Men holding hands / placing your hand over someone’s shoulder! In India, it is common to see men hold hands. These are seen as gestures of affection, care and friendship. However, in North America and Canada , these gestures are “gay”. They mean you’re in love with “him”… Talk about a confusing world, eh?

There are a lot of things that are quite unique in Nepal, but this one is particularly interesting.

You can see living goddess in Nepal called Kumari.

There is a tradition of worshiping young girls who are yet to reach the puberty as the incarnation of Hindu goddess Durga who is considered as the indication of divine female energy. Young girls from, Kathmandu’s Newar community, Shakya or Bajracharya are chosen as Kumari by a committee. It is a privilege to have your daughter contest in this selection process.

Before chosen as Kumari the girls are tested for 32 very specific physical attributes, including “eyelashes like a cow,” “thighs like a deer,” “Mona Lisa Like Smile” and a “voice as clear as a duck.” She is also put through a secret test for signs of fearlessness and serenity.

Kumari lives with her father and mother, who left their jobs to become her full-time caretakers. The Kumari is not allowed to leave her place of residence except for some Holy festivals and her feet are never supposed to touch ground. She is carried everywhere, even inside her home.

Kumari are not Kumaris for life. Once they hit puberty they are forced to return to life as a normal human being.

Denmark here.

When celebrating a birthday, we will carelessly decorate everything around us with our national flag ("Dannebrog"). The food, the cake, the gifts, the house, the dog. Everything. My last birthday, I was woken in bed by my daughter, singing, laughing and waving the national flag in my face. I loved it.

Ask any Dane. Flags equals birthday.

Birthday cakes decorated with our national flag, "Dannebrog".

I have no clue why we do it. It's not a nationalist thing. People across the political spectrum, from far far right to far far left, will do it. I guess we just like the colors, maybe.

But it gets weirder. In other contexts, the presence of even a single national flag will cause heated arguments. A few years back, politicians of our national parliament ("Folketinget") went nuts about the sudden presence of a (albeit pretty large) national flag inside the parliament chamber. A blatant symbol of nationalism and an outrage, some parties argued. Other parties thought it looked pretty neat. A large national conservative party even adopted the flag as their logo, much to the dismay of others.

But during birthdays, each and every Dane agrees that flags are a thing. Preferably a lot of them.

It didn't really occur to me until my daughter came of age and we started watching all sorts of non-danish TV-shows and cartoons together. Naturally, sometimes a character in one of these shows/movies/whatever will celebrate his or her birthday. "But daddy, where are all the flags?" she asked me. And she was absolutely right. I saw all sorts of decorations, silly hats, beautiful cakes, colorful flowers, balloons galore and candles - but no flags. Even in content from our immediate neighboring countries, Sweden, Norway and Germany. "They forgot the flags, love," I told her. "But dad, you can't celebrate a birthday without flags!" she almost yelled.

Well, not if you're from Denmark you can't.

My country is Ukraine, and even though it is located in the center of Europe(geographically), we have lots of customs similar to the middle east, I will describe something what is common in my city, Lviv and in the west of Ukraine.

We have lots of phrases, which actually have different meaning. F.e. if guests are in the house, and you want them to leave, just suggest them a coffee of tea (that means that celebration come to the end), BUT when guests are leaving we usually play the game “oh, you are leaving so soon, stay for some longer time”.

We always invite someone for coffee, and that doesn't means the you will drink coffee. Basically that is invitation to meet up. Also it works as invitation for a date. A girl would not agree to meet up for a drink, but will happily go for coffee, even if they will drink beer.

We complain a lot about our country/city/village, but still love it to the moon and back.

We do big weddings to show off among relatives. For the same reason we repair the apartments with the best furniture.

We never swear near to older relatives, and it is not good to do something against parents, so first of all we need to prove that we are right, receive approval and only than we an act.

If lady goes to wedding, or any other family celebrations, with her boyfriend (or a guy with girlfriend) that means that their wedding is coming soon.

We play a game of the good family, on the celebrations, even if that is not true.

We cook too much food for different holidays, And I mean it TOO Much (Below is standard Ukrainian celebration) Probably that is related to big famine (Holodomor in 1932-1933)

Since you are 16, your relatives will ask you, when will you get married. If your are older than 25, they will pray for you to get married and have children :D

There are a lot of beautiful girls (I know that beauty is different for everyone, but still), girls always make up, and dress up beautifully before leaving the house, even if they go to the shop. And we used to wear high heels, we can dance all night long on the high heels and stay gorgeous.

We never drink alcohol without food, if someone does - he is alcohol addicted.

We still sing national songs, dance national dances and wear national clothes (embroider shirts) for holidays.

If I go on with the list, it will be endless :) Hope you found out something new from my writing.

Normally we think of poverty as correlated to hunger and being skinny. In America, because unhealthy food is so cheap, poverty is actually strongly correlated to obesity. Obesity isn't uncommon in other classes either. The obesity epidemic is seen as a scourge of prosperity. It’s really, really, easy to get fat here if you aren't disciplined.

Among thousands of Indian families, young girls are either prohibited, prevented or at least discouraged by their parents from even talking to or socially interacting with boys. Then one fine day, (or rather night) she is expected to go to bed with a perfect stranger. This was normal in our country for centuries, but today, things are changing. —