Original photo by Oleksandr Sytnyk/ iStock
Everybody in the world has a birthday, but not everybody celebrates it, or even recognizes it, in the same way. Local birthday traditions can be cute, messy, sweet, a little (affectionately) insulting, or all of the above. In some cultures, age even gets tallied differently — a child who would be considered 2 days old in most places could be considered 2 years old in certain locations.
In one tradition, 1-year-olds predict their own futures. In another, you might end up covered in flour. Dutch people have their own entire labyrinth of rituals. These seven birthday facts just might inspire you to celebrate in new ways.
In Many East Asian Traditions, Everyone Gets Older at the Same Time
In today’s East Asia, it’s common to celebrate individual birthdays, but that wasn’t always the case. Several countries, including Korea, China, Japan, and Vietnam, traditionally celebrate one common day when everybody gets one year older right around the new year. In these traditions, babies are born at age 1, making their traditional age a year older than their age would be in other countries like the United States. This also means babies born close to the end of the year could be considered 2 years old when, chronologically, they’ve only been around for a couple of days.
In Vietnam, the traditional common birthday is Tet, the celebration of the Lunar New Year. In some regions of China, the seventh day of the lunar year is the Birthday of Man or Human’s Day. Korea used January 1 as the common birthday until a law passed in 2023 requiring people to use their actual chronological age in most contexts. The new year still marks your age for smoking, drinking, and entering school, but the count starts at zero for birth and adds a year each January 1.
When Dutch People Turn 50, They “See Abraham” or “See Sarah”
It’s a big deal when someone turns 50 in most places, but the Netherlands has a very specific, goofy tradition. For men, turning 50 is called “seeing Abraham,” and for women it’s “seeing Sarah.” The names come from the long-lived Bible characters, but the celebration is almost wholly secular, and mostly consists of the birthday-haver’s friends decorating their home in gaudy, thematic ways. Some people go all-out and decorate their yards with giant inflatable dolls, while others might limit it to a tasteful baked good. There’s even an over-50 Dutch women’s magazine called Saar, or Sarah.
Dutch People Also Sit in a Big Circle and Congratulate Everybody
The Dutch take birthdays very seriously, and for the uninitiated, a birthday party can seem kind of tedious. Guests could be expected to congratulate everyone at the party based on their relationship to the person having the birthday. Because it’s all done in one big circle — Dutch birthday parties are also called “circle parties” — it’s hard to get away with not doing it. You could just say “congratulations, everyone,” but it wouldn’t be considered polite. If you bring a present, expect it to be opened in front of the entire circle, too.
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Japanese 1-Year-Olds Predict the Future
A year old is a little young to figure out what you’re doing with your life, but a Japanese first birthday ritual called Erabitori, or Choose & Take, gives it a very cute try. (There are different versions of the game common in other East Asian countries.) According to tradition, the birthday kid is surrounded by several items related to occupations, such as pens, calculators, money, scissors, or eating utensils. The idea is that their choice indicates their direction in life; a child could pick up a pen to foretell a life as a writer, or money for a career in finance. Some parents use cards in lieu of the items themselves now — which makes sense if you’re worried about your kid being around scissors.
Jamaicans Get Floured on Their Birthdays
It’s a common tradition in Jamaica to douse your friends with bags of flour on their birthdays. Jamaican runner Usain Bolt couldn’t even escape it while celebrating his 29th birthday in China at the 2015 IAAF World Championships; he posted a photo of himself from Beijing after some other Jamaican athletes floured him. Sometimes the tradition calls for eggs, too — so you might as well just use leftover ingredients from baking a cake.
Brazilians Give Away Their First Slice of Cake
In Brazil, after blowing out the candles, it’s customary for the person who’s having a birthday to give their slice of cake to someone important to them. For kids that often means parents, but not always! An adorable video of this tradition, showing an 11-year-old kid taking his first slice of birthday cake and giving it to his very excited little sibling next to him, went semi-viral in 2022. The reaction is very sweet — the younger kid starts sobbing and hugging him, knowing exactly what it means.
Australian Kids Eat Bread With Sprinkles
In Australia and New Zealand, one of the most beloved childhood treats is called fairy bread. Much like colorful birthday cake in the United States, it’s not strictly limited to birthdays — but it’s strongly associated with them.
It’s simple on paper: You take cheap white bread, spread butter or margarine on it, and then add liberal amounts of nonpareil sprinkles (Australians call them hundreds and thousands). Then, very importantly, you cut the bread into triangles. Getting the right butter-to-sprinkle ratio is a big deal.
The treat dates back to the 1920s, when the recipe appeared in a local newspaper. The “fairy bread” name might come from a short poem in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1885 book A Child’s Garden of Verses, or it could just be a cutesy name for colorful bread.
Interesting Facts writers have been seen in Popular Mechanics, Mental Floss, A+E Networks, and more. They’re fascinated by history, science, food, culture, and the world around them.
