We all love to celebrate events like the spring, harvest season, religious occasions, and many more. A lot of them are related to tradition and history, and the uniqueness can be seen through various costumes that are worn during festivals around the world. Youth and modern festivals are not always related to music but also to food and culture. But do you know that there are many rather unusual festivals around the world that still exist today? Below are 10 strange festivals around the world.
1. Mud
The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual event that takes place during the summer in Boryeong, a town around 200 km south of Seoul, South Korea. You can enjoy the mud pool, mud slides, mud prison, and mud skiing competitions, with the most interesting activities being the mud wrestling and mud fireworks. Yes, it is all related to mud!
2. Baby jumping
This event takes place in the small town of Castrillo de Murcia, Spain. In this festival, a man dressed as the devil jumps over babies. This an old tradition that exists since 1620. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the festival, but it is believed to cleanse the babies of original sin.
3. Colour-throwing
Holi is also known as the “festival of spring”, the “festival of colours”, and the “festival of love”. It is a popular ancient Hindu festival originally from India but today this festival has also spread to other regions of Asia and parts of the Western world through the diaspora from the Indian subcontinent. The festival is a symbol of the triumph of good over evil.
4. Monkey buffet
In Thailand there is an entire festival dedicated to feeding monkeys. Every year, on the last Sunday of November, people in Lapbury, the oldest city of Thailand, prepare a huge banquet for the monkeys who live in the area. Obviously the monkeys are very happy with this, they probably wonder why this festival doesn’t take place every day.
5. Orange fight
Every year, the citizens of the medieval town of Ivrea, in Italy, remember their liberation with the Battle of the Oranges. People gather in the main square to throw oranges at each other, and it is the biggest food fight in Italy.
6. Vikings
This is the biggest fire festival in Europe and sees men from the Shetland region of Scotland dress as Vikings and set things on fire. The festival is held annually from January to March to celebrate the end of the Yule season, with the largest festival held in Lerwick, Shetland’s capital. This involves a procession of up to a thousand men who march through the streets of Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January.
7. Naked
Every year, usually in the summer or winter, the Hadaka Matsuri or Naked Festival is held in dozens of cities across Japan. The most popular place to celebrate this event is Saidai-ji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri, in Okayama, where the festival originated over 500 years ago. Every year, over 9,000 men participate in this festival in hopes of gaining luck for the entire year.
8. Floating lanterns
The Lantern Floating Festival is held every year during Memorial Day on Ala Moana Beach in Hawaii. Thousands of people gather on the beach and float lanterns at sunset with messages for loved ones they have lost, generating collective hope towards the future.
9. Tomato fight
La Tomatina is a festival that is held in the Valencian town of Buñol, in the east of Spain 30 kilometres from the Mediterranean. During this festival participants throw tomatoes as part of a giant tomato fight. The reason for painting the town in red with tonnes of the juicy fruit? Pure, unadulterated enjoyment. Amazing, isn’t it?
10. Masks
The Buso Festival of The Busójárás is an annual celebration of the Šokci living in the town of Mohács, Hungary. The event begins at the end of the Carnival season and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The celebration features Busós (people wearing traditional masks) and includes folk music, masquerading, parades, and dancing. These traditional festivities were inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
