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During Songkran, Thailand’s New Year’s and biggest folk festival, people express the joys of spring by slinging bucketfuls of water at each other. These dousings symbolize purity and fertility. This year, the festival takes place April 13 to 15.
Culture clash
The world in a bowl of soup: Some soups are revered as miracle cures, others are shrouded in mystery and legend.
Heavenly grub
Borscht is the classic beet soup of Slavic Christmas parties and funerals. At the latter, the soul of the deceased is said to ascend to heaven with the steam. Speaking of heaven: While in orbit, cosmonauts can even eat borscht from a tube.
Fiery potage
Ancient dish? Not exactly. City dwellers across the world happily tuck into their pho, but the Vietnamese rice-noodle soup was only invented around 100 years ago. Rumor has it that the name comes from pot-au-feu, the classic French beef stew.
Wonder worker
Chicken soup is universally held to be good for a cold, but scientists claim that Japan’s miso is the real wonder soup. It eases stomach and menopausal complaints, and possibly even helps prevent cancer. Here’s a New Year’s recipe: miso with sweet mochi rice cakes.
In Caracas at Christmas, city streets are blocked off so that people can safely inline skate to mass. How the tradition began is something of a mystery, but it has to be the most athletic way of getting to church.
Victor Vasarely, Zèbres, 1932-1942, oil on canvas, 112 x 103 cm
© Collection HAR/Janus Pannonius MuseumImages like this can make you dizzy! Op art is good at deceiving the eye. It’s the subject of the Vertigo exhibition opening at Stuttgart Art Museum on April 19, 2020. Can you see the two zebras?