This popular game consists of throwing a wooden cylinder, roughly resembling a wheel of pecorino cheese, as far as one possibly can! It will be viewed as horribly gauche. No one likes being told their larder is lean. new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], The couple then clean up the mess together, supposedly teaching them the lesson that team work is indispensable to a happy marriage. Get the best travel content right to your inbox, 50 Unique Customs And Traditions From Around The World That Make No Sense, Image by KoalaParkLaundromat from Pixabay, Image by Philipp Kleindienst from Pixabay, Image by Tom und Nicki Löschner from Pixabay, Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay, Tourists Share Fascinating Cultural Observations From Abroad, Bizarre Burial Customs From Around The World, It’s The Perfect Time to Get The Best Deal on A Brand New SUV. ","articleBody":"[Updated: 26 September 2018]\r\n\r\nEver heard of the popular Swedish drinking game pen-in-bottle? At a bare minimum, people will roll their eyes behind your back if you order one with lunch or — god forbid! People in Nicaragua agree, but only where hands are concerned. Please let me know if you know of others that belong here. Invented in Sweden, made with in Sunny Cape Town. So if you’re offered a chance to clean yourself up, your host isn’t trying to tell you you stink; they’re just observing the proper etiquette. The tradition of acrobatic and classical flag-throwing lives on with both boys and girls participating in this skillful sport.\r\n\r\nAnd try out the food in Italy when you're not tossing flags. You will no doubt want to get a cappuccino when you’re in Italy, but you should make sure you do so in the morning. Bali's Day of Silence\r\n\r\n\r\nNew Year is celebrated in Bali with a 24 hour period of silence and meditation known as \"Nyepi\". Find cheap flights to Finland and see the Northern Lights plus attend the Oulu Music Video Festival which hosts the Air Guitar World Championships! Almost everything is eaten with utensils, including hamburgers and sandwiches. Supposedly, this is meant to ensure that the husband has sufficient fortitude, though in modern times it’s more something wedding guests do for a laugh. In some parts of China, it is traditional for men to carry their pregnant wives over burning coals in order to ease their deliveries. There’s only one place to test them internationally and that’s at the annual Air Guitar World Championships each August in Finland. In China, a number of common items are associated with funerals and death: clocks, sandals, handkerchiefs, and white or black objects. Especially if you’re eating pizza, your hosts may be offended that you decided to cheese it up. And try out the food in Italy when you’re not tossing flags. This is meant to grant you good luck on your journey (it's also a good opportunity to remember anything you may have forgotten).\r\nFind cheap flights to Ukraine!\r\n1. Apparently, in some parts of rural Scotland, it’s traditional for family and friends to throw garbage at engaged couples the week before their wedding. Contenders pick their digit carefully and subject it to rigorous training regimes involving crushing tennis balls and doing one finger pull-ups!\r\n\r\nYou Might Also Like:\u00a0\r\n\r\n \tThe 10 Favourite European Cities for South Africans\r\n\r\n11. The person who gets the piece of cake with a porcelain figurine inside gets to be the king for the day and wears the paper crown which accompanies the cake!\r\nFind cheap flights to France!\r\nKeen on a trip to France? (Italians don’t accept Parmesan as a pizza cheese, believe it or not.). This custom is surprisingly common — so common in fact that it’s hard to list everywhere it applies. One of the best places to watch this beautiful festival is in Chiang Mai. window._wp_rp_thumbnails = true; If you don’t, your hosts may interpret that as an insinuation that they haven’t fed you enough. '//www.googletagmanager.com/gtm. Just pucker your lips and move them in the direction of whatever you’re trying to point to and people will get your drift. That’s a fair price to get a laugh, if you ask me. Galette de Roi, France\r\n\r\n\r\nIn France Epiphany is celebrated in January with a \"King cake\". I’m going to start writing mine now…. I have gathered 25 seemingly strange, crazy or mad traditions from around the world. Songkran\r\n\r\n\r\nSongkran is the water festival which marks the beginning of the Thai New Year. Flag-throwing in Tuscany\r\n\r\n\r\nIn Medieval times in Italy, a guild's banner or flag was never allowed to touch the ground as it was considered a symbol of purity. Probably the most celebrated Professional finger-pulling competitions in the Alps\r\n\r\n\r\nFinger-pulling is no laughing matter in the Alps. Once a year, in the Valencian town of Buñol, Spaniards gather to throw tomatoes at each other. In the Spanish village of Castrillo de Murcia, it’s traditional to put newborn babies in the street so that strangers dressed as demons can jump over them. The rationale being, if you can survive a trash bath as a couple, you can survive anything. In fact, this rule applies to some Middle Eastern countries as well. When a member of the community passes away, the body is burned and the remains are mixed into a sort of soup that the mourners then consume. Families whose children died single will sometimes marry their children post mortum so that they won’t have to be alone in the afterlife. Pen-in-bottle, Sweden\r\nThis ridiculous but fun drinking game involves securing a pen on a length of string tied around one's waist and then competing to be the first person to lower one's pen into an empty bottle using one's waist.\r\nFind cheap flights to Sweden!\r\n3. 2 million people descend on this beach for New Year’s all dressed in white and ready to party the night away. In order to attain the status of elder, a young man must stick his hands in a pare of wicker gloves filled with bullet ants and hold them there for at least five minutes. So seriously that women are supposed to drop to their knees when greeting elders, and men are expected to lie right down on the ground. Every year, the mayor is publicly weighed. People will therefore react with disgust if you offer than an apple using your south paw. Quite an interesting way to try to keep the population up. window._wp_rp_promoted_content = true; That’s because the king’s face is on it, and any object bearing the likeness of the monarch should be treated in royal fashion. window._wp_rp_wp_ajax_url = "http://www.travelstart.co.za/blog/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php"; If you’re lucky when you visit Fiji, you may be treated to a kava ceremony. If you’re in Iceland in January and you have a particularly strong stomach, consider attending the festival of Thorri. There are few things I love more than joining in local festivals and celebrations when I travel. [CDATA[ From the weirdest things we put in our bodies to the weirdest things we lop off our bodies to the weirdest things we do with our dead bodies, here are seven of the strangest cultural practices from around the world that are still carried out today: