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11 Weird And Wonderful Valentine’s Day Traditions From Around The World

Say whaaaat.

Love is in the air, but the way you and your boo celebrate Valentine’s Day is probably very different from the way those living in different cultures around the world do.

From South Korea’s tradition of singletons eating black noodles to the Welsh tradition of presenting your lover with a spoon, here’s 11 of the weirdest but most wonderful ways people from around the world celebrate their love…

In Denmark and Norway, people send each other love poems that are anonymous except for a number of dots that represent the number of letters in their name. If a person guesses who sent it correctly, they win an Easter egg but if they get it wrong, they owe the sender an Easter egg in return.

In the Czech Republic, kissing beneath cherry blossom trees is said to bring couples good luck on Valentine’s Day. Any excuse for a snog, hey?

While this tradition is now largely a thing of the past, women in England used to place bay leaves at each corner of their pillow the night before Valentine’s Day. The idea was to bring them sweet dreams of their future husband. *Swoon*

South Korea celebrates love on the 14th of every month and aside from Valentine’s Day these celebrations include Hug Day (December), Kiss Day (June) and Rose Day (May). Our fave is the April celebration, known as ‘Black Day’, where single people gather together to celebrate their independence by eating meals of black sesame noodles together.

For those living in the Philippines, Valentine’s Day is seen as a particularly lucky day for love and as a result, is often a day of mass weddings where hundreds of couples get married simultaneously in giant ceremonies. The government even sponsor some of these events in the name of ‘public service’.

Forget sending cards as in South Africa, people celebrate by wearing their hearts on their sleeve – literally. In a tradition known as Lupercalia, people pin the name of their crush on the arm of their shirt for all to see.

In Finland, Valentine's Day is more of a celebration of friendship than romantic love and it's common to swap gifts and cards with your bezzies instead of the person you fancy.

Valentine’s Day isn’t as commercial in Germany as it is in many other parts of the world, but traditionally lovers would give each other pictures, statues or chocolate models of pigs, which are said to represent luck and lust. Nowadays it’s also common for couples to present each other with giant gingerbread hearts decorated with messaged of love. Yum.

In Wales it's common to gift each other love spoons on V-Day. These are intricately carved spoons often with the name of your lover carved into them with each decorative symbol signifying something different. If your spoon has a horseshoe on it, it means luck while wheels are said to symbolise support.

Argentinians not only celebrate Valentine’s but also set aside an entire week in July called 'Sweetness Week' where you can trade kisses for sweet treats.

In Italy, it used to be believed that the first man a woman saw on Valentine’s Day was either the man she would marry within a year OR resembled the man she would marry within a year. As a result unmarried women would wake early on the 14th of February and head to the streets to try to spot their future match.

'Nowcheck out this video of guys and girls trying to guess what weird sexting slang actually stands for...'

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