Essay

 

                                                  Why people celebrate new year ?
                                                                                                                                     21703708
                                                                                                                                    Keitaro Ura



     Last week, my group talked about strange new year's celebration around the world. I want to know what kind of celebration each country's people have and why they do that. As I search some new year's traditions in the world, I found a analogy.
     As my group presented, people in Peru have strange, unique way to celebrate new year. The new year tradition of Peru is called Takanakuy. Takanakuy is a festival which is held by about a thousand people every year at the end of every year. In this festival, people hold a serious fight with each other in order to start off the new year in a fresh state. They think that by fighting each other they can throw away their negative feelings and solve some problems. The person one choose to fight have to be someone he actually had trouble with. Whatever problems they may have with each other, fighters hug before a fight, exchange a few blows and then put everything behind them and become good friends again. It is a fresh state.
     Next example is from Ecuador. In the country, people burn paper filled scarecrows at midnight. They also burn photographs from last year. It sounds very distinctive, and you can feel what a waste to burn photographs! I heard that they must not forget to save their own favourite photographs as data in their PC and smart phone to feel sad after that festival. However, it is also fact that people have own memories and photographs which they do not want to remember. By burning photographs, they can forget them. Moreover, as I wrote above, they burn scarecrows. A scarecrows is called Kakashi in Japan, by means of which we can turn some animals trying to eat vegetables and fruits away because they misunderstand it is a real human. People in Ecuador also provide a scarecrows for their a lot of harvests. The reason they burn it is not clear, but I think of 2 reasons;one is to renew a scarecrows. Though some animals take a scarecrows for a real human, they may realise that it should be a fake human as the time passes because it never moves and changes it's form. By burning and remake a scarecrows, we can make animals misunderstand again. Another reason I thought of is to forget a bad record. If the quantity of harvests is lower than usual, the year should be forgot. People may think that if they use the same scarecrows as used in last year, the next year will be the same result.
     The third example is in Mexico. The Mexican tradition is similar to the "burning of Judas," in which Christians burn effigies of Judas around Easter. Mexicans, instead, burn cardboard effigies of the devil, politicians and people they generally don't like. Last year, Mexicans are setting fire to Donald Trump because he called Mexicans emigrating to the United States "criminals" and "rapists" and also he was planning to build a wall between Mexico and America. They took special pleasure in burning "fake" Trump. Though the fight between Trump and people in Mexico will probably continue to next year, they composed their anger anyway.
     I think you can realise a analogy. These celebration system try to welcome new year in a clean state. To forget bad events and enjoy next year in a flesh state, they provide a strange and original festival. Even if they are not the same type of people or in the same country, region..., the inclination to welcome new year as a fresh feeling is similar to each other all over the world.




Reference
http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/takanakuy-the-fighting-festival-of-peru.html
https://list25.com/25-strangest-new-years-traditions-from-around-the-world/
http://time.com/4273123/mexico-donald-trump-burn-effigy/