Not so horny

“GOING to another country doesn’t make any difference,” wrote Ernest Hemingway in “The Sun Also Rises”. Some Americans have taken his words to heart. Instead of flying to Spain for the Pamplona bull-running fiesta (made famous by Hemingway’s novel), many opt for a local imitation. The Great Bull Run, founded last year by two American entrepreneurs with no Spanish background, has staged bovine spectacles in Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis and California. Last month some 3,000 revellers ran with bulls at a county fairground near San Francisco. “Now I can cross this off my bucket list,” says Michelle de Putron, one of the runners.

It is cheaper to run with bulls at home than abroad. It may also be safer. At least 15 people have died in Pamplona’s bull run since Hemingway visited in 1923. Nobody has died during the Great Bull Run, though some have been trampled. In Pamplona the bulls are bred for aggression and their horns are specially sharpened. In America they use milder bulls and blunt their horns. Rather than twisty city streets, the Great Bull Run is held on a customised earth course with easy-to-scale fencing.

Yet some worrywarts still think it too perilous. The fire department has denied permission for a bull run in Los Angeles in November. And two animal-rights groups are trying to block all future bull runs in California, claiming they violate state anti-cruelty laws. The Great Bull Run’s organisers were considering spicing things up next year by renting more aggressive bulls and sharpening their horns. Instead, they may have to tame the event down.

Being hit with a tomato is usually less painful than being gored by a bull. Nonetheless, the American version of another Spanish festival, La Tomatina, comes with multiple safeguards. At Tomato Royale (which accompanies each Great Bull Run), crowds who pelt each other with soft red fruit must wear protective eyewear. Unlike their Spanish counterparts, they are also barred from aiming at heads or at anyone within ten feet.

Immigrants have long marked their dual loyalties by recreating ethnic festivals, from St Patrick’s Day to Cinco de Mayo, which celebrates a Mexican victory over the French in 1862. Such transplants are a way “for immigrants to weave themselves into the American story,” says Jonathan Zimmerman of New York University.

If they are fun, they quickly become festivals for all. And the American version is often bigger and brasher than the original. The St Patrick’s Day parades in New York attract more spectators than the entire population of Dublin. Highland games in Chicago feature novel contests such as haggis-hurling. The Americanised Cinco de Mayo is promoted by tequila-makers and popularly known as “Cinco de Drinko”. Hemingway might have approved.