What is(are) your particular culture(s) notorious for and what are things you do everyday that are common practice or identifiable to your culture.

For instance, I'm Haitian, it's not so significant seeing as how it's a part of many cultures but I eat rice almost EVERY DAY. Rice, beans, and chicken, that's probably 75% of my diet. And we do get asked a lot but the general population does not eat cats...

And since I live in Fl it's crawling with Haitians. Before when I lived in New York and in Kentucky it was rare to find a person to speak creole to but in Florida you move a cm and you're speaking creole to someone.

And yes that is the language, Haitians get irked when you call their language Haitian instead of creole, Haitian is a race, you don't ask white people if they speak white.

Haitian parents are notorious for being some of the strictest parents in the world, you could be going to throw out the trash and they interrogate you, its ridiculous. When you get in trouble, I'm telling you now be thankful because there is no lockdown down like a Haitian lockdown, and if they decide to feed you...it's rice.

And you know you're Haitian if you've watched I Love You Anne(Haitian Movie) atleast 100 times throughout your lifetime, I could probably recite the whole movie and I don't even speak creole fluently. Or if your elders think mascreti is the solution to everything, you could be dying and do they call the police? No, they run to get the mascreti (some kind of oil) it's probably the equivalent of robatussin here. And we have this saying when kids get in trouble "Wap kon jorge" and translated it sorta means you'll learn your lesson but roughly translated it means "You'll know George" and the Haitian kids make a joke about how they still don't know who George is.

Haitian culture, it's a strict one but it's a unique one all it's own. 😛

I'm Brazilian.
When I was 14 my geography teacher made the whole classroom work together and find out "What Brazilians have in common". And we only agreed on two things:

• We love football
• We eat rice and beans on a daily basis

As you can see, we have almost nothing in common. Be it HDI, GDP, literacy rate, religion, music or ethnicity

Examples : HDI: Sao Paulo 0.833 - Piaui - 0.703 - Sergipe - 0.743 Minas Gerais- 0.800 -----> GDP: Sao Paulo - 1TRI Bahia- 121BI - Piaui - 12BI - Minas Gerais - 241BI----> Ethnicity : Sao Paulo - White- 63% Black- 5% - Bahia- White- 20% Black- 15% Rio Grande do Sul- White- 82% Black- 3%

Culturally we also have very little in common, since each region of the country was occupied by people from different countries.
Ex: São Paulo- West Europeans and Asians--> Bahia: Africans and Portuguese---> Rio Grande do Sul : East Europeans --> Amazonas: Natives and Portuguese

My country is really shitty to answer this , but I liked the thread, I love learning about cultures

It's more of a bump than a proper answer

PS: I didn't know Haitians were our fellow rice eaters and I also tought Haitians spoke portuguese... probably because when Ronaldo went to Haiti he was received like a god...Didn't expec it from a non-portuguese speaking country.

I'm Southern Californian! (Don't get us confused with those Northern Californian folks. It's totally different.)

We say "like" a lot, even when it's not necessary. We say totally a lot too, depressing enough. A common sentence - "She was like, totally sunburned!"

Everyone here drives with the windows rolled all the way down, unless it's raining. Oh! Speaking of driving in the rain, Southern Californians can't. We just don't. If its raining, even a light rain, everyone drops 30mph under the speed limit, and there are so many accidents it's crazy. If we can avoid it, Southern Californians don't go out if it's raining.

We go to the beach a lot. Speaking from experience, everyone goes at least twice a year during the summer - some people I know go once a week. We're all tan, and the majority of females have blond hair, bleached or otherwise. If we don't go to the beach, weekly, people generally at least go in the pool that often, especially if there is one in their neighborhood.

Tattoos are REALLY popular. Every person over 21 is almost guaranteed to have at least one tattoo, even if it's something quarter-sized on their foot or hip.

Men here have a football (football, mind, NOT soccer!) thing. Every man worth his salt (in their opinion, not mine), watches football. Superbowl weekend is a ginormous thing - everyone and their grandmothers are attending a party if they're not throwing one.

As far as food is concerned, we eat a lot of fast food, or barring that, processed food (mac & cheese, ramen, etc.). Anything that's quick.

Californian parents... they're not the best. Well, they might be nice parents, but frankly discipline is not something you see too often. Californians try to discipline their children as little as possible, trying to be their "friends" instead. You can tell. It never turns out too well. (In my opinion, anyway).

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

Canadian. I live just outside Toronto.

We're pretty multicultural: I don't think I've ever heard a telemarketer without a nearly incomprehensible accent. And this is a large variety of incomprehensible accents, not just one or two.

In term of sports, hockey is pretty popular(I don't really follow sports much, but from what I gather, the Toronto Maple Leafs almost always sell out despite doing consistently poorly).

Other than that, things that come to mind are: we have about 2 branches of Tim Hortons (a coffee/donut shop, founded by a hockey player of all things) on every street, traffic sucks because the roads are either covered with snow or under construction all year round, and political correctness paranoia is at an all time high (I mean, I'm not even christian, and I get annoyed when someone starts saying "Merry Christmas", then switches to "Happy Holidays" halfway through as if the mention of Christmas is deeply offensive in some way).

"It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

I'm a west-coast American! Here's my analysis of where I've lived:

Currently: Northern California
As Dragonfiremule said, not to be confused with the socal folks. ;D

• People here say "hella", "swag", and "legit" a lot.
• The weather is bipolar to the point seasons don't matter at all, and people need to rely on weekly weather reports.
• Racial stereotypes vary very much on city or part of town you're in. Otherwise it's a little bit of everything. Walk two blocks and the majority/minority will be different.
• Lots of hippie and hipster stuff.
• Fruit is awesome.

Las Vegas, NV

• People live hear because they were either born here and never bothered leaving, are old and want dry weather + gambling, or have a work related duty/the child/spouse of someone with a work related duty.
• No one goes out in the summer. Too hot. No one goes out in the winter. Too cold. Thus, it's practically year long hibernation.
  Common mindsets:
• Tourists look silly. Lulz.
• Expect prostitutes on street corners and slot machines in your convenience store.
• There's nothing to do here when you live here.
• Bad people have water-wasting grass on their lawn. Rocky landscaping is much better.

Southern California
Common mindsets:

• Cops are psycho.
• Old people are psycho.
• My family is psycho.
• No shoes, no shirt, no problem.
• Mexican food. HELL YEAAAA
• Hippies, celebrities, and hobos are common-place.
• No habla Ingles.

I'm also Canadian, from the Greater Vancouver area. To address some of the cliches:

1. Hockey
   It is big here. Especially right now, with the Stanley Cup up for grabs for the Canucks for the first time in ages. Downtown Vancouver gets crazy on game nights. I don't watch sports myself though.

2. Excessive politeness.
   We have a joke about this. "How do you know you're Canadian? Someone bumps into you and you say sorry." 🤣 It's true too, at least for me and as far as I've observed. Not that we don't have our own share of rudeness.

3. Land of Snow and Polar Bears
   My friends take universal delight in telling bit fat lies to people who are ignorant about Canada. So the next time someone tells you that they sleep in an igloo and ride a dog-sled to work they are probably pulling your leg. Vancouver, being by the US border, hardly ever sees snow. Just rain, rain, rain, rain, rain...you get the idea. Though if you live in Edmonton it's a different story.

4. Canadian, eh?
   True, to an extent. Some people say "eh" lots and some people hardly at all. It depends on both the individual and the part of Canada. Eg. "Awful weather, eh?"

5. Oh Canada
   One Canadian may well fumble the words to our national anthem, but put a few together and they can sing it right through, every time.

6. Multicultural
   We really are. It's a point of pride, at least for me. Of course, it isn't evenly multicultural, but we still do pretty well and I hope that we'll keep improving.

7. National pride
   I deplore the state of politics. I am ashamed of the blots on our country's past. Yet the sense of being Canadian is very much a part of my personal identity. And I think that goes across the board (except, of course, for the separatist movement that wants nothing more than to not be Canadian 🤨 )

8. Bilingual
   Yes, we have two official languages, English and French. But truthfully, most people speak one or the other. In a city like Montreal you'd find more people fluent in both but in a province like British Columbia or Alberta...let's just say that the mandatory French lessons aren't required for enough years for anyone to actually get fluent in it. If you want to speak French fluently you have to pursue it yourself. I went beyond the required grade 8 through to grade 12, but I've sadly forgotten most of it. I do hope to pick it up again one day.

9. Spelling
   I just thought I'd address this here as a last note. Honestly, spelling is uneven across Canada. The problem is that we spell some things like the British and some things like the Americans and it can get awfully confusing. -our is easy. Colour, honour, glamour. And -re too. Theatre, kilometre. But do I spell it flutist or flautist? Both work, according to a quick google search. Really, spelling seems to be 75 per cent intuition over here 😛

I think I've gone on long enough. Anyways, this thread is really interesting. I'll be following it.

Quote from Klapzi

I'm Brazilian.
When I was 14 my geography teacher made the whole classroom work together and find out "What Brazilians have in common". And we only agreed on two things:

• We love football
• We eat rice and beans on a daily basis

Out of curiosity, do Brazilians put coffee into their cooking? 😕

I'm from a multi-racial family background, my dad's from Romania and my mom's from Afghanistan. I was born and raised in UK [from Surrey to East London and finally moved up to Newcastle], sadly I don't know much about my family's cultural traditions aside from the Islamic customs and food. My parents are very 'adaptive' to the British culture.

Growing up in the UK, I learnt that...:

Not all British accents are 'POSH'.
The posh and upper class accent is often called the 'BBC accent'.
The British do put too much emphasis on the letter 'T' and in some accents, the letter 'T' is omitted (reference to the Chav accent. See below).

Chavs
...y'know, the stereotypical working class people equivalent to 'trailer trash/red necks' in the US?
Just watch Jeremy Kyle show, it's the UK version of the Maury show.

In every big cities, they always have the same retail shops.
Tesco, ASDA, Sainsburys, H&M, Debenhams, Odeon, VUE, Primark, Argos.......etc etc..

This is one of the main reasons why I avoid travelling to big cities whenever I'm on holidays, there's nothing much to do but shop in the same shops but in a different city!

I rather spend my vacation in the small British towns and villages down south (Devon, Somerset, Cornwall) and nature reserves (The Lake District, Dartmoor National park). Those are the hidden treasures that I have yet to explore. 🙂

Pubs?
I don't drink and I don't normally go to pubs unless it's a social gathering; but it's something that is part of the British culture.

It's actually a nice place, the pub near my residential area frequently organizes quiz, karaoke and football night. 😛

The letter S and Z
Organizes...Organises.
Civilization..Civilisation.

British universities
Normally, undergraduate degree courses only take about 3 years..most Masters courses only last for one year and a PhD will only take approx 3-4 years of your life!

The academic programmes are arguably 'easier' since the modules solely focus on one area of the study instead of having a 'Major' or 'Minor'/ or a combination of unrelated subject area. In a lot of UK universities, the assessment marks for First year undergrads don't count into the final degree mark.

Edit: Oh!!
Football
It's a big thing here.
Word of caution: Don't wear your favourite football jersey in public. This happened to my friend once, he was wearing an Arsenal T-shirt..the bus driver saw his shirt and said 'I don't want anyone wearing that shirt in my BUS'.

When I was in newcastle, a drunk chav just got out of the stadium and approached to me who happened to pass by the area. He asked what my favourite football team was: the best answer is, 'Sorry, I'm not into sports'.

People can be scary sometimes.
😛

[img]http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/6167/avvy.png[/img]
Rape is imminent.

Even though I was the first born in America, my entire family immigrated from Russia/Ukraine. My dad lived at a major port in the Ukraine where they generally spoke Russian, and that's the only other language I know so it's easier to associate myself as Russian than Ukranian.

Hm..There's really a lot of crazy things about my family/culture, but I'll just mention some I can think of now.

We eat a lot of foods that I don't think most Americans like. We eat beets a lot. And we'll stick sour cream on a bunch of stuff. I know other cultures have this as well, but in Russia animal organs are considered delicacies like tongue, hearts, liver... I'm not too crazy about it, though. We eat a lot of potatoes, too. I think Russian food has a really strong smell/taste to it, probably like Polish or German food might be, so most of my friends are reluctant to try it... 🙄 But Russians eat a lot and my family constantly wants to feed me. My older sister lost some weight when she moved away and they never give up a chance to tell her to gain weight, hahaha!

Russians really are heavy drinkers. We're always celebrating or toasting to something with wine or vodka. Other times it's just to 'relax' and we'll get out the alcohol. Russians can sit at the table for looong hours just talking and smoking all night. People might not go home or to sleep till past 3 in the morning. They're usually very easygoing nights with close friends/family friends and there's always laughter going on.

Russian parents are very strict, but it depends as well. They had my sister keep straight A's and join all these clubs, while my brother was practicing piano for 4+ hours a day. We all started piano at around age three/four. Then they had me join ballet and ice-skating and start clarinet, etc. One of my Russian friends plays three instruments exceedingly well and still has to take AP courses while maintaining A's. 🤢 But Russian parents are very kind. I usually hear them expressing how proud they are of their kids/grandkids and are close to them, too.

I always get comments from people how Russian is a very 'rough' sounding language. It's true, when my dad's yelling it sounds harsh. But Russian can also sound extremely sweet. Whenever my mom is talking, she sounds like the most caring and gentle-hearted person I've ever heard. Or when I hear an old grandpa speaking it with a slight cheerfulness... 😀 I love the language! I love every language though, haha..

One more thing I can remember right now. New Year's Eve is the most important holiday. It's a huge celebration that we take a whole day or two to prepare for, but none of my American friends have ever taken New Year's seriously and I found that strange.

I've lived in New Jersey my whole life, though. There's not really much I find special around here. I wouldn't say we have that Jersey accent, or at least it's not as exaggerated as many people make it to be. We do have that fist pump thing, but most people have taken that too far after that phrase "We pump our fists, not our gas" came around. 😮 sigh
I really can't say much about Jersey. Most people just go down the shore every week, but not everybody's like that. I wouldn't say everybody watches "Jersey Shore" either. I think a lot of us hate the show.

I hope I didn't write too much, but I'm interested in reading about everybody else's cultures. 😀

I just had a minor orgasm from seeing this thread.

Everyone's responses are so long, well thought out, and so revealing... of different environments, cultural perspectives, opinions...

If this was Reddit, I'd consider scripting some bots to upboat SerenitySuzy.

...

Silicon Valley resident.

As per stereotypes, I am techie... graduated from one of the two major universities in the Bay, working in IT industry, socially liberal leaning... The major companies here are all IT. The only blue chip that even comes close to being non-IT nearby that immediately comes to mind is Chevron. So this stereotype is true for a reason.

I'm also overworked, and take 2-3 weeks vacation at most per year. Most of us work after hours even after we've arrived home. Companies give us free blackberry devices to track us, because they know we can't help ourselves. We don't ignore business calls and messages that come in.

Aside from my day job, I'm also part of a startup company in my free time... like almost every other white collar in the Silicon Valley. 🤨 (Seriously, almost everyone I know is invested in some way or another in some venture around here. It's no wonder Silicon Valley is a tech innovation capital.)

EDIT: On second thought, I meant to write, "almost everyone I work with is invested in some way or another..." Most people I know (as friend, family, or acquaintance) are not in IT industry.

Quote from book_lover

2. Excessive politeness.
   We have a joke about this. "How do you know you're Canadian? Someone bumps into you and you say sorry." 🤣 It's true too, at least for me and as far as I've observed. Not that we don't have our own share of rudeness.

It's very true.
I once opened a door into someone's face and they apologized to me.
This was in Vancouver too.

Quote from Sagaris

Quote from book_lover

2. Excessive politeness.
   We have a joke about this. "How do you know you're Canadian? Someone bumps into you and you say sorry." 🤣 It's true too, at least for me and as far as I've observed. Not that we don't have our own share of rudeness.

It's very true.
I once opened a door into someone's face and they apologized to me.
This was in Vancouver too.

Ugh...

Canadian here.

I'm trying to fix that part of myself too.

Just today at a coffee shop, I overheard a couple of girls were giggling at my perceived politeness (I think).

They had come to my table, and asked to sit together at my table beside me. I cleared the table of my laptop, cleaned the seats around me, and told them that I'd move to leave them more room. I figured the table was a bit small, and my laptop was taking up too much room.

I was a bit confused at first why they were giggling while looking at me. My mind was too busy with work.

I had already been thinking for a while even before this that this kind of stuff might make me look like a pushover. I subconsciously revert to this mode when I'm not putting effort into resisting the impulse to be polite.

I'm making a conscious effort now to be much more rude or at least inconsiderate. (Hehe, "conscious effort to be inconsiderate"). It works online when I have more time to think about what I'm writing.

...

During a very recent trip to Vancouver, I was trying to find parking downtown. I found a space, but was looking around for a shop where I could get change.

Some guy noticed me from across the street and guessed what I needed. He ran across the street, gave me 2 dollars worth of change, and told me not to worry about it and just enjoy the city. I kid you not.

Quote from N0x_

I was a bit confused at first why they were giggling while looking at me. My mind was too busy with work.

I've already been thinking for a while even before this that this kind of stuff makes me look like a pushover. I subconsciously revert to this mode when I'm not putting conscious effort into resisting the impulse.

I'm making a conscious effort now to be much more rude or at least inconsiderate. (Hehe, "conscious effort to be inconsiderate"). It works online when I have more time to think about what I'm writing.

Nuuuuu. Don't let those demonic chortling females corrupt your beautiful polite canadian boy soul. ;-;

As a former soviet, I like to drink, eat potatoes and eat borscht.
As a Jew, I like to bitch about stuff.
As an Israeli... I dunno, I can't say I have much in common with Israeli folks.
Especially since there are so many immigrants who come from different cultures (myself included).

Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.
[img]http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp199/SyberAngelGabrielle/couplesig.jpg[/img]
[color=black]And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.[/color]

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

Quote from N0x_

During a very recent trip to Vancouver, I was trying to find parking downtown. I found a space, but was looking around for a shop where I could get change.

Some guy noticed me from across the street and guessed what I needed. He ran across the street, gave me 2 dollars worth of change, and told me not to worry about it and just enjoy the city. I kid you not.

I stand in awe; something like that would most likely never ever happen here.
I'm Dutch, and if your situation would occur here, someone would probably cut in front of you and take your space while you were looking around 😛 .
When it's busy, in city center, it's basically "The War for the Parking Spaces"; I've experienced it once, and if you want to secure a spot you have to make sure you get part of your car in the space before someone else does 😀 .

Vancouver sounds like nice place, but I'd prefer a place where there aren't any dangerous animals; and in that case the Netherlands are perfect, since the most dangerous things here are adders, but I've never seen one in my life.

Oh and Dutch people generally like cheese, but we don't walk around in milk-maid costumes; that only happens on the "Kaasmarkt" in Alkmaar 😛 .

[img]http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x392/WandereroftheDeep/higurashiimage1-1.jpg[/img]

Quote from drolemil

Nuuuuu. Don't let those demonic chortling females corrupt your beautiful polite canadian boy soul. ;-;

;-;

See, here's the problem. I've discovered numerous times in my life that people can like me without respecting me. Conversely, people can dislike me while still respecting me. My experiences haven't turned me Machiavellian yet, but needless to say it wasn't always fun for me to merely be "liked". I'm sure you can understand.

Please be considerate of my predicament and others' in my situation. When I saw your comment, my initial, gut response was,

"Aw, she's disappointed. 🙁 I should apologize..."

... but when I put more thought into it (conscious effort into being inconsiderate)...

"Wait... Did she just call me a boy?" (a 28 yr old boy. lol)

Now, I know you meant no harm by that, but hopefully I've demonstrated my point without being explicit. 😛