From Black-Eyed Peas To Bonfires

New Year’s Eve around the Globe!

- Melinda Murphy

One of the best things about Singapore is how multicultural it is. We celebrate so many holidays here, but not always the same way. If a friend from another culture invites you to a New Year’s Eve party, would you know what’s expected? Read on and find out!

I grew up in Texas where you absolutely must eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day if you want good luck for the coming year. My friend from Louisiana said her family added ham for health and collard greens for money. This tradition is so strongly ingrained that I actually travel with a can of black-eyed peas when we’ll be somewhere else for the first of January. One year, I couldn’t find a can opener and was in a flat-out cold sweat.

Odd? Not really. Superstitions are a part of many New Year’s traditions. Here are a few favourite traditions from across the globe.

Austria

At midnight, all the radio and television stations operated by the state broadcast the sound of the bell of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, followed by “The Blue Danube”. People across the country turn out into the streets to dance the waltz.

Belarus

Single women looking for lasting love sit in a circle, each with a pile of corn in front of them. A rooster is placed in the circle’s centre, and the woman whose grain heap it pecks first is believed to be the one who’ll get married first.

Brazil

If you head to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for New Year’s Eve, be sure to wear white. Here, people offer white flowers as gifts to Yamanja, the Afro-Brazilian queen of the sea. The floral gifts are placed on the water, some even in special boats, hoping the queen will bring them energy and strength.

Colombia