Every country has its birthday traditions, beliefs, ideas, and culture. Some are common, some are unusual and others are just weird.

For instance, in some countries, all you need to do to celebrate your birthday is to make a wish, blow up your cake candle, eat some food, and snacks, have some drinks, and enjoy a great time with family and friends.

Some other countries, on the other hand, don’t celebrate with cake. Instead, they have certain special birthday recipes they prepare. But it turns out the choice of food isn’t the only thing that differentiates birthday traditions around the world. Here are a few that you might find shocking.

In Vietnam, the actual day of a person’s birthday is not celebrated. Instead, everyone celebrates their birthday on New year’s day, a day which they mostly refer to as tet. It means that your age changes every new year.

For instance, if you are 19 and living in Vietnam, by the new year, you become 20. It’s more about celebrating how many years you’ve lived, not necessarily the number of 365 days cycles that you’ve lived.

In North Korea, if you are born on December 17th or July 8th, then you have to move your birthday date. You see, these dates were special days in North Korea.

It was the day North Korea’s founder, Kim II-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, died. So, it is believed that they shouldn’t celebrate on these dates.

In Spain, ear pulling is a birthday tradition where your Spanish friends pull your ear once for every year you’ve lived, with an extra one for good luck. So, if you’re 20 years old, you’ll have your ear pulled 21 times.

How far can you slurp your noodles before biting them? That’s what the longevity noodles birthday tradition is all about in China. It symbolizes long life and good luck.

An old tradition for single men who turn 30 in Germany is to sweep the steps of their local city hall while their friends toss rubble on them.

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