New Year — Tradition of Different Countries, Through The Eyes of Numerous People

by Cindi Sutter, Founder & Editor Spirited Table®—content provided by MRINAL WALIA

Russian folk wisdom says — how many heads, so many opinions. The same can be said about the various New Year traditions of residents of different countries of the world.

In Hungary, for example, on New Year’s Eve, it is impossible to find children’s whistles, socks, pipes in the afternoon with fire. Why are there so many children, or are Hungarian children so fond of music? You ask.

Well, I do not! It’s just that, according to the traditions of these people, any harmful spirits cannot stand (excuse the pun) the piercing sounds of these instruments and just fly away in different directions at the speed of light.

Well-being and joy, on the contrary, appear in dwellings, attracted by the same sounds.

On New Year’s Eve, you just have to eat a pea in Latvia. This is the only way to get what you want in the new year.

In some villages of France, 100 years ago, there was such an amusing tradition: the hostess, who was the first to take water from the spring, had to leave there a pie baked with her own hands.

Each next woman took a lying pie and left her own. In this way, the whole village exchanged buns and good New Year’s wishes in one day.

On New Year’s Eve, stones are held in high esteem in Greece! Do not be surprised — not precious, but ordinary pebbles were taken somewhere on the pavement or by the stream. Entering the house, hospitable owners, the guest should leave him with the words: “Let the wealth of the owners be as heavy as this stone.”

In Bulgaria, the lights are turned off immediately after the new year. No, don’t think that this is the intrigue of the local Bulgarian energy company.

It’s just that all loving couples kiss at this time, so the New Year in this country is also called the holiday of kissing.

Go ahead. On New Year’s Eve in Colombia, many people appear on the streets with dolls in their hands. This is a symbol of the old year with which they say goodbye and people thank the dolls for all the good and good that happened to them in the past year.

An interesting question — how do different peoples meet the new year, in other countries and on different continents.

We roughly know how Europeans and Americans rejoice in the New Year. Still, other peoples with their traditions and cultural roots of the New Year holidays, at times, remain a mystery to us.

For example, there is not one new year in India, but eight!

One of these days is Gudi Padwa. During the day, you must definitely eat the leaves of the nim-nim tree. Since, according to legend, they save a person from illness, anxiety, and worries and make life sweet and pleasant, like the leaves of the nim-nim itself.

The whole next year depends on how you spend this day — you cannot be sleepy and sleep for a long time. Otherwise, you will sleep through all happiness and good luck in the new year. It is also not suitable to be irritable, displeased, and grumpy. Otherwise, the gods will not give you their blessings.

During the day, there are mass festivities, kites soar into the sky, and men compete in archery accuracy.

At night, the celebrations get especially wild and almost wild.

Similar traditions exist in other countries. In some African tribes. During the meeting of the new year, residents gather for ritual dances in which they worship the spirits of fire, water, and forest. This is even though, for several centuries, the inhabitants of the Abija tribe have been considered exemplary Christians.

In Mongolia, luck in the new year depends on the number of guests brought to the yurt. The more people the owner treats with kumis and dried horse meat, the more luck he will be given in the new year. So no one on this day spares money for food, and any guest, even from a poor and unknown family, is honored like a padishah.

In general, one thing can be said — in the celebration of the new year, Christian and pre-Christian traditions and other religious and cultural paradigms of different peoples are closely intertwined.

You can write a lot about the peculiarities of celebrating the New Year in different countries. However, still, it is worth highlighting one common feature — this is the desire of people for happiness, their sincere faith in a bright future, and the eternal struggle for their well-being.

New Year In Japan-An exciting and somewhat unusual new year meeting in this Asian country.

In the peculiarities of the celebration, whole historical, cultural, and religious layers of the traditions of Japanese society were mixed. Here you can see both Buddhist roots and the gray laws of Shintoism — the ancient religion of the Japanese and echoes of the great Tao.

New Year is celebrated here with bells playing in churches, 108 beats. Yes, precisely 108 blows and not an impact, more or less.

Why exactly so many?

It’s all about the philosophy of the Japanese. They believe that every person is subject to 6 vices: greed, anger, stupidity, frivolity, indecision, and desire, which corrode the human insides and destroy the harmony of the universe.

Each of the vices, moreover, has 18 different varieties of shades. If you multiply these numbers, you get 108 — the total number of human disabilities. With each new bell beat, one of the vices dies, and purification occurs.

As soon as the echo of the last blow resonates in the echoing silence, it is already necessary to go out and rejoice in the New Year that has come with the first rays of the sun.

People begin to congratulate each other and not only Happy New Year, but also Happy Birthday. The fact is that after the 108th blow, all the inhabitants of Japan seem to grow up for a year. Even if the child was born yesterday, he is already considered one year old on New Year’s morning.

The Japanese rejoice, dance, sing and exchange gifts.

The subordinate will definitely visit his boss and present him with modest gifts since excesses can be perceived as an attempt at bribery. As soon as dusk falls to the ground and the streets begin to empty quickly — it is customary to spend New Year’s Eve in the circle of relatives at the family hearth.

This is how it is, ancient and eternally young Japan, the country of sakura and chrysanthemums, united east and west, age-old wisdom, and all the latest scientific achievements.

It is a country that carefully preserves its old traditions and has preserved its face in our time of frenzied progress and unification of cultural achievements.