Any birthday is the day to paaar-taay. Or is it? Let’s check out some of the most interesting birthday traditions around the world! Cheers!
Photo Credit: Pexels
Eastern Europe – Pulling Ears
In many countries in this area, like Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, etc., the tradition is to pull the ears of the honorees. The elderly used to do it to kids only, but these days, everybody does it. Pulling someone’s ears – and it hurts a bit – is done to wish someone to “grow tall and healthy.“
South Korea – Seaweed Soup
In this East Asian country, they eat 미역국 (miyeok guk), or seaweed soup, for their birthday breakfast. It’s packed with nutrients and women who are breastfeeding eat it, too. Say what? Ok, let’s not judge. These people obviously take better care of their health than this corn-dog nation right here.
Canada – Butter On Nose
Our neighbors, especially Canadians in the east part of the country, do it differently, as well. They love slabbing butter on the nose of the one who celebrates, calling it “nose greasing.“ This tradition is supposedly going to make bad luck difficult to “stick“ to you. And we just want to ask – where’s the maple syrup?
India – Shave It All Of, Boys
Indians of the Hindu religion perform a mundun, a head-shaving ritual on babies and children before their first or third birthday. This tradition serves to “shave off“ all the bad energy from the past lives and protect the child. If this really works, can we all just shave our worries off? No? Okay.
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Do you enjoy the birthday traditions? Because there’s more where that came from!
WTR?
No offense to any of the countries listed, but a nice morning breakfast and a dinner is just fine, I’ll skip the nose butter and shaving, thanks.
