Try these trivia questions to find out how much you know about international New Year’s traditions. There’s much more to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day than the ball drop in New York’s Times Square!
Scroll down to the end of this post for the answers.
Cover photo: Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay.
Questions
1. In what city do people—often wearing white outfits—watch a massive fireworks display called Réveillon on Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve?
2. What dish made from buckwheat do an estimated 70 percent of Japanese people eat on New Year’s Eve?
3. In Spain, there’s a custom of eating 12 of what food item at midnight on New Year’s Eve for good luck? The tradition is known as las doce uvas de la suerte.
4. In a now largely forgotten custom, what item did Irish people traditionally bash against the walls of their houses on New Year’s Eve to ward off bad luck?
5. What is the name of the 18-minute comedy sketch broadcast on New Year’s Eve in many countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, South Africa and Australia? Filmed in 1982 with British actors May Warden and Freddie Frinton, it’s the story of an increasingly chaotic meal.
Answers
1. People ring in the New Year on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2. An estimated seven in 10 people in Japan eat soba noodles on New Year’s Eve.
3. In Spain and some other countries, eating 12 grapes at midnight is thought to bring good luck.
4. In Ireland, it was customary to bash a loaf of bread against the walls of your house on New Year’s Eve.
5. The movie is called Dinner for One or, in some countries, The 90th Birthday. In it, an elderly woman who has outlived her friends asks her butler to impersonate them, and he gets increasingly drunk in the process. One line from the film, “Same procedure as every year,” has become a popular catchphrase in Germany and other countries. And when the Danish broadcaster DK decided not to show Dinner for One on New Year’s Eve in 1985, it got so many complaints that it resumed broadcasting the sketch the next year.
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