Let’s celebrate!

What do you do at New Year? We find out

about New Year celebrations around the
world.

Kyoko
New Year is a very important time for us in Japan. At
midnight, in shrines and temples around the country, bells
ring 108 times. This removes the evil from the new year.
Many people go to the famous tourist attraction, The
Watched Night Bell in Tokyo, to listen to the bells. We also
visit our local Buddhist shrine or temple on New Year’s Day.
Some people wear traditional Japanese clothes for this
‘first visit’ and we say special prayers for the new year. We
always laugh when the new year begins. This is because we
believe that laughter will bring us enjoyment and good luck
throughout the year. We also send New Year postcards. We
send the postcards in December and the post office promises
that they will deliver them on 1 January.

Alejandro
In Mexico, our New Year celebrations are noisy and fun!
We often have parties with our families and friends,
and there are fireworks at midnight. We think about our
achievements and our disappointments in the past year and
our predictions and hopes for the new year. Will we find
love and happiness? We make a list of our disappointments
and burn it so that we won’t be unlucky in the new year.
We have special decorations in our house and wear certain
colours to symbolize our wishes for the future. For example,
red symbolizes love, yellow symbolizes work and green
symbolizes money. When the bell rings twelve times at
midnight, we eat twelve grapes and we make twelve wishes
for the future.

insight Elementary Student’s Book Unit 9 p.106 © Oxford University Press 2014 1
 Alistair
We love celebrating New Year in Scotland. We have a lot of
different kinds of entertainment: street parties, fireworks
and dances. In Edinburgh, we have a procession on 30
December. Then on 31 December, there is a big ceilidh – a
traditional Scottish dance. We have a tradition called ‘first
footing’. The first person who comes into your house after
midnight on 31 December is very important. Traditionally,
the first footer is always a tall, dark-haired man. He brings
special presents which mean we will have good luck and
health in the new year. At the beginning of the new year,
many people sing the traditional song Auld Lang Syne
together. 1 and 2 January are both holidays in Scotland,
because we need two days to celebrate New Year!

A001998

insight Elementary Student’s Book Unit 9 p.106 © Oxford University Press 2014 2