Kickass Customs

In the Wodaabe tribe of Niger in West Africa, men are known to steal each other's wives. The Wodaabe's first marriage is arranged by their parents in infancy and must be between cousins of the same lineage. However, at the yearly Gerewol Festival, Wodaabe men wear elaborate makeup and costumes and dance to impress the women – and hopefully steal a new wife.

Coffee and red tea are the most common drinks in Egypt. However, accidentally spilling coffee is good omen. When someone spills coffee, most of surrounding people tell them that this is a good sign, meaning good things will happen.

Every year brave souls line up to take an icy plunge, the Polar Plunge! Now officially a part of Special Olympics this tradition of jumping into the 35-40 Fahrenheit cold sea tied to a rope in winter is an extremely cool (quite literally) to add to your bucket list!

The 300 value change in temperature of that many degrees Fahrenheit, the equivalent in Celsius is 167. The idea is to wait until the temperature outside reaches an exceptionally low temperature and go into a sauna where you reach the higher temperature. You then open the door and run around some designated marker wearing only boots so achieving a difference of 300F before re-entering the building to warm up again.

Chinese people usually wear (or are forced by their mothers to wear) red underwear on Ben Ming Nian (Zodiac Year of Birth), which is the current year in a cycle of 12 zodiac years. It is believed that wearing red underwear during the whole year may prevent misfortunes from befalling them in the year to come. Why so? There are 12 animals respectively representing the 12 zodiac years. Legend has it that the current animal is on duty in heaven, so it cannot take care of the people of its sign in the human world. That’s when the red underwear comes to the rescue.

Also celebrated in countries such as Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia, Thimithi originated in Tamil Nadu. The festival takes place every year during the months of October and November in honour of Draupati Amman, the wife of the five Pandava brothers in the Mahabharata. Male devotees perform the ritual by walking on a sheet of burning coal while carrying a pot of milk or water on their heads for balance. The practice is a sign of utter devotion to their faith.

When you get into a cab it is presupposed that you will start quick chitchat with the driver. If you got off without knowing his or her life trajectory, you failed it. This is one of the good Australian customs. Drivers in Australia are super-friendly and they understand that one of the cultural norms there is to chat with passengers. So stay off your phones!

Usually a female is wearing a flower in her left ear it means she is taken. If she is wearing the flower in her right ear it means she is available.

Culturally speaking, Germans are also more customarily friendly and helpful than other northern European nations, where the norm is to keep to oneself. In Deutschland, people really tend to look out for one another. If you happen to drop your ‘hand shoe’ in the cold and dreary winter, rest assured that when retracing your steps in search of it, the glove may well be skewered on the branch of a tree. Doing so when encountering an item that appears to be lost is commonplace in German society in order to make it more visible when the owner comes searching for it.Christmas Comes Early

If you find yourself sitting at a dinner table with 12 other people, then consider yourself unlucky. Having 13 people around the table at mealtime is considered bad luck, as there were 13 people at the Last Supper.

Predicting the future is hard for people, no one can do it with 100 percent accuracy, but animals are more predictable. In the United States, groundhogs are said to predict the future of the winter season's end - if it’s going to stay a bit longer, most often six weeks, or if it’s going to give way for the upcoming spring. If the ceremonial hog sees a shadow, you're going to have to wait a bit longer for the warm weather.

Whether you mail Santa a letter from Tanzania or Turkey, it ends up in Canada. Saint Nick’s official address at the North Pole (Postal code: HOH OHO, obviously) is owned by Canada Post.

Celebrated each year in the small town of Castrillo de Murcia, the Salto del Colacho is a week-long celebration which culminates with a man dressed as a devil terrorising locals and jumping over babies. Controversial as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the celebration is believed to cleanse the new-borns of their original sin.

You can’t just decide you’re ready to leave the bar and go home, not before a saideira. A saideira is the very last drink of the night when you’re in a bar and if you and your pals are ready to leave, you will have to order one last saideira and the bill.