Yellow Underwear and a Suitcase

This week we begin celebrating the Lunar New Year. Like many countries and cultures around the world. this involves many wonderful and colorful traditions and rituals. Most countries and cultures have traditions that relate to the New Year. Here are a few examples from around the world: 

• Italy: Throw out old things through the window to get rid of troubles from the old year and start the New Year fresh.
• Japan: It is important to start the New Year with lots of laughter as it is believed to bring good luck.
• Venezuela: Wearing of yellow underwear brings good luck in the New Year and on the eve of the New Year, write down all your wishes and burn them so they come true.
• France: The first person who enters the house in the New Year symbolizes what the New Year will bring for the family.
• Philippines: Children jump up and down ten times at midnight to grow tall in the next year.
• Columbia: Take out a suitcase and run around the block so that you will travel in the coming year.
• Nigeria: Buy and wear new clothes on New Year’s Day to welcome in the New Year and ensure it’s a good one.

There are many more unique and interesting traditions found all over the world. What is interesting, however, is how much they have in common. Though they are very different in regards to what and how the traditions are celebrated, almost all of them relate to trying to do something to make the coming year better in some way. The ritual or tradition is performed because by doing so it will bring good luck, prosperity, love, and so forth.

I think more than ever we want and hope for a better year for us and our children. As we celebrate the ending of this “year” and look to the new one, the Year of the Ox, we can take heart in the fact that we have made it this far and be hopeful that this coming year will be a better one in many ways.