New Year: Around the World in 24 hours

30 December 2007

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Not everyone celebrates New Year at same time or even in the same way. Female First takes you on a trip around the world to see how everyone else will welcome 2008.

January 31st is often an excuse to go out, drink the bay dry, and hug everyone you meet. Well, in Britain anyway but venture across time zones and your eyes can be opened to a whole host of different cultures and traditions.

The residents on the central Pacific Ocean island of Kiritimati, also known as Christmas Island, claim to be the first to usher in the New Year 14 hours before Britain. When they enter the New Year at midnight Dec 31, 2007 (New Year 2008), the local time in New York will be 5am, Dec 31, 2007, local time in London, 10am and local time in Sydney, 9pm.

So how does everyone else celebrate the New Year? As we span across a whole host of different time zones the traditions vary tremendously. 12 hours ahead of us in the Soviet Union, Santa is replaced with Grandfather Frost. He arrives on New Year's Eve with his bag of toys wearing blue instead of Santa’s trademark red. For a formal Russian New Year's celebration you will find yourself at a party held at the Kremlin, Russia's mythic refuge. It is a self contained city with a multitude of palaces, armories and churches and as many as 50,000 people each year pack into this city to bring in the New Year.

If the thought of standing in the freezing cold waiting for the clock to chime is hardly your idea of fun, Australia is defiantly the place to bring in the New Year. Many people have picnics and camp out on the beach and at midnight the whole of Australia makes noise with whistles and rattles, car horns and church bells, in fact, anything they can get their hands on, to ring in the New Year. Nobody brings in the New Year quite like Sydney, with an absolutely stunning fireworks display exploding over its famous landmark - the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Next up are Tokyo at GMT+9. A major attraction of the New Year in Tokyo is “The Watch-night bell.” where a bell is rung 108 times on the last night of the year in temples all over Japan in order to get rid of the 108 worldly desires.

One hour later, 2008 will take over Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, although the people in Hong Kong are not allowed to set off real firecrackers at the New Year. Instead, they use plastic firecrackers as decorations.

One thing I don’t fancy taking part in are the Thai New Years celebrations, otherwise known as Songkran; The merriment starts by people chasing each other down the street with buckets of water before throwing it all over each other, under the guise of that it will bring good rains in the coming year. On the upside, the celebrations last for three days from 13 to 15 April which is something I am definitely up for!

Bangladesh are six hours ahead of us, however, for them the New Year begins on Pôhela Boishakh, which falls on 14 April. They won’t be heading into 2008 though, as the current Bengali year is 1414.

Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Turkey are just a few of the countries to roll into the forthcoming year two hours before us. January 1 is a very important day in the Greek calendar not only because is it the first day of the year, but it is also Saint Basil's Day, one of the forefathers of the Greek Orthodox Church. New Year is perhaps even more festive than Christmas since it is the main day for gift-giving.

One hour ahead of us in the 2008 race are France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary. Silvester, as the Germans refer to New Years Eve, is quite similar to ours, with fireworks and parties being the dominant events. However, it’s not unusual to see people stay at home to watch; ‘Dinner for one,’ A black-and-white English-language stage sketch filmed in 1963 in Hamburg. Much like the coca cola advert symbolizes Christmas for us Brits, ‘Dinner for one’ signifies New Year for the Germans.

14 hours after the start of the proceedings halfway across the world, Big Ben signals the start of 2008 in good old Blighty, but we’re not alone; Portugal, Iceland, The Canary Islands, Morocco, and Ghana are just a few of the countries who share our time zone.

In England, crowds gather in Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus waiting to hear the chimes of London's Big Ben, which announces the arrival of the New Year. Arms are linked and there is usually a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne."

In Scotland, the New Year is called Hogmanay. Barrels of tar are set alight and rolled down the streets to symbolize that the old year is burned up and the new one is allowed to enter.

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