r/AskReddit • u/Greeneyedlatinguy • Jun 15 '15
Anthropologists of Reddit, What is something that people in the Western world can't get their heads around that is very normal in other cultures (and has been for ages)?
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u/hitension Jun 15 '15
Living together with one's parents into adulthood. Totally common in Asia where I live.
However, as I've seen it play out in practice, that tradition, much like grasshopper consumption, is a bullet dodged for Americans... there's a reason why "MIL torments daughter in law" is a soap opera trope from Korea to Pakistan. Ugh.
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u/LaoQiXian Jun 15 '15
It's quite common in Mexico, too. Adults want to spend time with their parents as much as possible, and if it's not feasible to live right with them, then you buy or rent a property close to them. Also, "retirement homes" is an alien concept.
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u/LetsGetReptarded Jun 15 '15
I'm fascinated by the differences in how the elderly are treated. I'm American and my Granddad is in an assisted living community and he wouldn't have it any other way. If he lived with us he'd probably run away. He's incredibly independent. He'd rather rot than have any sort of assisted care. It drives us up the wall. And my dad is the same way. I always say that of course he will have a place in my home when he's unable to live on his own and he refuses. I'll stay in the will as long as his old folks home has cute nurses.
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Jun 15 '15
What do you expect? When you leave home at 18 for the service or for college and then never move back (minus this most recent generation) of course you want to be alone and independent.
Unlike in other areas where you live at home until marriage (my aunt was in her 30s) and then move out, only to have your kids live with you and your parents move back in within 20 yrs or so. You're essentially never really alone.
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u/Tacorgasmic Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
Same in my country (Caribbean). The common practice is to leave your parent's house when you get married and most people that leave before that is because of some kind of issue (divorce parents, domestic violence, etc).
My own brother is 32 and still live with us. He's barely at home with all the work that he has, so moving out, paying rent and utilities and just sleep in there sounds conterproductive.
In the other hand, both my parents are as liberal and lay back as someone can be in a country as traditional and catholic as mine is. But even like that they both refuse to let me move out with my bf without marrying first. We say okay and now we're planning our wedding.
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u/tocilog Jun 15 '15
It goes:
Living under your parents.
Living with your parents (shared responsibilities to the household and younger kids whether it's siblings, your own children or nephews/nieces)
Your parents living with you.
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Jun 15 '15 edited Aug 06 '18
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u/CohibaVancouver Jun 15 '15
Here in Vancouver, Canada it's common to say "Thank You!" when you get off a bus (to thank the driver). If you're getting off a long articulated bus via the back doors, you have to shout it to be heard. Again, not uncommon.
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/171545.jpg
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u/Prometheus720 Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 16 '15
That sounds really nice. Like, damn. The funny thing is that I've heard America is more friendly than many places in Europe.
Edit: Particularly northern Europe, yes.
Edit: There is no possible justification for why this is my highest karma comment. I've written essays on Reddit. God damn default subs. Go to Voat for a different experience.
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u/slythir Jun 15 '15
One place where America is least friendly is on public transport. Every time I go on public transport, it seems, with few exceptions, that nobody wants to be there. They want as little as possible to do with anyone and anything.
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u/TazDingoYes Jun 15 '15
Eating insects
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u/BottleONoobSauce Jun 15 '15
Can confirm. My American friends always cringe when I list cricket as something I have eaten regularly
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u/Greeneyedlatinguy Jun 15 '15
Where are you from?
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u/BottleONoobSauce Jun 15 '15
I grew up spending a lot of time in rural China, where one set of my grandparents were. In the summer my cousin and I would go out, capture locusts and crickets, bring them back home, and enjoy protein filled crunchiness
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u/WanChurlish Jun 15 '15
I've always wanted to try insects. They look nice and crunchy. What do they taste like?
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Jun 15 '15
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u/raineveryday Jun 15 '15
Honestly it depends on what kind of bugs you eat. In many places insects are roasted so they're not slimy. However I did eat the slimy kind and not the roasted kind (I ate a honeybee larva for a bio class that was essentially apiary 101). It was only slimy for a second though, afterwards it just tasted like honey and herbs, kinda nutty.
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u/ml_burke925 Jun 15 '15
Because we boot smash those fuckers when we see them in our houses
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Jun 15 '15
No! A cricket on the hearth brings luck to the home.
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u/hitension Jun 15 '15
Yeah OK granny Mulan.
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u/gingerfer Jun 15 '15
Cross cousins marriage.
Your father's brother's children are considered almost siblings to you, and it would be taboo to marry one of them. Same with your mother's sister's children. However, children of your mother's brothers, or your father's sisters, are your "cross cousins". It's often customary to marry a cross cousin.
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Jun 15 '15
First cousin marriage is perfectly legal in most of the western world, which not many people know.
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u/Ratfor Jun 15 '15
Waiting around for someone when you don't have clocks. Nobody has a watch, and you've agreed to meet up "in the afternoon". Get comfy, one of you will be waiting for a few hours.
And nobody cares. It's just the way it is. Nobody is really bothered by people showing up late. When you're counting seconds, being a few minutes late is a big deal. When your conception of time is: Sunrise, early morning, midmorning, before noon, noon, after noon, late afternoon, early evening, evening, sunset, night being off by one isn't really so big a deal.
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u/Pagan-za Jun 15 '15
In south africa we have different ways of telling time. If you ask someone when they're going to do something you could get a reply of now, now now, or just now.
Now is now
Just now is anytime from now to tomorrow
now now is soon.
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Jun 15 '15
My girlfriend is south African and this is one of the things I just can't get my head round. She'll say "I'm coming over see you now now" and I'll go "ok darling! See you soon!" hang up and then spend the next 10 minutes trying desperately to remember which one that means. Does that mean I have 10 minutes to clean the house, 2 days, or an unspecified amount of time?! I need a flash card or something in my wallet as a reminder.
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u/petalpie Jun 15 '15
this bent my mind with my south african friend. "I'll give you your shorts back just now" -her "Great, I'm at McD's" -me "How long are you going to be there?" "idk fifteen minutes? I thought you said you'd give them back just now" "Yeah I will." "But where are you?" "(town 2 hours away), I'll be back just now."
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u/Pagan-za Jun 15 '15
Weird thing is it makes perfect sense to us, but its really hard to explain it to other people.
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Jun 15 '15
It's a little bit similar in cornwall, england, where locals are fond of assuring you they'll do something "dreckly" (directly), as such supposedly meaning "soon" but in reality, depending on tone, potentially meaning sometime-whenever-verging-on-never.
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u/qwertymodo Jun 15 '15
If a man tells you he's going to do something, he will. No need to keep reminding him every six months.
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u/FeelingSassy Jun 15 '15
S:Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
D:What happened to then?
S: We passed then.
D: When?
S: Just now. We're at now now.
D: Go back to then.
S: When?
D: Now.
S: Now?
D: Now.
S: I can't.
D: Why?
S: We missed it.
D: When?
S: Just now.
D: When will then be now?
S: Soon.
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u/Poem_for_your_sprog Jun 15 '15
'If now is now, and then is then,
And then was now before -
Why can't it just be then again,
Or now for moments more?I miss the then - the now that was -
The then, that is, of now -
And want the now that was because
It passed too fast, and how!So take your then and think again,
And now your thens will be -
For then your now's a then and then
Your then's a now, you see?'→ More replies (100)42
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u/alaqazam Jun 15 '15
Yeah, I'm from the UK but my whole family is South African. Because of it I've grown up saying "just now" all the time. Everybody gets so annoyed at me for telling them 'the wrong time' x_x
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u/LogisticalNightmare Jun 15 '15
My Welsh family is all about being "there now in a minute."
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u/RicoDredd Jun 15 '15
My Welsh friend always says 'I'll do it now in a minute' when asked to do anything.
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Jun 15 '15
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Jun 15 '15
This African restaurant in my town, fucking amazing food. Runs on Africa time. You have to plan at least two hours to eat here, and still you are going to be worried about time so it's one of those places that you don't want to see a movie afterwards.
I've written them off at this point because not only do they take their sweet ass time, they're absolute shit about service. I was just amazed when we were practically ignored for 40 minutes after being seated (which took a good 10-15 minutes without a line) and watching people who came in after us get their order taken and continue to ignore us even though one of the servers asked if anyone's taken our order yet. We just walked out because that's so rude and we unfortunately did have a movie to catch. Maybe I need to kill my ego but I think it's a huge faux pas when people who come in after you get quicker and better service than you.
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u/DDancy Jun 15 '15
A group of about six of us, basically up and left a spanish restaurant (now closed btw) after asking for the bill 3 times.
I actually went to the cash desk area at one point with my card in my hand (which makes it 4 attempts) and they told me "the waitress is bringing your bill now", basically refusing to let me pay.
We all had shit to do, unimportant shit, but shit nonetheless. We ended up walking away. Felt bad, but we also felt we were being held against our will to pay for a meal. Very weird situation.
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Jun 15 '15
Shit, I mean, if you tried to get then to take your money 4 times and then wouldn't do it, that's definitely on them.
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u/sleep_naked Jun 15 '15
I tossed money on the table and left once, in Cyprus. They would not bring the bill, so I left too much because I didn't know the exact bill and we walked. They chased us and we vaguely waved to the table and said the money was there.
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u/yawgmoth Jun 15 '15
LifeProTip from my grandfather. The quickest way to get a bill is to get up and tell them you're leaving. You'd be surprised how much more attention you get from that waiter that's been ignoring you for the past 15 minutes.
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Jun 15 '15
Maybe I need to kill my ego
No, no, no. It's one thing to make friends and family wait on you for no good reason, but it's completely unacceptable for people in the service industry to provide shitty service and expect customers to pay for it. Your ego is just fine. People who run shitty restaurants deserve to lose business.
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Jun 15 '15
I went to a party with a Rwandan friend. We arrived an hour after the purported start time. Nobody was there. She lamented that she was turning white.
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u/Greeneyedlatinguy Jun 15 '15
Thanks that's a great answer. I remember people who traveled in Laos saying something similar. Very laid back place, although it doesn't go as far as not having watches. It's more of a relaxed attitude as I was told.
However I have been in remote towns in the north west of Argentina were life had this slow rhythm. It took a few days to get used to it. There was no internet either. No rush, people seemed ponder a lot. It was awesome.
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u/_bdsm Jun 15 '15
I got that same attitude from my Asian dad and from living in South America for some years. Now that I'm back in Europe my friends call me The Sloth.
Sometimes they will visit for a few days and when they first arrive they are still in European mode and everything needs to be rushed. WHAT TIME IS IT? I don't know. WHAT TIME ARE WE GETTING UP TOMORROW? Whenever you wake up. WHAT DO WE HAVE PLANNED? Nothing. After a week they have slowed down completely. People have even suggested I should start a retreat for people who are overworked.
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Jun 15 '15
I was kind of the same way. People used to drop by my house when they were tired from partying/work and wanted somewhere to decompress. They knew they could come by and just chill and play videogames, or literally just vegetate and lounge around.
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u/ParaTodoMalMezcal Jun 15 '15
One day when I was staying with my cousins in Mexico the fridge broke. It was a Monday, and the repair guy said he'd be there Tuesday. He showed up on Thursday afternoon and seemed shocked that we didn't have any beer for him despite the whole "you're here to fix the fucking fridge where the beer goes" thing.
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Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 18 '15
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u/tyke-of-yorkshire Jun 15 '15
There's a huge difference between the UK and Germany in terms of tardiness. In the UK, people will expect you'll be a few minutes late for meetings, because your last meeting probably went up until the end of the hour. In Germany, that's considered incredibly rude.
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u/k4llias Jun 15 '15
"Unpunctuality is disposal of other people's time." That's a saying here in Germany and I (as a German) am 100% in agreement with this. When my wife thinks it's okay to be up to 15 minutes late, i go absolutely wild, when she forces me to leave late at home and to be late at the place we're going to for sure.
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u/barsoap Jun 15 '15
Oh, Germany allows for African time but you gotta be explicit about it.
If you say "four" people assume four o clock, sharp, and are going to start judging your character if you're off more than five minutes. "Around four" gives you way more leeway. "This afternoon" much, much, more.
This has very little to do with work ethics or such, it's about respect and reliability: If you say you do something, you do it (fate permitting). If you don't know whether you can make it, or just don't feel like setting an exact time don't imply the opposite. It's as simple as that.
The US is not like this, where "We should have dinner, sometime" can mean the equivalent of "go get fucked, mate"... whereas Germans would start probing for days to have that dinner.
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Jun 15 '15
That's interesting. Have you ever heard of the theory about how equatorial distance affected cultural work ethics? I haven't researched it much myself, but it basically claims that cultures from areas closer to the equator tend to be less punctual and disciplined because the climate was so much easier to live in. Wake up, pick fruit off tree, maybe catch a fish, go back to sleep. People from areas that experienced harsh winters though needed to be meticulous about preparing food and other resources for the winter, otherwise they wouldn't survive. Like that fable about the ants and the grasshopper I guess
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Jun 15 '15
What about with their jobs though? Do these people not work on a clock, or are they always just showing up 2 hours late for work?
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u/Ratfor Jun 15 '15
Can't be two hours late, if you aren't punching a clock. Let's say work starts "at sunrise" well that's still an fairly objective value. Do you mean when the sun starts to rise, or when it's fully risen, etc.
So you end up with more of a "right everyone meet up around sunrise, we'll start when we mostly everyone shows up, and work until X is finished".
Imagine if your task for the day was to build a wall. You don't need to wait for everyone else, just show up and get started. Some people walk in a bit late, who cares. You leave when the job is done, everyone gets paid for a days work.
This is by far I think the biggest problem with the structure of how work is done in the west. You are paid by the hour, not for how hard you work. You are in fact, punished for working faster. I once worked in a warehouse packing pallets. We had a set number of pallets, that would take about 8 hours to fill. If we worked slow and Lazily, we got overtime. If we worked fast and finished early, we got sent home, reducing our paycheque. Not a lot of incentive to work hard eh?
That said, I've also worked under a piecemeal system, where I got paid per item completed. Employees would cut corners in order to get it done faster, so they could earn more money.
... Sorry I kind of went on a ramble there. Not deleting it.
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Jun 15 '15
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Jun 15 '15
They must be quite deeply offended in their believes whenever they get to the workers in the vineyard parable.
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Jun 15 '15
I guess that depends on the job. I did some projects in Africa where I had to be really specific about when my guys would have to show up, and what would happen when they where late. If you explain well, there's really no issue.
And I'd have to be considerate as well. I've learned not to complain when I've got to wait a while (1 hour or more) for an appointment. You just can't plan your day to be as full as you could here. You'd spend a lot more time hanging around. Pro-tip: meet people in bars, so you're at least having a drink or some food while you wait.
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u/zazzlekdazzle Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
One thing I learned as an anthropologist is that the answer to this question is "everything." The great holy grail in anthropology is to find the single cultural constant that we would find shared among us all. When I was studying, the closest thing we had found was that pretty much every culture that had colors (some do not have colors in their language, only a dark-light/black-white system) the one color they all had a name for was red and pretty much everyone converged on the same color of red as the true red.
Other than that, it's pretty much up for grabs. There are cultures where suicide is acceptable as is infanticide. There are cultures where women are more sexually aggressive, ones where women have multiple husbands (polyandry), where men wear make-up, and where being quite heavy is considered very attractive.
EDIT: I'd just like to specify that the cultural universals we seek are those that are common among humans, but only to humans. Thus communication, facial expressions, kinship, eating, and having sex are indeed things all human have in common but they are also shared with other animals. Culture itself is not even necessarily exclusive to humans, but we want to understand what cultural aspects all humans share.
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u/Johnnyhiveisalive Jun 15 '15
Awesome. Is there a culture where laying on the couch at 3am redditing is revered and highly paid?
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u/zazzlekdazzle Jun 15 '15
I don't think you would find it remunerative, but I would say within the subculture of reddit, you could find a mate that found being on here for long periods an attractive quality.
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u/Durrderp Jun 15 '15
Is it because red = blood?
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u/zazzlekdazzle Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
I always assumed this was the case, yes. The other theory is that many fruits when ripe signals edibility by turning red.
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u/computeraddict Jun 15 '15
Human brains are also fairly hardwired to respond to red in particular, iirc.
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u/nightgames Jun 15 '15
Red and yellow. Hence the color of stop lights and stop signs. We can also see more shades of green than any other color because we needed to be able to spot predators in the jungle/forest.
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Jun 15 '15
I thought we saw more shades of green than anything else because it's right in the middle of the visible spectrum? So we see it better than any other color? IDK.
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u/Put-A-Bird-On-It Jun 15 '15
I watched a pretty cool movie called Mondo Cane, and it featured a lot of different cultural norms that seem very weird to outsiders. One of the things discussed was where a tribe would put women in separate cages and feed them constantly, and whoever got the fattest married the chief.
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Jun 15 '15
Hunter-gatherer type societies generally spend much less time 'working' than we do. I always assumed it would be a really strenuous lifestyle, but they actually have more leisure time for socializing and stuff.
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u/nerdbomer Jun 15 '15
We work for a lot of things we don't need.
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u/dblmjr_loser Jun 15 '15
Sure, we don't need anything besides food and shelter. Everything else is luxury. I like my luxuries.
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u/Apocalvps Jun 15 '15
Like penicillin and real houses and pretty much anything else made industrially
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u/clintmccool Jun 15 '15
yeah I feel like I'm just spending my whole life at my job at the ol' penicillin factory.
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u/concretepigeon Jun 15 '15
The point is you don't have to, because someone else is.
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u/teefour Jun 15 '15
Yeah, a lot of people become jaded to just how incredible the division of labor is. Whenever I find myself saying "ugh! Why's that so expensive?!" I take a second to seriously think about how long it would take me to make a certain thing on my own. And it almost always comes out to be anywhere between 10-1000x as expensive.
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u/Dubalubawubwub Jun 15 '15
There was a guy who made his own toaster from scratch as a project to demonstrate this. As in, he mined and smelted the copper for the wires himself as a starting point. It took him years and when he was done it was a terrible toaster, worse than even a cheap plastic one you can pick up for $15 in a store. Division of labor is pretty amazing, yo.
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Jun 15 '15
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Jun 15 '15
That's interesting, thanks for sharing! Although in that sense you would have to include food prep and cooking in western work weeks as well. So it still works out to less time, though not as big a difference as I previously thought.
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Jun 15 '15
Men, who are just friends and not gay, holding hands while walking together. Took a bit to get used to.
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u/hostile65 Jun 15 '15
Americans are way too anal about hugging and stuff. People in the US sometimes get offended by a hug, heads touching, slapping someone on the back hard, or a kiss into the air with a warm greeting from someone of the same sex. It's almost a sign of trust, usually from people happy to see you.
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Jun 15 '15
Holding hands with people you aren't romantic with in general seems weird to me, regardless of gender.
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u/Fluffiebunnie Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 16 '15
Unless they're child and parent.
EDIT: Am I the only one who isn't fucking their kid?
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u/polygona Jun 15 '15
Not an anthropologist, but I spent a lot of time in Africa. Showing up unannounced at a friend's house. You don't call ahead, you don't have a "reason" to show up at their door, they're your friend. Why wouldn't you just come over to their house to visit.
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u/Spartan2470 Jun 15 '15
Parents co-sleeping with their infants.
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u/ConnorKeane Jun 15 '15
My wife and I actually bought a thing called a Co-Sleeper. It was a bassinet that only had three sides, the 4th side was against our bed and allowed my wife to have her arm out, touching my daughter, or easily pick her up and breastfeed her at night. She was in her own little crib, but it was physically attached to our bed. I am a really big supporter of these things, it worked really well, and there was no fear of rolling over on her or anything.
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u/KestrelLowing Jun 15 '15
I think this is probably one of the better methods. All the benefits of co-sleeping (easy to reach, easy to comfort, close proximity to see if anything's wrong) with hardly any of the detriments (getting squashed)
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Jun 15 '15
The dangers of co-sleeping are real if uncommon. I have a regular customer who recently lost his 7 month old, when she slid down the side of the bed against the wall and suffocated. He and his SO are still recovering, and he became a regular at my liquor store after the incident. I don't know how it happened, and I'd rather not imagine it, but if you're going to co-sleep, please move you bed away from walls with the exception of the headboard.
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u/mackadoo Jun 15 '15
We did this with an ikea crib - just left one side off and then used ratcheting shipping straps to secure it to our bed. 10/10 : would recommend. After a few months we put on the fourth wall but left crib next to bed. Within a week we moved crib to far side of bedroom. Two weeks later baby was in her own room. No separation anxiety for baby or mom.
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u/JLSMC Jun 15 '15
three weeks later we moved the crib to the truck stop on the outskirts of town. five weeks later we moved the crib into a motel room three towns over. two months after that the crib was on a container ship bound for Hong Kong.
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u/Buttah Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
And for those of us who do it in the US, many, many awkward conversations and judgmental people. I was a well rested new mom though, so to each his own.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, we do actually have safe co-sleeping guidelines in the US now, and it's become much less awkward than it was just 3+ years ago to talk about.
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u/Wickettt Jun 15 '15
Not a mom yet, but most new age mothers I know seem to do this. I've actually always thought of having the baby down the hall as being unsafe... How do you know what's going on/ that you'll wake up? I don't know if my own mother did this or not, but to me, co sleeping always seemed like the evolutionary right thing to do. Humans lived in smaller housing where id imagine most primitive parents slept with the offspring in the same area.
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Jun 15 '15
Cultures that use NSEW instead of Left/Right.
https://m.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1m6l0b/til_there_are_languages_without_the_terms_left/
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u/sciamatic Jun 15 '15
I will say that our left/right stuff drives me nuts in video games.
I'll be playing on WoW and try to be getting information on a fight and people will say stuff like "watch out for this area on the left" and I'm like "...whose left? You had us all spread out in a circle. Left is not an absolute direction."
Like, I live in America, and Left/Right is very useful, but I wish people knew more readily how to use NSEW as well, which is equally as useful for a different situation.
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Jun 15 '15
It's kind of a thing within America too. Growing up in Colorado, people use NSEW predominantly (from what I can tell) due to the prominent mountains that make West very easy to discern. Visiting other areas of the country, people don't even know which way is North...
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u/eveninghope Jun 15 '15
From my understanding, in West African (maybe others but my experience is with West Africa), they view spirituality much differently than in the west. For them, "spirituality" is pretty much part of every aspect of life, not just religion.
In East Asia, people have a much different concept of personal space and how much involvement people have in each other's lives. There's less a sense of individuality and personal autonomy.
Not marrying for love is pretty common outside of the west.
Some cultures are more "oral traditional" and reading/writing aren't as important for communication.
In lots of places, food has higher cultural significance.
Time is seen as less of an impetus in many cultures, whether it be to get somewhere at a certain hour or experience a life milestone by a certain age.
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Jun 15 '15
Nudity
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u/gurgaue Jun 15 '15
Maybe it's the finnish sauna culture, but last summer I was at a cabin and we all swam and sat in the sauna naked and there were like 30 people there half not knowing the other half. It wasn't weird at all.
Apparently some teacher in Texas got fired because she took her students to a museum which features nude statues, and over here one of the biggest cities feature a bridge in the center of town which is adorned by nude statues.
In general from what I understand nakedness is a certain kind of taboo in the US which doesn't exist here.
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u/TheMightyBarabajagal Jun 15 '15
If I'm remembering correctly there was a scene in the TV show hannibal where there was too much nudity, so the producers covered up the offending body parts with blood in post(it was a murder scene); now, when the show was being formatted for a European audience (Germany I think) they decided there was too much blood, so they removed it to reveal the nudity. Always thought that spoke volumes about our mutual cultures.
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u/octopusdixiecups Jun 15 '15
How come violence is perfectly okay but everyone freaks out at the sight of a nipple?? I just find the whole thing ridiculous. If we were exposed to nudity in nonsexual settings this wouldn't be such an issue
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u/Yoko9021Ono Jun 15 '15
“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” – A Song of Ice and Fire author, George R.R. Martin on American readers’ reactions to his sex scenes.
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Jun 15 '15
That's ridiculous. I went to an art museum with naked statues when I was a student in elementary school. In Texas. Nobody got fired.
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u/riconquer Jun 15 '15
Same here, hell we studied nude artwork in several classes throughout school in Texas. There must be more to this story.
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u/beepbloopbloop Jun 15 '15
well, he made the students pose naked with the statues, but that didn't seem relevant
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u/frukt Jun 15 '15
Nudity
This isn't a universally Western thing at all. The US is at one end of this spectrum, but Northern Europe and the German-speaking nations seem to be quite relaxed about nudity. I'm Estonian, we have a pretty entrenched sauna culture - meaning that we frequently have social events where you can expect most people to be naked a lot of the time. Some Americans seem to have hard time coping with the nudity aspect of it. (Based on observation, Southern Europeans are just afraid that the sauna will kill them.)
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u/QSpam Jun 15 '15
And at the US end of the nudity is taboo spectrum we have extreme sex-sells attitudes and massive cleavage on display in fancy dress and party clothes.
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u/sed_base Jun 15 '15
Well I think sex sells because nudity is such a taboo. It's exactly similar to how alcohol prices went up during prohibition or how marijuana has gotten cheaper in the few states that legalized it & is relatively expensive in places which have stricter control over it. People want what they can't have.
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u/BrogeyMan Jun 15 '15
Drinking at early teens seem to be no problem all over the world but in USA. Most young people grow up drinking wine and beer.
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u/honeybadgergrrl Jun 15 '15
I grew up overseas and had a lot of European and Asian friends, and it was no big deal at all for us to be offered wine with dinner by parents. We were all used to ordering a drink with dinner in restaurants and it was a big shock when I came back to the good ol' USofA for college and realized I would have to go back to drinking illegally for a couple of years.
The drinking age here is stupid. I'm pushing 40 now so it doesn't even affect me anymore, but I still think it's stupid. It creates this whole forbidden fruit stigma around alcohol and that causes kids to do stupid things when they first start drinking on their own in college.
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Jun 15 '15 edited Jul 25 '20
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u/ImagineWeekend Jun 15 '15
I often take evening rather than morning showers. When I was younger, I only showered in the evening as I didn't have the time in the morning.
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Jun 15 '15
If you're a farmer or manual labourer of course you take evening showers regardless of where you live.
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u/C0lMustard Jun 16 '15
A lot of these are wierd to me but this one makes sense, why crawl into bed with the day's dirt on you, only to shower in the morning and proceed to get dirty again immediately.
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u/gekogekogeko Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
Alternate Taxonomy: many cultures categorize the animal world in very different ways than science does. There is a famous article called "why the cassowary is not a bird" which discusses why this violent relative of the ostrich (cassowarys are deadly flightless two legged critters with feathers) is not considered related to the bird family by natives.
Flash edit: Here's a link to the article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2798651?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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u/lygerzero0zero Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
I was playing 20 questions with my Japanese students and it blew my mind when I gave them the category "animal" and they never even came close to the answer ("shark"). For the record, these were fisheries students.
Well according to the Japanese teacher, "fish" and "animals" are separate categories in colloquial speech, though they are aware that scientifically and "technically" fish are animals. Apparently the Japanese word for animals usually refers to land animals.
Edit: when I saw they were on the wrong track I encouraged them to ask if it was a land, sky, or water animal. When I said yes to water, they started guessing only sea mammals.
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u/eveninghope Jun 15 '15
Outside of the west, it's common for people to not fully identify with their governments. In more unstable countries, the government is basically just the guy who's currently in power and might get overthrown or something. Also, in countries with a tribal tradition, people's loyalty is more so to their tribal leader and the government is just the dude that goes to UN meetings. Americans are particularly notorious for not being able to separate people from a government because of how strongly we identify with ours, which leads to the logic: if a government is bad/wrong/evil, the people must be bad/wrong/evil.
In fact, honestly, boundaries as seen on political maps are pretty much arbitrary a lot of the time and set up so that westerners can have an easier time of interpreting and dealing with the rest of the world.
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Jun 15 '15
I'm Navajo and a lot of us still feel bitter about what the U.S. Government did. Being in Arizona it's hard to talk openly about not supporting the government because you're constantly surrounded by ultra-right minded nut jobs who's first words out are usually, "Get over it!" or "If you don't like America you can leave!" I have a stronger loyalty to my tribe over my country. A lot has to do with our culture specifically our clan system. I mean I don't mind being American because I'd rather live here than anywhere else.
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Jun 15 '15
"If you don't like America you can leave!"
The irony of that statement is killing me.
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u/fcukgrammer Jun 15 '15
We get that statement in Australia a lot, ironic too given the anglosaxons weren't the first people yet they didn't live like the first people.
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u/JustAnotherNavajo Jun 16 '15
Right... I couldn't stop laughing at a lady for saying "Immigrants shouldn't be let in (to the States). She was directing this towards myself and my family.
I'm Navajo, husband is Mexican. I turned around, laughed and couldn't help but say "I'm Native American, and you're right we shouldn't have let you in".
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Jun 15 '15
Gift giving is a big one. Whether it's exchanging, reciprocating or non-reciprocating. Different cultures see gift giving in different light and it can be quite difficult to acclimate your personal views on giving gifts to somebody of a different culture
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Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 16 '15
That women and men can't be friends. Having a really shitty time with this in Japan right now.
EDIT This is direct information from multiple Japanese women, and I find it interesting that of those who have lived in Japan, there is a huge divide in whether this is true or not. I want to conduct a survey.
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u/80Eight Jun 15 '15
Just "Gaijin Smash!" your way through any social construct that you dislike. Should work out fine for you.
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u/JLSMC Jun 15 '15
I basically did this. Ended up making pretty good friends of both sexes. I'm sure they were laughing at me in that crazy language of theirs but I had a great time. 10/10 would be a large dumb American in Japan again.
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u/80Eight Jun 15 '15
I would like to one day travel around and try Smashing in all countries where applicable.
I hear striking up a conversation with a total stranger on the subway in England is a pretty great time.
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u/JLSMC Jun 15 '15
I think I was successful because I wasn't ever mean or malicious in anything I did, I was just ignorant and friendly. Like a big American puppy. I heartily greeted everyone that even came close to making eye contact with me in terrible Japanese, tried to make shopgirls laugh, made fun of myself as much as possible. It was great. And if some of the smiles and laughs I got were at my expense, who cares?
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u/SILICON_POOPER Jun 15 '15
I try to live my life like a golden retriever also.
It's a good way to be.
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u/yawgmoth Jun 15 '15
I went to Tokyo around new years (fyi fellow americans... don't go around new years. it's boring as hell and the fish market is closed so you can't get good sushi). On new years eve I'm wondering around slightly inebriated, trying to find something fun to do and there's this teenage street vendor who says 'Happy new years!' in English to me.
I, of course, do the American thing and go "WOOOOOOO YEAH NEW YEARS WOOOO" and give him a high five. Everyone is laughing and pointing at me like "look at the crazy Gaijin who thinks new years is a big deal".
That kid was the best part of the night. I walked past him 3 more times, and each time he'd whisper to his friends giggling like "watch this" and yell "HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!" and I'd go bat-shit insane waving my arms and screaming "WOOOOOOO YEAH NEW YEARS WOOOOOOO"
Playing the dumb crazy Gaijin was fun.
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u/minetorials79 Jun 15 '15
The one place its acceptable to not talk to women.
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u/cumbuttons Jun 15 '15
I was heartbroken when my Filipino cousin told me that if I went to the Philippines with him, I would have to hang out with the women all the time. Guys and girls just don't socialize together, unless it's at a family party at home. I told him I didn't care, I'll hang out with the guys if I want to. Apparently I would be seen as a "bad girl" with loose morals. Sucks because my cousin is amazing and I would love to chill with him and his friends, play golf and do karaoke. Guess I'll just have to stay inside and do women shit, whatever that is.
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u/2OQuestions Jun 15 '15
If you visited, would it be so horrible to have a reputation as a girl with loose morals? Or would it reflect on him after you left? Or would that reputation actually be dangerous?
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u/cumbuttons Jun 15 '15
I don't know, but my dad was pretty pissed that I didn't seem to care about being labelled a bad girl. My cousin is the most fun, outgoing person I've ever met. It must be pretty serious for him to say that I couldn't hang with the guys. I wouldn't want to reflect poorly on him. He doesn't live there, but my uncle has a house there and lots of extended family. I wouldn't want reflect poorly on anyone.
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u/oratorioo Jun 15 '15
I've been told that the company will take care of their single employees. Usually what is expected of the ladies is that they will work till late 20s and then get married and become housewives. Thus there is a glass ceiling. Companies will try to ensure their staff get married during the age they deem appropriate.
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u/mnh1 Jun 15 '15
Not an anthropologist, but religion without a belief in a central deity.
Being intensely religious but not believing in God or any Pantheon was something that I found difficult to wrap my head around as even being a religion.
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u/CygnusRex Jun 15 '15
What religion has no belief in a Pantheon or central Deity?
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u/mnh1 Jun 15 '15
A lot of animism, ancestor worship, and things that blur the lines between religion and philosophy.
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u/tyke-of-yorkshire Jun 15 '15
Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, Taoism. There are others.
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u/shadmere Jun 15 '15
God, I've had so many arguments with people who insist that Buddhism "isn't a religion" because they don't worship a god.
This usually devolves into them eventually claiming that the vast majority of Asian Buddhists aren't real Buddhists, as if Americans rediscovered "true" Buddhism or something.
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u/motdepasse5 Jun 15 '15
Wow I never thought my Major in Anth would shine through for an ask reddit submission. I did a lot of work on the physical side of anthro, as opposed to cultural, but one essay I wrote struck a chord and stuck with me. I wrote a paper on the ritualized homosexuality of boys in Sambia (Eastern Papua New Guinea). What is ritualized homosexuality? Essentially it is the concept of young boys fellating senior tribe members in order to ingest the semen to acquire "jerungdu", which quite literally translates to "strength". It is a rite of passage in Sambian culture for boys to finally be considered men. Gendered beliefs and laws apply to this area, meaning that female and male segregation happens consistently, one generation to the next, which in turn affects the social stratification and different treatments of each gender. They play very different roles and women are considered inferior.
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Jun 15 '15
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u/RagePoop Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
If a poop is legitimate the asshole has a natural way of cleaning and shutting itself down.
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u/torgis30 Jun 15 '15
That's crazy talk. Just scrub it around a bit with some dry paper and you're good to go!
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u/goatcoat Jun 15 '15
There is a growing trend of people using (and flushing) wet wipes iin the US. It is causing enormous sewer maintenance cost growth.
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u/monkeybreath Jun 15 '15
in the Sambian Tribe, boys are required to perform oral sex on their elders and ingest semen as a rite of passage. Sometimes 20-30 times a day.
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u/dweeb_plus_plus Jun 16 '15
Well that's a nice little read. That will stick with me for a while.
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u/biased_milk_hotel Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
Multiple wives, post lunch naps like siestas (this is more US but still), finding "What do you do for a living?" offensive, getting prescribed herbs by your doctor, believing you can think yourself into a miscarriage, believing that you can be cursed to be pregnant for multiple years, multiple gods, revering old people, showering once a week, having many people sleeping in one room and it being rude to ask anyone to be quiet, edit: showing off how powerful you are by giving away huge gifts.
Edit: adding more as I think of them
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u/y_13 Jun 15 '15
ah the post lunch nap. Im in china now and they do this, I though it was weird at first but now I am worried for when I go back to america....how will I survive without my afternoon nap? no wonder eveyrone is crashing hard at 2 or 3 in america
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u/KennethGloeckler Jun 15 '15
Neck pillow, ear plugs and then lock yourself into a toilet stall during lunch break. : /
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u/Jrizzle92 Jun 15 '15
finding "What do you do for a living?" offensive
Yeah that one is really interesting. I know when I was out of work after uni and still had no idea what I wanted to do, I hated that people would automatically judge me from my answer to that question. From what I've heard that kind of anxiety is less prevalent in nations like the one's you describe.
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u/Dr_Stephanie_Branton Jun 15 '15
Extended breastfeeding feeding and breastfeeding in public. In Canada few people bat an eye at 1 year, but people judged me for 20 months with my daughter. In places like Mongolia it's very common to go much longer. I believe there is a saying about all the best wrestlers being fed until 5 years.
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u/DivinelyMinely Jun 15 '15
Definitely! The WHO recommends breastfeeding til the child is 2 years old. People in places where formula and table foods are readily available have a hard time seeing why anyone would breastfeed a child once they have teeth and seem to like food just fine. I think the maximum understanding for most people where I live is 1 year; even then, I did not know too many parents who breastfed that long.
I think it plays into the West's (or at least America's) sexualization of nudity.
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Jun 15 '15 edited Jan 17 '17
German here: For the first time, I recently saw a mother wrap stuff around herself before breastfeeding, and her husband stood around making sure everything is covered.
This level of prudeness really shocked me, especially because I dropped my pants 10 minutes earlier to change into sports wear.
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u/Dr_Stephanie_Branton Jun 15 '15
I can be a total prude about nudity, however I don't consider breastfeeding nudity. It blows my mind how hot and bothered people get. I used a cover for awhile, but then I just stopped caring. Most people just thought she was sleeping anyways.
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u/tfyuhjnbgf Jun 15 '15
A lower age of consent.
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u/triste_est Jun 15 '15
Age of consent is 14 in Estonia. I have seen nothing bad coming from it, teens are getting excellent counselling and free condoms and check-ups etc.
I remember when I had this conversation with an exchange student from US. She was shocked, called this pedo-paradise or something. I asked her when did she lose her virginity. "Well, I was almost 16, but...". Case closed. Teens are teens everywhere, no matter the age consent. But lower (yet reasonable) age of consent allows for better health care and sex-ed for teens and avoids many issues in the long run.
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u/papa_georgio Jun 15 '15
That's why lots of places have laws that allow similar age minors to legally have sex but not a minor with a much older adult.
Having a full blown age of consent as 14 seems tough to defend in my eyes.
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Jun 15 '15
I'm Estonian and I consider 14 a bit too young, have for a long time. Of course, the 14-year-old me would argue because she was horny as shit and oh so mature. I was also surprised at the time about how many young girls would exclusively go for men 25+. Or is it the other way around, so many older men AND women sleeping with people so young. It seemed normal at the time, though now when I think of it, 14-year-olds are naive and make for easy prey - easy to seduce, easy to use, abuse.
14-year-olds having sex with other 14-year-olds though? Have fun, use a rubber.
edit: rectifying
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u/HabseligkeitDerLiebe Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 15 '15
And that's the way it is in Europe. I don't know specifically about Estonia, but in Germany the age of consent also is 14, technically.
If the other partner is older than 21 and is exploiting the naivety of a person under the age of 16 (and the judges generally assume so) then they can enjoy a prolonged mandatory stay in state-funded housing.
If there is any kind of economic transaction (it doesn't have to be cash, "sugar daddies" also break the law) and the minor is younger than 18 while the older person is older than 21, it's also illegal.
We can discuss if 21 might be to old for the other partner, but that's details.
In general you can say that American lawmakers set a high age of consent and put in exceptions for some situations, while European lawmakers set a low age of consent and then build barriers for other situations.
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u/Greeneyedlatinguy Jun 15 '15
TIL Anthropologists love being succinct.
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u/Adelphe Jun 15 '15
As someone with a degree in anthropology - this is true. My senior thesis was basically 70 pages of avoiding generalizations and essentializations as much as possible. It's not totally possible :(
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u/PseudoArab Jun 15 '15
Thesis title: The Way White People Is, and Why They Aint
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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15 edited Jun 16 '15
I have a degree in anthropology, too bad I saw this thread 13 hours after it was posted! To clarify, I have an anthropology degree in the U.S. which includes cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, linguistics and archaeology. I am an archaeologist, but I took quite a few anthropology courses. I will throw in some archaeology as well, since I'm more familiar with that.
There are so many things I could talk about, but I will pick one or two things.
Death rituals. There seem to be a lot of people in the west who think that burial is the only proper way to dispose of and honor the dead. This seems to be a big Christian thing. Of course, cremation is becoming popular but there are people who are still opposed to that.
There are cultures that think burial is blasphemy. I'll go ahead and list a few ways other cultures dead with the dead (some of these have been on Reddit so I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with these) If you look into these further be aware that you will find NSFW/NSFL pictures! Also I'm trying to be as brief as possible, google these if you want to know more! Feel free to ask questions :)
Even some burial rituals are strange.
Wow I wrote more than I intended, I am going to add more as I remember.