Practically speaking

It never really occurs to a lot of people that Chinese are incredibly practically minded when it comes to certain things. Sure, in the movies and common stereotypes we're taught to think that they're pretty inscrutable, with overly ornate and poetic names for things like "The Garden of Heavenly Lily Ponds overlooked by the Pagoda of Everlasting Fortitude." Reality is somewhat different. Take the days of the week for example, while we have the meaningless (to most) names of Monday, Tuesday, et cetera, the Chinese just call these day one, day two, up until day six, finishing with sun day. Months are another example, month one, month two. Sure, it's a lot easier to learn, but there's no sense of wonder about it. Maybe it's just me, but I find it really interesting that Friday was named after Frig (or Freya possibly), a norse goddess of something-or-other and that Thursday is named after Thor, Norse god of thunder. Ditto with the Roman origins of July and August. Okay, some places have incredibly long names, but they're usually just including unnecessary detail rather than hiding any deeper meanings. I guess I'm a little torn about the whole thing. As a student of Chinese it's much easier to learn these than to learn semi-random stuff like Tuesday and Thursday (which everyone I've taught mixes up sooner or later), but as a know-all git it's really nice to be able to come up with some really random piece of useless information. In the end I guess it's all about stories, and who doesn't like a good story?