AUSTRALASIA, ASIA & AFRICA

I’m just going to go through a few countries that I noticed that had interesting New Years Celebration and I thought I’d share them on my blog. I’ll start off with Part One that will explore countries from the following continents.

NEW ZEALAND

Its these guys that get it first… For them, the new years celebrations are already old before everybody else gets a chance. And the worst thing is, they always get it first. They did get some fireworks going which is a nice way to kick things off, from on top of the Sky Tower!

AUSTRALIA

Australia is known for its special celebrations with amazing fireworks and pyrotechnics. Over a million people show up for the event that takes place in the Sydney Harbor. Considering Australia has a population of 20 million people, that is quite a lot of people.

5% of total Australians gathered in one place. Crikey!

This is what I meant by amazing fireworks and pyrotechnics.

KOREA

Both North Korea and South Korea apparently celebrate the New Year in the same way. Although I believe this might be down not enough information being available about North Korea so somebody just did a copy and paste somewhere.

They call New Year’s Day “Seoll-Nal” and on this day they eat a special soup called “Tteok-Guk“. It’s a hot soup with thin, flat rice cakes and most of the times, eggs are inserted. Apparently if you eat the soup on New Years Day, you get to earn one age. Whatever the hell that means but I guess its some kind of reward.

So an incentive method you would think… But no… The Koreans don’t end there.

They added another twist to the tale. If you don’t eat the special soup on New Years Day, you are cursed with bad luck for the year.

Damn! That’s pretty harsh!

It’s like saying, if you be good you go to Heaven but if you don’t be good, you’re going to Hell.

In that case, it makes a lot of sense… 😛

Tteuk-Guk

JAPAN

On New Year’s Eve the people of Japan welcome “Toshigami”, the New Year’s God by ringing the bells in the Buddhist Temples 108 times.

That is a very large amount of ringing. I wonder what their ears feel like afterwards…

The Japanese also clean their homes and send thank-you cards called “nengajo” that wish a Happy New Year and give thanks to friends and relatives.

I guess its an awesome time to clean the house and thank-you cards are cool too. I like receiving thank-you cards. 🙂

*hint-hint* … Send me some. 😉

Ring a Ding a Ling a Bing….

PHILLIPINES

Now this is an interesting one… The Philippines folk wear polka dotted clothing to mark the new year because the dots represent coins.

The more dots you wear mean the more coins you get?

I’d be Cruella DeVille with the Dalmation Coats!

Nah, I’m just kidding… No Dog’s get harmed in Phillipines… That’s Vietnam.

This little cutey is polking those dots.

SIBERIA

They have a tradition of jumping into a frozen lake while carrying a tree trunk! Yeah, you read that correctly…

They actually JUMP into a FROZEN LAKE whilst carrying a TREE TRUNK!

And you thought singing Auld Lang Syne whilst holding hands was weird…

Not sure how much truth there is in that one but a very interesting tradition.

Did I mention they’re naked…?

SOUTH AFRICA

The South Africans in Johannesburg have a tradition of throwing furniture out of a window to represent the metaphor “out with the old and in with the new”.

Damn Brother! That’s a bit hardcore… That poor piece of furniture could have been donated or something… You don’t need to throw the poor thing out of the window. That’s way too harsh for something that treated you so well.

It’s raining Chairs and Tables!

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That’s all for now folks… Join us again in 12 hours or so for the second part where we explore Europeans Traditions.