As the clock strikes midnight Dec. 31, the world starts to celebrate the New Year. This celebration often includes traditions, music, food and family.
Each country has its own way to celebrate and some countries don’t follow what Americans consider traditional New Year festivities. In the United States, many Americans have fireworks, a traditional dinner with family and watch the ball drop in Times Square.
New Year’s Eve celebrations can look different around the world. While the United States has large fireworks displays, this isn’t the case in Japan.,
Yoshinobu Nakatsuji, junior communications major, and Sora Kuji, junior business marketing major, both from Japan, explained the Japanese culture during the New Year’s celebration.
“We have the tradition of cleaning the house right before the New Year, it is called ōsōji. It’s like cleaning for a new beginning, which is the New Year,” Nakatsuji said. “We eat a special food called osechi … and noodles that we call soba.”
Unlike the US, in some countries such as Nepal, New Year’s is celebrated more than once a year, according to the Gregorian calendar. The next New Year’s will be on April 14. Nepalis also wear specific colors, which represent their caste during the celebration.
Urshula Manandhar, senior finance, economics, and data analytics major, discussed many of the cultural differences between the traditional New Year’s celebration in the US and the traditional celebration in Nepal on this date.
“New Year is very different back home. We have a different calendar [compared to the American calendar], we are in the year 2081 in Nepal … and during New Year there we celebrate like Thanksgiving in the US. We gather as a family, eat together and that is how we want to start the year, with love and family because family for us is everything,” Manandhar said.
Compared to the American New Year, the Mexican celebration is not that different.
“The New Year in Mexico is like here, but there, people have this belief that if you eat 12 grapes under the table during the first minute of the year you will get a partner, or if you wear a specific color you will be attracting [specific things for your life]. In my family, we make this traditional dish called tamales for New Years,” said Lluvia Rodriguez, freshman marketing major.
When the New Year arrives, the whole world has different ways of celebrating, but the central importance remains the same: hope, renewal and the importance of family and tradition. Each culture brings its own way of celebrating to the world, and they all have their importance to history, thus bringing a world of diversity.
Edited by Lexi Hittle and Jeremy Ford