- From ear pulling to forced nosebleeds, birthdays sure can get weird.
A big cake, lit candles, songs, presents… We all know what goes into a happy birthday.
Well, at least what goes into an American birthday. But it’s a wide world out there, and not every country or culture celebrates people growing older in the same way.
And then some countries don’t celebrate them at all.
Here are 10 birthday traditions from around the world that range from fun to mischievous — and even downright horrifying.
1. Ear Pulling (Spain)
You may have heard of birthday spankings, where you get whacked on your behind once for each year you’ve lived. In Spain, however, they don’t spank you.
Instead, they pull your ears.
It’s a Spanish tradition to give the birthday person one tug on the ears for each year of their age. How hard they do it depends on who’s pulling. Your grandma might give you a gentle tug, but if you’re celebrating your 18th birthday with your buddies, consider yourself lucky if you walk away with your ears attached.
The origin of the tradition has been lost to time. However, it may have something to do with longevity, since ears are one of the parts of your body that never stop growing.
2. Punctual Birthday Wishes (Germany)
Ah, Germans and their obsession with punctuality. If you can’t make it to someone’s birthday party the next day, you might tell them to have a good one in advance — but not in Germany.
In German culture, premature wishes for a happy birthday only invite disaster. According to an old superstition, wishing someone a happy birthday in advance is extremely bad luck.
Funnily enough, you’re allowed to start celebrating your birthday the evening of the previous day. But nobody better wish you a happy one before midnight.
3. Collective Birthday (Asia)
In many countries across Asia, including Japan and Vietnam, individual birthdays aren’t a thing. Instead, people are considered to get older when the year changes — meaning everyone’s birthday is on January 1.
As such, birthday celebrations often get wrapped into general New Year celebrations. Instead, Asian countries tend to throw parties for reaching certain ages, such as Vietnamese one-year parties or the coming-of-age celebration at 20 in Japan.
These ancient traditions are slowly changing, though, and many people across Asia are starting to celebrate individual birthdays as well. But hey, that just means they get two birthday parties a year.
4. Cake Sharing (Brazil)
Giving the first slice of the birthday cake to the person getting older is common everywhere where birthday cakes are a thing. In Brazil, however, the birthday person should share their slice with the person they love the most.
It sounds cute, but it can put a lot of pressure on you through family politics. Do you share the slice with your significant other? Your mother? Your grandmother, perhaps?
What are you waiting for? Go on, make your choice. No one’s judging, we promise.
5. Nose Buttering (Canada)
The Atlantic coast of Canada has a bizarre, greasy birthday tradition. While you’re having a good time celebrating your birthday, a family member or friend might sneak up on you and smear butter all over your nose.
It doesn’t have to be butter, though — any greasy substance will do. The point of the tradition is to make your nose too slippery for bad luck to stick to you.
Because in Canada, bad luck enters through the nose. Oh, and since the nose is another one of those body parts that just keeps growing, the amount of butter used also increases with every passing year.
6. Forbidden Birthday Dates (North Korea)
In North Korea, the draconian government has slipped its tentacles into all aspects of private life — including birthdays. If your birthday happens to fall July 8 or December 17, the government had better not catch you celebrating.
That’s because you’re supposed to spend the day mourning and wailing for your deceased Supreme Leaders. July 8 and December 17 mark the days when Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il died, respectively.
As such, if a child is born on one of those days, their parents will typically report the official birthday as a day earlier or later.
7. Thieving Birthday Ghosts (Russia)
There are ghosts in Russia. It’s true — if a child misbehaves, evil spirits may steal their favorite toy.
But should the child learn their lesson and be good for the rest of the year, the ghosts might relent. If they do, they’ll wrap up the stolen toy and return it to the child as a surprise present on their next birthday.
This Russian tradition is pure parenting genius. You’ll teach your kids to straighten up and fly right, and you’ll save money on birthday presents!
8. Street Sweeping (Germany)
Wait, we’re back in Germany? Indeed, and it’s because of what happens to you if you’re an unmarried man who reaches the age of 30.
On your birthday (at least in northern and western Germany) you can expect your buddies to drag you to the local town hall. Once there, you’re expected to sweep the building’s steps clean, or the street before it the town hall doesn’t have stairs.
Of course, your buddies won’t make it easy for you. You can expect an endless stream of beet bottle caps forcing you to sweep again and again — in fact, some breweries hand out free bottle caps specifically for this purpose.
9. The Simbari Rites of Passage (Papua New Guinea)
Birthdays are usually happy affairs for children. Not so much if you happen to be a seven-year-old boy of the Simbari tribe, as that’s the day you’ll begin your 10-year, multi-step passage to adulthood.
On their seventh birthday, boys are taken away from their mothers — by force if need be. They’ll then undergo forced nosebleeds, vomiting, and defecation to purge themselves of their mothers’ womanly presence.
Over the following three years, the boys also engage in multiple such purging sessions. They’re also expected to perform fellatio on older boys to ingest their sperm, as the Simbari believe men are born without their man goo.
Once the boys turn 10, the initiation regime gets a bit lighter, in that the forced bleeding, pooping, and fellatio ends. However, various other rituals continue at least until the age of 17.
10. No Birthdays (Bhutan)
Finally, we have Bhutan. Birthday celebrations in this southern Asian country are very simple — there aren’t any.
Like in many other Asian countries, people are considered one year older as the year changes. However, there are no special celebrations for it.
In fact, many Bhutanese have no idea what date they were born on. In Bhutan’s incredibly collective culture, it simply doesn’t matter.