A New Year's Eve celebration isn't always fireworks. Sometimes it's colourful underwear, dark-haired men rushing into Scottish houses, and smashing plates.
In this episode, we'll explore the most unusual New Year's Eve traditions around the world.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on December 29th, so it’s not only the last episode of the year, but it’s also the last episode before New Year’s Eve.
[00:00:33] So, to mark this occasion, the subject of today’s episode is going to be The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:00:42] On this fun little journey we’ll come across colourful underwear, dark haired men rushing into Scottish houses, falling fridges, grapes, bells and smashing plates.
[00:00:53] OK then, The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:01:01] A few years ago, at about this time of year, I was given what seemed to be a strange gift by my father-in-law, by my wife’s father.
[00:01:12] It was late December, and he presented me with a pair of red boxer shorts, a pair of red underwear.
[00:01:21] It didn’t seem to be ironic, it wasn’t some kind of joke, it was a genuine present.
[00:01:28] But to me, it seemed strange. I mean, in the UK giving underwear to your son-in-law, especially bright red underwear, would elicit some raised eyebrows, it would be considered rather strange.
[00:01:44] I asked my wife about it, and she laughed.
[00:01:48] See, my father in law, and my wife for that matter, are Italian, and as the Italians among you will know, in Italy giving someone red underwear to wear on New Year’s Eve is the done thing, it's something that many people traditionally do on New Year’s Eve.
[00:02:07] Now my wife didn’t know exactly where this tradition came from, and there is one theory that it can be traced back to Ancient Rome, when soldiers would wear red clothes to cover up blood in battle, and there’s another that it’s the colour of love and passion.
[00:02:26] In any case, if you are in Italy in December and see red underwear for sale in shop windows, that’s the reason: people are buying it as gifts to give their loved ones.
[00:02:38] Now, to kick off this global exploration of unusual new year’s traditions, we are going to start in the UK, but in a particular part of the country: Scotland.
[00:02:51] You might know that New Year’s Eve is a particularly big deal in Scotland, and it even has its own name: hogmanay.
[00:03:01] Now, if you wander around the streets of a Scottish town or city on the evening of December 31st you could be forgiven for thinking that the main traditions involve drinking vast amounts of alcohol and forgetting to wear adequate warm clothing, but there are some more traditional activities that you might be interested in learning about.
[00:03:24] You might already know about singing Auld Langs Syne, eating haggis and listening to the bagpipes, but you might not know about something called the “First footing”.
[00:03:36] This is a tradition that dictates that the first person to enter the house in the New Year can either bring good luck…or bad luck.
[00:03:47] If this person is a man with dark hair, that means the house will be blessed with good luck and prosperity in the coming year.
[00:03:57] If this person is a man with light or red hair, or any woman for that matter, it’s thought to be unlucky.
[00:04:07] So, in Scotland this “First footing” tradition requires everyone to go out of the house before midnight, then a dark-haired man to be the first to enter the house after the clock strikes 12.
[00:04:23] What’s more, this man should bring with him a few objects.
[00:04:29] First, some coal, which symbolises warmth, then a coin, which symbolises money and wealth, and then some food in the form of shortbread, salt, and a black bun. And of course, how could I forget, he should also bring a “wee dram” of whiskey.
[00:04:49] The tradition is believed to stem from the time of the invading Vikings in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Vikings came from Scandinavia, they often had red or light hair, and they were the sort of people that you definitely didn’t want to welcome into your home, so you can see where this tradition comes from.
[00:05:09] And if you’re thinking, “ok, I can see the issue with red-haired or blonde men, but what’s wrong with all women?”, well, one theory about this is that it’s because of an old belief in a crone goddess of winter and death called the Cailleach.
[00:05:27] This nasty god who took the form of an old woman would knock on people’s doors and bring bad luck to everyone in the house, so the theory about why all women are bad luck, as far as the “First Footing” tradition is concerned, can be traced back to this goddess.
[00:05:46] Now, let’s move on to talk about a more modern tradition, but one that is equally if not more unusual.
[00:05:56] In the unlikely event that you are listening to this episode while walking around a suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, called Hillbrow, I would recommend you press pause immediately and seek cover, you get out of the street.
[00:06:12] And this is because one local tradition involves the residents throwing furniture and appliances out of their windows onto the streets below.
[00:06:24] It might sound strange, but if you walk down the wrong street on New Year’s Eve in Johannesburg, there is a very real danger of being squashed by a flying fridge or a stray broken television.
[00:06:40] Starting in the 1990s, residents of this particular suburb took to throwing unused and unwanted pieces of furniture out of the window on New Year’s Eve as a way of symbolically saying “out with the old, in with the new”.
[00:06:56] After all, this was at the time that the racist apartheid regime was abolished, which was clearly something to celebrate, but it has developed into a dangerous and problematic tradition.
[00:07:08] It's such a problem, in fact, that the local health services have a specially designed ambulance that looks more like a tank. It’s huge, raised high off the ground, with large wheels and armoured covering, so as to protect the paramedics from falling fridges and cookers from the tenth floor windows.
[00:07:30] And unfortunately people do get hurt.
[00:07:34] In 2013, an 11-month-old girl was seriously injured after being struck on the head by a brick, and a total of nine people had to go to hospital after being hit by things flying from the balconies.
[00:07:50] So, despite the fact that it might have become something of a tradition, it is of course very dangerous and illegal, and the police have started to clamp down on it in recent years. So, who knows, perhaps this year will be the year people decide to dispose of their old fridges in a less traditional but safer way.
[00:08:12] Now, moving on to our next tradition, this will be one that will be well-known to our Spanish and Latin American listeners, and it involves grapes.
[00:08:24] Specifically, it involves 12 grapes, and is called "Las Doce Uvas de la Suerte" or "The Twelve Grapes of Luck."
[00:08:34] In Spain, it is a well-established tradition where people eat one grape with every chime of the clock at midnight, leading up to the New Year.
[00:08:44] The idea is to make a wish for each grape consumed, and it's believed that successfully eating all 12 grapes will bring good luck and prosperity for each month of the coming year.
[00:08:58] Of course, this is easier said than done. There is about 3 seconds between each chime, so you need to eat 12 grapes in approximately 36 seconds.
[00:09:10] It’s not easy, but one way in which you can make life easier on yourself, so I am told, is by taking the skin off the grapes beforehand. But perhaps that is deeply offensive to people who are able to do it without interfering with the grapes beforehand, the 12 grape traditionalists.
[00:09:28] Now, in terms of where this particular tradition comes from, there are a few theories.
[00:09:35] One is that it was started by a winemaker from the Alicante region at the start of the 20th century as a cunning trick to sell off certain types of extra grapes that they would otherwise have thrown away.
[00:09:49] Another, which experts seem to believe is more probable, is that it dates back to the end of the 19th century when the Madrid bourgeoisie copied the French tradition of drinking champagne at midnight, and eventually normal Spanish people started eating grapes as a way of poking fun at the pretentious bourgeoisie.
[00:10:10] Whatever the origins, it is exceptionally popular, and no doubt many of you will be popping 12 grapes into your mouth on New Year’s Eve, hopeful to manage to get them all down before the clock strikes 12.
[00:10:24] And if you are going to try this, good luck, it certainly sounds like a more wholesome tradition than the unofficial Scottish whisky-downing traditions.
[00:10:34] Now, moving on, for our next unusual New Year’s tradition we are going to continue with the theme of numbers, but for this tradition we will go all the way to the east of Asia, to Japan.
[00:10:48] New Year’s Eve in Japan is known as ōmisoka.
[00:10:53] Much like in countries all around the world, the new year is brought in with the ringing of bells.
[00:11:01] In Japan, these are temple bells, but instead of ringing 12 times to mark 12 o’ clock, each temple bell rings 108 times as part of a Buddhist ritual called joya no kane.
[00:11:17] Now, where this comes from is also debated.
[00:11:22] Some theories suggest that the 108 number represents the cleansing of 108 worldly passions, others that it represents the Japanese divisions of the year, or that it represents different kinds of suffering.
[00:11:37] Nobody seems to know for sure, but it certainly seems like a safer tradition than throwing a fridge out of a window onto an unsuspecting passer by.
[00:11:47] And as for our final Unusual New Year’s Eve Tradition, we are going to go to a European country that you might not necessarily think of when you think of smashing plates.
[00:12:00] Greece might be the country that first comes to mind in that respect, but the Greek tradition of smashing plates is associated with celebrations and festivities.
[00:12:10] When it comes to New Year's Eve, you are in fact more likely to hear the sound of smashing plates on the streets of Copenhagen or Aarhus than in Athens or Thessaloniki.
[00:12:25] In Denmark it is traditional to save up your slightly broken or chipped plates from that year for New Year’s Eve, then take them to a friend’s house and smash them against the front door of their house.
[00:12:39] It might make quite the mess, but apparently the bigger the pile of smashed plates you have outside your door on January 1st, the more luck you will have in the following year.
[00:12:51] And as for the origins of this tradition, yet again it is something of a mystery, but it’s thought to symbolise leaving negative energy and thoughts in a previous year, and starting the new year afresh. And why do you do it on your friend’s door? Again, nobody seems to know for sure, but the theory is that smashing plates against a door is a way of saying “thanks”, and of wishing that person good luck for the next year.
[00:13:22] So, there we have it, a selection of unusual and unorthodox New Year’s Eve traditions. You’ve heard about Italian red underwear, my Italian red underwear that is, why a man with red hair shouldn’t be the first person through the door in the new year in Scotland, why you should make sure you look up in Johannesburg, a trick to eat 12 grapes more quickly, the number of times the temple bells ring in Japan, and why you might find piles of smashed crockery all over Denmark on January 1st.
[00:13:53] All that remains for me to say is Happy New Year. If you're listening to this before January 1st, I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve.
[00:14:02] And if you are listening to this on or after January 1st I hope you celebrated in style, and my special message for any listeners of the Johannesburg suburb of Hillbrow is this: congratulations, you’re alive, I’m glad you managed to avoid the falling fridges.
[00:14:22] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Unusual New Year’s Eve Traditions.
[00:14:29] I hope it's been an interesting one, that you've learnt something new, and that perhaps you might have found some inspiration for some traditions you might like to take up.
[00:14:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:14:40] What other traditions would you like to have learned about? There were loads more to talk about, but in the interests of time we had to skip over Brazilian underwear and Ecuadorian effigy burnings.
[00:14:51] So, let me know. What are some weird and wonderful traditions in your country?
[00:14:55] You can email hi @ leonardoenglish.com, or you can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds. You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:15:11] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on December 29th, so it’s not only the last episode of the year, but it’s also the last episode before New Year’s Eve.
[00:00:33] So, to mark this occasion, the subject of today’s episode is going to be The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:00:42] On this fun little journey we’ll come across colourful underwear, dark haired men rushing into Scottish houses, falling fridges, grapes, bells and smashing plates.
[00:00:53] OK then, The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:01:01] A few years ago, at about this time of year, I was given what seemed to be a strange gift by my father-in-law, by my wife’s father.
[00:01:12] It was late December, and he presented me with a pair of red boxer shorts, a pair of red underwear.
[00:01:21] It didn’t seem to be ironic, it wasn’t some kind of joke, it was a genuine present.
[00:01:28] But to me, it seemed strange. I mean, in the UK giving underwear to your son-in-law, especially bright red underwear, would elicit some raised eyebrows, it would be considered rather strange.
[00:01:44] I asked my wife about it, and she laughed.
[00:01:48] See, my father in law, and my wife for that matter, are Italian, and as the Italians among you will know, in Italy giving someone red underwear to wear on New Year’s Eve is the done thing, it's something that many people traditionally do on New Year’s Eve.
[00:02:07] Now my wife didn’t know exactly where this tradition came from, and there is one theory that it can be traced back to Ancient Rome, when soldiers would wear red clothes to cover up blood in battle, and there’s another that it’s the colour of love and passion.
[00:02:26] In any case, if you are in Italy in December and see red underwear for sale in shop windows, that’s the reason: people are buying it as gifts to give their loved ones.
[00:02:38] Now, to kick off this global exploration of unusual new year’s traditions, we are going to start in the UK, but in a particular part of the country: Scotland.
[00:02:51] You might know that New Year’s Eve is a particularly big deal in Scotland, and it even has its own name: hogmanay.
[00:03:01] Now, if you wander around the streets of a Scottish town or city on the evening of December 31st you could be forgiven for thinking that the main traditions involve drinking vast amounts of alcohol and forgetting to wear adequate warm clothing, but there are some more traditional activities that you might be interested in learning about.
[00:03:24] You might already know about singing Auld Langs Syne, eating haggis and listening to the bagpipes, but you might not know about something called the “First footing”.
[00:03:36] This is a tradition that dictates that the first person to enter the house in the New Year can either bring good luck…or bad luck.
[00:03:47] If this person is a man with dark hair, that means the house will be blessed with good luck and prosperity in the coming year.
[00:03:57] If this person is a man with light or red hair, or any woman for that matter, it’s thought to be unlucky.
[00:04:07] So, in Scotland this “First footing” tradition requires everyone to go out of the house before midnight, then a dark-haired man to be the first to enter the house after the clock strikes 12.
[00:04:23] What’s more, this man should bring with him a few objects.
[00:04:29] First, some coal, which symbolises warmth, then a coin, which symbolises money and wealth, and then some food in the form of shortbread, salt, and a black bun. And of course, how could I forget, he should also bring a “wee dram” of whiskey.
[00:04:49] The tradition is believed to stem from the time of the invading Vikings in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Vikings came from Scandinavia, they often had red or light hair, and they were the sort of people that you definitely didn’t want to welcome into your home, so you can see where this tradition comes from.
[00:05:09] And if you’re thinking, “ok, I can see the issue with red-haired or blonde men, but what’s wrong with all women?”, well, one theory about this is that it’s because of an old belief in a crone goddess of winter and death called the Cailleach.
[00:05:27] This nasty god who took the form of an old woman would knock on people’s doors and bring bad luck to everyone in the house, so the theory about why all women are bad luck, as far as the “First Footing” tradition is concerned, can be traced back to this goddess.
[00:05:46] Now, let’s move on to talk about a more modern tradition, but one that is equally if not more unusual.
[00:05:56] In the unlikely event that you are listening to this episode while walking around a suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, called Hillbrow, I would recommend you press pause immediately and seek cover, you get out of the street.
[00:06:12] And this is because one local tradition involves the residents throwing furniture and appliances out of their windows onto the streets below.
[00:06:24] It might sound strange, but if you walk down the wrong street on New Year’s Eve in Johannesburg, there is a very real danger of being squashed by a flying fridge or a stray broken television.
[00:06:40] Starting in the 1990s, residents of this particular suburb took to throwing unused and unwanted pieces of furniture out of the window on New Year’s Eve as a way of symbolically saying “out with the old, in with the new”.
[00:06:56] After all, this was at the time that the racist apartheid regime was abolished, which was clearly something to celebrate, but it has developed into a dangerous and problematic tradition.
[00:07:08] It's such a problem, in fact, that the local health services have a specially designed ambulance that looks more like a tank. It’s huge, raised high off the ground, with large wheels and armoured covering, so as to protect the paramedics from falling fridges and cookers from the tenth floor windows.
[00:07:30] And unfortunately people do get hurt.
[00:07:34] In 2013, an 11-month-old girl was seriously injured after being struck on the head by a brick, and a total of nine people had to go to hospital after being hit by things flying from the balconies.
[00:07:50] So, despite the fact that it might have become something of a tradition, it is of course very dangerous and illegal, and the police have started to clamp down on it in recent years. So, who knows, perhaps this year will be the year people decide to dispose of their old fridges in a less traditional but safer way.
[00:08:12] Now, moving on to our next tradition, this will be one that will be well-known to our Spanish and Latin American listeners, and it involves grapes.
[00:08:24] Specifically, it involves 12 grapes, and is called "Las Doce Uvas de la Suerte" or "The Twelve Grapes of Luck."
[00:08:34] In Spain, it is a well-established tradition where people eat one grape with every chime of the clock at midnight, leading up to the New Year.
[00:08:44] The idea is to make a wish for each grape consumed, and it's believed that successfully eating all 12 grapes will bring good luck and prosperity for each month of the coming year.
[00:08:58] Of course, this is easier said than done. There is about 3 seconds between each chime, so you need to eat 12 grapes in approximately 36 seconds.
[00:09:10] It’s not easy, but one way in which you can make life easier on yourself, so I am told, is by taking the skin off the grapes beforehand. But perhaps that is deeply offensive to people who are able to do it without interfering with the grapes beforehand, the 12 grape traditionalists.
[00:09:28] Now, in terms of where this particular tradition comes from, there are a few theories.
[00:09:35] One is that it was started by a winemaker from the Alicante region at the start of the 20th century as a cunning trick to sell off certain types of extra grapes that they would otherwise have thrown away.
[00:09:49] Another, which experts seem to believe is more probable, is that it dates back to the end of the 19th century when the Madrid bourgeoisie copied the French tradition of drinking champagne at midnight, and eventually normal Spanish people started eating grapes as a way of poking fun at the pretentious bourgeoisie.
[00:10:10] Whatever the origins, it is exceptionally popular, and no doubt many of you will be popping 12 grapes into your mouth on New Year’s Eve, hopeful to manage to get them all down before the clock strikes 12.
[00:10:24] And if you are going to try this, good luck, it certainly sounds like a more wholesome tradition than the unofficial Scottish whisky-downing traditions.
[00:10:34] Now, moving on, for our next unusual New Year’s tradition we are going to continue with the theme of numbers, but for this tradition we will go all the way to the east of Asia, to Japan.
[00:10:48] New Year’s Eve in Japan is known as ōmisoka.
[00:10:53] Much like in countries all around the world, the new year is brought in with the ringing of bells.
[00:11:01] In Japan, these are temple bells, but instead of ringing 12 times to mark 12 o’ clock, each temple bell rings 108 times as part of a Buddhist ritual called joya no kane.
[00:11:17] Now, where this comes from is also debated.
[00:11:22] Some theories suggest that the 108 number represents the cleansing of 108 worldly passions, others that it represents the Japanese divisions of the year, or that it represents different kinds of suffering.
[00:11:37] Nobody seems to know for sure, but it certainly seems like a safer tradition than throwing a fridge out of a window onto an unsuspecting passer by.
[00:11:47] And as for our final Unusual New Year’s Eve Tradition, we are going to go to a European country that you might not necessarily think of when you think of smashing plates.
[00:12:00] Greece might be the country that first comes to mind in that respect, but the Greek tradition of smashing plates is associated with celebrations and festivities.
[00:12:10] When it comes to New Year's Eve, you are in fact more likely to hear the sound of smashing plates on the streets of Copenhagen or Aarhus than in Athens or Thessaloniki.
[00:12:25] In Denmark it is traditional to save up your slightly broken or chipped plates from that year for New Year’s Eve, then take them to a friend’s house and smash them against the front door of their house.
[00:12:39] It might make quite the mess, but apparently the bigger the pile of smashed plates you have outside your door on January 1st, the more luck you will have in the following year.
[00:12:51] And as for the origins of this tradition, yet again it is something of a mystery, but it’s thought to symbolise leaving negative energy and thoughts in a previous year, and starting the new year afresh. And why do you do it on your friend’s door? Again, nobody seems to know for sure, but the theory is that smashing plates against a door is a way of saying “thanks”, and of wishing that person good luck for the next year.
[00:13:22] So, there we have it, a selection of unusual and unorthodox New Year’s Eve traditions. You’ve heard about Italian red underwear, my Italian red underwear that is, why a man with red hair shouldn’t be the first person through the door in the new year in Scotland, why you should make sure you look up in Johannesburg, a trick to eat 12 grapes more quickly, the number of times the temple bells ring in Japan, and why you might find piles of smashed crockery all over Denmark on January 1st.
[00:13:53] All that remains for me to say is Happy New Year. If you're listening to this before January 1st, I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve.
[00:14:02] And if you are listening to this on or after January 1st I hope you celebrated in style, and my special message for any listeners of the Johannesburg suburb of Hillbrow is this: congratulations, you’re alive, I’m glad you managed to avoid the falling fridges.
[00:14:22] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Unusual New Year’s Eve Traditions.
[00:14:29] I hope it's been an interesting one, that you've learnt something new, and that perhaps you might have found some inspiration for some traditions you might like to take up.
[00:14:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:14:40] What other traditions would you like to have learned about? There were loads more to talk about, but in the interests of time we had to skip over Brazilian underwear and Ecuadorian effigy burnings.
[00:14:51] So, let me know. What are some weird and wonderful traditions in your country?
[00:14:55] You can email hi @ leonardoenglish.com, or you can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds. You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:15:11] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on December 29th, so it’s not only the last episode of the year, but it’s also the last episode before New Year’s Eve.
[00:00:33] So, to mark this occasion, the subject of today’s episode is going to be The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:00:42] On this fun little journey we’ll come across colourful underwear, dark haired men rushing into Scottish houses, falling fridges, grapes, bells and smashing plates.
[00:00:53] OK then, The Most Unusual New Year's Eve Traditions.
[00:01:01] A few years ago, at about this time of year, I was given what seemed to be a strange gift by my father-in-law, by my wife’s father.
[00:01:12] It was late December, and he presented me with a pair of red boxer shorts, a pair of red underwear.
[00:01:21] It didn’t seem to be ironic, it wasn’t some kind of joke, it was a genuine present.
[00:01:28] But to me, it seemed strange. I mean, in the UK giving underwear to your son-in-law, especially bright red underwear, would elicit some raised eyebrows, it would be considered rather strange.
[00:01:44] I asked my wife about it, and she laughed.
[00:01:48] See, my father in law, and my wife for that matter, are Italian, and as the Italians among you will know, in Italy giving someone red underwear to wear on New Year’s Eve is the done thing, it's something that many people traditionally do on New Year’s Eve.
[00:02:07] Now my wife didn’t know exactly where this tradition came from, and there is one theory that it can be traced back to Ancient Rome, when soldiers would wear red clothes to cover up blood in battle, and there’s another that it’s the colour of love and passion.
[00:02:26] In any case, if you are in Italy in December and see red underwear for sale in shop windows, that’s the reason: people are buying it as gifts to give their loved ones.
[00:02:38] Now, to kick off this global exploration of unusual new year’s traditions, we are going to start in the UK, but in a particular part of the country: Scotland.
[00:02:51] You might know that New Year’s Eve is a particularly big deal in Scotland, and it even has its own name: hogmanay.
[00:03:01] Now, if you wander around the streets of a Scottish town or city on the evening of December 31st you could be forgiven for thinking that the main traditions involve drinking vast amounts of alcohol and forgetting to wear adequate warm clothing, but there are some more traditional activities that you might be interested in learning about.
[00:03:24] You might already know about singing Auld Langs Syne, eating haggis and listening to the bagpipes, but you might not know about something called the “First footing”.
[00:03:36] This is a tradition that dictates that the first person to enter the house in the New Year can either bring good luck…or bad luck.
[00:03:47] If this person is a man with dark hair, that means the house will be blessed with good luck and prosperity in the coming year.
[00:03:57] If this person is a man with light or red hair, or any woman for that matter, it’s thought to be unlucky.
[00:04:07] So, in Scotland this “First footing” tradition requires everyone to go out of the house before midnight, then a dark-haired man to be the first to enter the house after the clock strikes 12.
[00:04:23] What’s more, this man should bring with him a few objects.
[00:04:29] First, some coal, which symbolises warmth, then a coin, which symbolises money and wealth, and then some food in the form of shortbread, salt, and a black bun. And of course, how could I forget, he should also bring a “wee dram” of whiskey.
[00:04:49] The tradition is believed to stem from the time of the invading Vikings in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Vikings came from Scandinavia, they often had red or light hair, and they were the sort of people that you definitely didn’t want to welcome into your home, so you can see where this tradition comes from.
[00:05:09] And if you’re thinking, “ok, I can see the issue with red-haired or blonde men, but what’s wrong with all women?”, well, one theory about this is that it’s because of an old belief in a crone goddess of winter and death called the Cailleach.
[00:05:27] This nasty god who took the form of an old woman would knock on people’s doors and bring bad luck to everyone in the house, so the theory about why all women are bad luck, as far as the “First Footing” tradition is concerned, can be traced back to this goddess.
[00:05:46] Now, let’s move on to talk about a more modern tradition, but one that is equally if not more unusual.
[00:05:56] In the unlikely event that you are listening to this episode while walking around a suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa, called Hillbrow, I would recommend you press pause immediately and seek cover, you get out of the street.
[00:06:12] And this is because one local tradition involves the residents throwing furniture and appliances out of their windows onto the streets below.
[00:06:24] It might sound strange, but if you walk down the wrong street on New Year’s Eve in Johannesburg, there is a very real danger of being squashed by a flying fridge or a stray broken television.
[00:06:40] Starting in the 1990s, residents of this particular suburb took to throwing unused and unwanted pieces of furniture out of the window on New Year’s Eve as a way of symbolically saying “out with the old, in with the new”.
[00:06:56] After all, this was at the time that the racist apartheid regime was abolished, which was clearly something to celebrate, but it has developed into a dangerous and problematic tradition.
[00:07:08] It's such a problem, in fact, that the local health services have a specially designed ambulance that looks more like a tank. It’s huge, raised high off the ground, with large wheels and armoured covering, so as to protect the paramedics from falling fridges and cookers from the tenth floor windows.
[00:07:30] And unfortunately people do get hurt.
[00:07:34] In 2013, an 11-month-old girl was seriously injured after being struck on the head by a brick, and a total of nine people had to go to hospital after being hit by things flying from the balconies.
[00:07:50] So, despite the fact that it might have become something of a tradition, it is of course very dangerous and illegal, and the police have started to clamp down on it in recent years. So, who knows, perhaps this year will be the year people decide to dispose of their old fridges in a less traditional but safer way.
[00:08:12] Now, moving on to our next tradition, this will be one that will be well-known to our Spanish and Latin American listeners, and it involves grapes.
[00:08:24] Specifically, it involves 12 grapes, and is called "Las Doce Uvas de la Suerte" or "The Twelve Grapes of Luck."
[00:08:34] In Spain, it is a well-established tradition where people eat one grape with every chime of the clock at midnight, leading up to the New Year.
[00:08:44] The idea is to make a wish for each grape consumed, and it's believed that successfully eating all 12 grapes will bring good luck and prosperity for each month of the coming year.
[00:08:58] Of course, this is easier said than done. There is about 3 seconds between each chime, so you need to eat 12 grapes in approximately 36 seconds.
[00:09:10] It’s not easy, but one way in which you can make life easier on yourself, so I am told, is by taking the skin off the grapes beforehand. But perhaps that is deeply offensive to people who are able to do it without interfering with the grapes beforehand, the 12 grape traditionalists.
[00:09:28] Now, in terms of where this particular tradition comes from, there are a few theories.
[00:09:35] One is that it was started by a winemaker from the Alicante region at the start of the 20th century as a cunning trick to sell off certain types of extra grapes that they would otherwise have thrown away.
[00:09:49] Another, which experts seem to believe is more probable, is that it dates back to the end of the 19th century when the Madrid bourgeoisie copied the French tradition of drinking champagne at midnight, and eventually normal Spanish people started eating grapes as a way of poking fun at the pretentious bourgeoisie.
[00:10:10] Whatever the origins, it is exceptionally popular, and no doubt many of you will be popping 12 grapes into your mouth on New Year’s Eve, hopeful to manage to get them all down before the clock strikes 12.
[00:10:24] And if you are going to try this, good luck, it certainly sounds like a more wholesome tradition than the unofficial Scottish whisky-downing traditions.
[00:10:34] Now, moving on, for our next unusual New Year’s tradition we are going to continue with the theme of numbers, but for this tradition we will go all the way to the east of Asia, to Japan.
[00:10:48] New Year’s Eve in Japan is known as ōmisoka.
[00:10:53] Much like in countries all around the world, the new year is brought in with the ringing of bells.
[00:11:01] In Japan, these are temple bells, but instead of ringing 12 times to mark 12 o’ clock, each temple bell rings 108 times as part of a Buddhist ritual called joya no kane.
[00:11:17] Now, where this comes from is also debated.
[00:11:22] Some theories suggest that the 108 number represents the cleansing of 108 worldly passions, others that it represents the Japanese divisions of the year, or that it represents different kinds of suffering.
[00:11:37] Nobody seems to know for sure, but it certainly seems like a safer tradition than throwing a fridge out of a window onto an unsuspecting passer by.
[00:11:47] And as for our final Unusual New Year’s Eve Tradition, we are going to go to a European country that you might not necessarily think of when you think of smashing plates.
[00:12:00] Greece might be the country that first comes to mind in that respect, but the Greek tradition of smashing plates is associated with celebrations and festivities.
[00:12:10] When it comes to New Year's Eve, you are in fact more likely to hear the sound of smashing plates on the streets of Copenhagen or Aarhus than in Athens or Thessaloniki.
[00:12:25] In Denmark it is traditional to save up your slightly broken or chipped plates from that year for New Year’s Eve, then take them to a friend’s house and smash them against the front door of their house.
[00:12:39] It might make quite the mess, but apparently the bigger the pile of smashed plates you have outside your door on January 1st, the more luck you will have in the following year.
[00:12:51] And as for the origins of this tradition, yet again it is something of a mystery, but it’s thought to symbolise leaving negative energy and thoughts in a previous year, and starting the new year afresh. And why do you do it on your friend’s door? Again, nobody seems to know for sure, but the theory is that smashing plates against a door is a way of saying “thanks”, and of wishing that person good luck for the next year.
[00:13:22] So, there we have it, a selection of unusual and unorthodox New Year’s Eve traditions. You’ve heard about Italian red underwear, my Italian red underwear that is, why a man with red hair shouldn’t be the first person through the door in the new year in Scotland, why you should make sure you look up in Johannesburg, a trick to eat 12 grapes more quickly, the number of times the temple bells ring in Japan, and why you might find piles of smashed crockery all over Denmark on January 1st.
[00:13:53] All that remains for me to say is Happy New Year. If you're listening to this before January 1st, I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve.
[00:14:02] And if you are listening to this on or after January 1st I hope you celebrated in style, and my special message for any listeners of the Johannesburg suburb of Hillbrow is this: congratulations, you’re alive, I’m glad you managed to avoid the falling fridges.
[00:14:22] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Unusual New Year’s Eve Traditions.
[00:14:29] I hope it's been an interesting one, that you've learnt something new, and that perhaps you might have found some inspiration for some traditions you might like to take up.
[00:14:37] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:14:40] What other traditions would you like to have learned about? There were loads more to talk about, but in the interests of time we had to skip over Brazilian underwear and Ecuadorian effigy burnings.
[00:14:51] So, let me know. What are some weird and wonderful traditions in your country?
[00:14:55] You can email hi @ leonardoenglish.com, or you can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds. You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:15:11] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
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