For example, I’m a white Jewish guy but I’ve adopted the Japanese practice of keeping dedicated house slippers at the front door.
Before I quit drinking I believe I was following Russian culture with my vodka intake.
Drinking cheapest vodka possible chasing it with cheapest bear possible, then fight, sing, fight again, vomit all over the place, and fall asleep face down in a bowl of salad?
no such thing as half a bottle of vodka
I cross my sevens like a German.
I adopted this years ago so I could tell the difference between a 1 and a 7 😁
This is a German thing? I know tons of people here in Canada who do it.
It’s done all over Europe. They also have a fancy 1 that’s nice because it doesn’t look like a lower case l. I’m not positive that the 1 is used outside France though but it’s the standard in France. https://ielanguages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/davidsno.jpg
I wear a mask unless I need my mouth for something.
I love wearing a mask it makes me feel like a ninja
American, here. Got a bidet, and I am never going back. The fact that this isn’t standard in American households is disgusting.
Yes. Bidets should be opt-out at this point.
I set all my digital clocks to 24hr mode, something I picked up after living in Europe. Would never go back.
Likewise. I just found it much easier when trying to schedule my day. Not having to account for the switch from 12-1 makes the math simpler.
One of us! Now shift to metric!
I’m a big white guy but I wear sarongs all the time, having grown up on Java and wore them as a kid. Soooo comfortable and versatile.
Stretching. I think this originally came from southeast Asia, its so far back that its hard to discover. But I stretch every single morning. As a Native American I need that to limber up so I can dance, which I enjoy doing.
I’ve learned from the Japanese phrase ‘itadakimasu,’ which is said before eating as a way to thank the person that prepared the food. I think in the west, a lot of us grew up learning to say things like grace before a meal, but that is too religious for me and gives God credit for peoples’ hard work instead. I love the idea of ritualistically thanking the people who actually made the food. It was one of the things I appreciated while studying there that has stuck with me.
In my culture its common courtesy to thank a person after the meal, either the one who made it, brought it, or paid for it. But only if they’re present. It ain’t a ritual. Same-ish thing.
I would LOVE the house slipper bit. I’ve suggested it so many times. Wife and kids just won’t go for it. Wife says it’s rude to ask a guest to take off their shoes. I disagree but she just can’t see my point or view. If you want to enter my house, show respect and take off your shoes to keep my house clean.
I just don’t get it lol. Whenever I enter someone’s house for the first time I ask “would you like me to take my shoes off?”.
It’s not that hard, and especially obvious if they have light colored carpet
What’s rude is bringing disgusting bacteria (E Coli, etc) and potentially-toxic chemicals into somebody else’s house by not taking your shoes off. There’s just an objectively-right and wrong answer to this one.
I have multiple guests slippers at the door with internal shoe cleaner also to hand, but that’s mostly for show as we clean them anyway. Regular guests eventually get to choose there slippers and we’ll get what ever they want.
I’m sorry, what do you mean by “internal shoe cleaner”? My wife and I have “inside shoes” (not really slippers) with a small shoe rack / bench next to the door, but we’re trying also to get slippers for the guests because so many of them usually ask if they should remove their shoes when they see us doing it. I’m having issues choosing the right slippers because I don’t want that using a slipper that many other people have used becomes a hygiene issue. I know that in most cases it’s not, but I don’t want guest to “feel” like it may be. How do you deal with that?
Anti bacterial shoe shoe spray, like they use in ice rinks or bowling alleys.
I’m British and I say y’all fairly often. It just rolls off the tongue.
Happy to have more of the y’all in English English, but personally I’d like an uptake in youse.
I’m a redneck American who says y’all, and calls people cunts a lot. We have so much to share
It probably has some root in a region of England anyway.
How could I adopt a practice from a culture that isn’t my own? What constitutes ownership of a culture other than its adoption, and what is culture other than a set of adopted practices?
This seems unnecessarily pedantic given the harmlessness of cross-cultural pollination but I’ll take the question in good faith.
Obviously all cultural practices are necessarily adopted from individuals, groups, and other cultures. What I mean is that some cultures have practices that differ from the ones that are commonplace in the ones you may have grown up in or currently live within. I’m asking about those practices, the ones that aren’t necessarily homegrown or common in your own life.
So the culture one grew up in one’s “own” culture. Reasonable definition.
I grew up in Illinois. My mother made stollen each Christmas because she had encountered it in Germany as a traveling 20-something and she kept it.
It’s not my culture as an American, but as a member of my family it is my culture. This kind of thing is why I ask.
If you wanted to participate in the discussion with a less abrasive nature, you could share that story from your mother’s perspeyand how it became your own personal culture.
However, I would consider it not to be your culture, but a family tradition. Your culture is more rooted in community than just your own family in my opinion.
I think if you open your mind a little you may discover someone challenging your beliefs can be helpful to a conversation.
That’s part of the culture I grew up in: arguing and challenging each other as part of talking. Feel free to try it out or adopt it.
You know I understand you. That was the way with me too. It took me a long time into adulthood to tone that down as I wasn’t making friends and people seemed to think I was an asshole. It really sucked cause I seriously didn’t mean any harm or disrespect, but most took it that way for some reason.
Now, after endless questioning of myself, I’ve learned to adapt to my audience.
I have a really hard time with it because it seems so non-spontaneous. What even is the point of discussing things without disagreement?
I see these conversations that are just people agreeing with each other and I just don’t get it. I don’t want to be a part of it.
But I don’t want to be alone.
Err, I don’t see a point in disagreeing for the sake of it - I have a similar problem to you though. I get awkward or silent when I don’t have anything original, new or even interesting to say, like you are uncomfortable with ‘agreement’.
Persuasion works best when you work off commonalities rather than differences. Though I understand you’re trying to go for combative argumentation.
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We started doing so here in Singapore. Even our public busses flash hazard lights twice to convey a thank you sometimes now. In the context of someone giving way to you.
But on a highway when there’s a sudden slowdown in front, we turn on the hazard lights to convey “dude slow down the dude in front is being weird”. Especially useful when there’s torrential downpours.
Isn’t that automatic in some vehicles now, to flash on heavy braking?
Not sure, haven’t been in any that I’ve driven so far. Our cars always have some lag between the latest tech and what’s actually being sold for some reason (tho arguably it’s getting better).
So many. I bow (learned from Japanese class). I wobble my head side to side, similar to South Asians, I have no idea why I started that, just feels normal now. I will often walk out of a room facing the room and close the door facing the room, learned from taekwondo. I’m sure there are so many more… I have this thing where I unconsciously mimic things.
You’re a Peter Petrelli.
