New Year is Different for Every Country

The New Year is coming; this is one of the long-desired and favorite family holidays. It is time for fairy tales and hopes, and everyone from the childhood truly believes that you will spend the whole year to come the way you greet New Year’s Eve.

This is truly an international holiday, but in different countries it is celebrated in its own way and its own date. For example, Italians throw old furniture out of the windows to get rid of old troubles. Panamanians try to make as loud noise as possible by turning on the sirens of their cars, whistling and screaming. Bulgarians turn off the light, because the first minutes of the New Year are the time of New Year's kisses.

South Ural State University always welcomes international students from all over the world. Nowadays this is the home for more than 2,300 students from 52 countries. Young people come here not only to get the education but also to have new experiences and find friends.

And they share their traditions by celebrating holidays according to the calendars of their countries.

Spring is the time for celebrating New Year or Aluth Avurudda in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan students organize the holiday here in Chelyabinsk to feel joy. They decorate the rooms they study at and their homes with hand-made magic lanterns and lotus candlesticks. To the meditative music Sri Lankans tell about the history and traditions of the holiday (usually in Russian language). It is a family holiday symbolizing the end of the previous year and the beginning of a new one. Moreover, each year the astrologers calculate the exact beginning of a new year by minutes: this is the time of ignition of the first New Year's fire, the time of cooking rice on milk for the first time this year, the first meal, and many other things.

After the sacred fire ignition ceremony all the participants exchange presents with their fellow students and teachers.

There are many Chinese students at SUSU and of course they never miss the opportunity to show the way of celebrating this holiday in China. Before Chinese New Year people usually put red writings on the doors, run firecrackers, and stay awake throughout the night – ‘to protect the year’. In the north of China the traditional New Year dish is dumplings (‘niángāo’), and in the south they eat slices cooked from glutinous rice (‘jiǎozi’). Northerners like dumplings because in the Chinese language this word sounds like the phrase ‘send off the old year and welcome the new one’. Moreover, dumpling shape resembles traditional shape of ingots of gold and silver and symbolizes wealth. For the same reason Southerners eat slices symbolizing life improvement. New Year celebrations end after the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Chinese New Year at SUSU is a noisy festival that is usually held in the main assembly hall with performance of lion and dragon dances, ‘land boat’ round dance, and stilts performances. Everybody is glad to take part in this bright holiday and learn something new from one of the most ancient cultures of the world.

The earliest celebrations of the New Year came around the same time as the invention of the calendar, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia over 4,000 years ago. New Year’s Eve customs around the world are all unique with each country having their own way of celebrating. The New Year superstitions are meant to create good luck, fortune, happiness, and overall a better near future.

This year SUSU international students congratulate everybody in their native languages.

They also invite everybody to celebrate New Year together. Let’s meet on December 31 at 11.00 pm near the Student Monument (in front of the Main University Building), then walk to Revolution Square and party there!

South Ural State University joins to all the congratulations you will get and wishes everybody health, happiness and love in the coming year!

 

Let us remind that foreign citizens who have some questions connected to visa procedures can learn all the details regarding the documents by calling 8 (351) 267 93 30 or asking a question on Facebook.

If you want to get a prestigious degree at SUSU in English, you may read about English-taught programs by clicking the link.

In the official group of South Ural State University on Facebook you may read the last news of the university or ask your questions.

Or just contact us:

International Student Support at the SUSU International Office

Email: applicant[at]susu[dot]ru

Tel.: 8 (351) 272 30 86

 

Valentina Metelyova, photo by Oleg Igoshin and from AISA’s archive
Contact person: 
Office of Internet Portals and Social Media, 267-92-86
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