996, they instituted a gender apartheid for the women. They imposed strict
edicts such as banished women from the work force, closed school to girls, expelled women from universities, prohibited women from leaving their home unless accompanied by a close male relative, forced women to use the burga or chadari, paint windows of women's houses black, prohibited women from being examined by male physicians, while at the same time prohibited most female doctors and nurses from practicing.
The reality for the women during Taliban control shows a lot of horrors against the women who defied the rules of the Taliban and were severely punished. For example some girls were killed in front of their families because they run to the schools; some women were brutally heated because their ankle was accidentally showed from underneath their burga. Two women accused of prostitution were publicly hanged in the stadium.
Today, after the fall of Taliban, women can leave their homes without the escort of a male family member. They no longer have to cram into the back of buses and give up their seats to men. They can get their hair and nails done in beauty salons that have opened up all over Kabul. Girls can go to school, and young women to universities, where they sometimes even share classrooms with men. Being a woman can sometimes be an advantage in the job market. In Kabul, Indian models are admired for their fashion, but many Afghan women still wear the traditional burqa.
I would like that the people celebrate the new holiday by publishing the advances of the campaign through web sites, organizing some lectures about the progress of the afghan women, promoting scholarships for women to study, and encouraging the women from all over the world to maintain the faith to pursue the dreams.
The reason why I would create an international holiday for the Afghan women is because the international community must now act to ensure that women's rights are fully and permanently restored, to reestablish a constitutional democracy in Afghanistan that is representative of women and ethnic minorities, and to show an example to women of the world of how can we solve difficulties in this way.
