The French call it Joie de vivre… exuberant enjoyment of life. The Italians refer to it as the joy of being alive. The Spanish refer to it as the joy of living. In Greece, it is called KEFI (keffy), a unique blend of joy, spirit, passion; deeply ingrained in Greek culture. It’s more than a word, it’s a lifestyle, a form of expression, an unbridled enthusiasm for life. Since I lived there for 15 years, I was able to enjoy A LOT OF KEFI.
Greece is a peninsula, surrounded by water on 3 sides, with over 6,000 islands, only 227 are inhabited. The mainland is very mountainous, about 80% of the country. In ancient times, each island was a city-state unto itself, until Alexander the Great united all of Greece into one entity. Life on the mainland, and in the mountainous regions, is quite different from island life. The Greek islands are famously beautiful, each one in its own unique and picturesque way.
The Greek people love to have a fun time, with lots of dancing, music, eating, drinking, laughing and singing. Music has been important since ancient times, and there is one musical instrument, a bouzouki (boo-ZOO-kee), a stringed instrument which makes a unique sound. There were special nightclubs where live bouzouki music, acoustic and electric, was played. Loud and raucous, an evening in one could last all night, and sometimes things got wild, that is when I referred to it as “berserk-y.” I saw some brawls, involving lots of people. Often there were belly dancers in city clubs, but on the islands, only the locals would get up and dance, often with 10-15 people in a chain.
So… in the old days when I lived there, this is how exuberant they were. When feeling SO good, happy, singing, dancing, drinking… something had to give, so... plates were broken as a cathartic fun release. It stems from the 1930s and again in the 1960s, but even then, based on ancient custom of wealthy Greeks throwing their dishes in the fire after a banquet, so they would not have to wash them. Apparently, breaking was outlawed in 1969, but when I lived there it was still in full swing. At a tavern or restaurant, plates were grabbed from the tables and tossed deliberately in the air, with shouts “OPA”, which expresses a wide range of emotions… conveying the spirit of Kefi. Opa is frequently shouted at weddings, celebrations, dancing; to express happiness and exhilaration, sometimes (lots of times!) accompanying plate smashing. Opa is a multi-purpose word. A cry of excitement, emotion, shouted during dancing. The broken shards would be on the dance floor and danced upon! Of course you had to PAY for the plates, hopefully prior to breaking them! I saw a spectacle one night, when the entire dance floor was inches deep in broken pottery. In the beginning regular dinner plates were broken, but when they realized how expensive it was…. they started making unglazed, unfired clay plates, which shattered easily, without dangerous sharp edges. I saw a man buy A STACK OF THESE PLATES, about $300 worth, and he stood in front of a friend, a sea captain who had just returned home, after two years at sea; and he broke each plate to honor his friend. The last one broken over his head. My newly-wed husband and I were dancing, and plates were broken all around us, as an honor. Mind you there were metal signs on the walls…. PLATE BREAKING IS FORBIDDEN… but that stopped NO one. Sometimes the whole tavern would be a mass of broken plate debris; cleanup NO fun! Plate breaking happened at home too. We were at relatives, and the tiny aunt had just washed and dried a plate by hand, when she flung it onto the kitchen floor…OPA!
However, on the mainland, plate breaking WAS forbidden, and enforced, with big fines. Their alternative was to throw fresh flowers, which were soft and pretty and could not hurt anyone. You had to BUY these flowers, and there was a price range, from $ carnations to $$$ roses. If you liked a specific musician or dancer, you would shower them with blooms. The dance floor resembled a garden at evening’s end. Back in Atlanta, there was a Greek restaurant, large and popular, which lasted 20 years, named PLAKA, with live music, dancers, Greek food, décor, vibes. They came up with an innovative, inexpensive “breakage”; not plates, or flowers; but paper napkins, which fluttered like clouds when huge handfuls of them were tossed in the air. I’m talking 200 clean white napkins at a time, 100 in each hand, shouting OPA.
It is fun and freeing, albeit wasteful, to engage in throwing; but it’s a memorable feeling. If you accidentally break a plate or glass at home, you cuss, but if you throw it on purpose to ‘let go’ it’s a different feeling. Four years ago, I had a dinner party in my home, there were six of us at the dinner table, with a Greek man present, and four others who had been to Greece. Someone said, “Let’s break a plate!”, so we ALL broke several plates, with fragments all over the room. I found pieces under the sofa much later, but it was FUN!
If you are having a momentous day, try it as a celebratory move…OPA!
Carol Veliotis is a local columnist for The Covington News. She can be reached at carol.veliotis@gmail.com.
