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Thread: Cultural differences

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    The country I left 20 yrs ago doesn't exist anymore, all my culture has all but dissapeared.... too much money and too many people have made the people very rude
    that plus a zoocialist style government that made one half of the people suspicious of the other half

    I agree with the guys saying that Polish people are very polite, but I found that in Italy, Greece, Spain (outside of Barcelona and Madrid), Czech Rep, Belgium, Brasil (outside of SaoPaulo), Argentina (outside of BArires), USA (outside of NewYork, Chicago, Boston) etc.
    It is more a difference between "urban" folk and people that still have contact with nature and don't think of themselves to be the next coming of Jesus.
    Last edited by titrisol; May 21st, 2019 at 07:00 AM.
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Interesting about the areas of calm and people being more engaging. In Chengdu there was an area of of row houses that had been there for a thousand years. You popped down a dark alley and there you were in an ancient community where people cooked over coal in old oil barrels in the street. No room for cars because people lived on the street and in their tiny homes simultaneously. The street was literally an extension of the home. In that place everyone greeted me, invited me to squat down in the dirt and drink tea, or moutai with them. Yet just 15 meters away there was rush, hurry and dash of the wealthier and preoccupied millions, who would not have noticed me as much more than an impediment to their destination.

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  4. #43
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by titrisol View Post
    The country I left 20 yrs ago doesn't exist anymore, all my culture has all but dissapeared....
    Literally, as the state has ceased to exist and has been subsumed into another political entity, or metaphorically, as it has changed culturally into something you no longer recognize?

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Hah, ~300k souls being a small town...that's our capital! And second biggest city is 100k people. Everything else is MUCH smaller. Imagine the shock of seeing so many people when I went to Tokyo with 35 million :-)

    But yes, there are definitely advantages to such huge cities.

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by Empty_of_Clouds View Post
    In Shanghai, in the main areas, the crowds are enormous and everyone is pursuing their own errands. Our apartment is situated in the suburbs, in an area that the Chinese designate as a 新村 (Xīncūn), which is kind of like a small township in the city, but really refers to a community zone (of which there are many). There the people are far more engaging as we go about our daily chores. There's a kind of ebb and flow of community engagement across big cities, I find. Areas of ceaseless movement punctuated by oases of calm. Sometimes pockets of older culture hidden among the thrusting new order. Something for everyone I guess.

    Personally I prefer small cities. My home town (UK) is about 270,000 souls, and my other home town (NZ) is around 130,000. Shanghai's 26 million (the latest figure) takes some getting used to, but it has it's advantages too.
    My favourite place in the world is New Zealand, the people are warm and open. I was in aukland a few years ago, waiting for a ship to take me to Tonga and American Samoa, went for a walk on a sunday afternoon through a residential area and I was welcomed into a garden for a family barbecue, a beer was put in my hand and had a great afternoon.

    I would be surprised if that could happen anywhere else in the world.

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    It is there, but when I go there I don't recognize the culture, the people and sometimes I feel like I speak a competely different language!
    I the 60s and 70s we had a mix of spanish and quechua (pre-incasic language) which has been replaced by a mixture of colombian and mexican words and idioms (due to TV)


    Quote Originally Posted by Scrawler View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by titrisol View Post
    The country I left 20 yrs ago doesn't exist anymore, all my culture has all but dissapeared....
    Literally, as the state has ceased to exist and has been subsumed into another political entity, or metaphorically, as it has changed culturally into something you no longer recognize?
    Unix is user-friendly ; it's just picky about who it's friends are -

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  10. #47
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    I live in rural northern California, but have lived in many parts of the US. Customs and attitudes vary quite a bit from one part of the US to another, and also between subcultures living in the same geographical area (up here it's "hippies" and "rednecks"). The economic disparity between the extremely wealthy and the rest of us isn't particularly noticeable because the extremely wealthy rarely if ever come into contact with the hoi polloi -- except perhaps with their servants, gardeners, and the like -- but live insular existences well out of sight of the masses. Such extreme wealth generally comes from involvement with multi-national enterprises in which US interests are routinely thrown under the bus, so their self-identity as Americans tends to be pretty anemic. They might as well live in Dubai or Zurich, and many of them do abandon the US for tax and other reasons. I believe that's true of the UK as well.

    I remember once taking a train from Texas to California. I got on the train in Fort Worth, part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, a major US city. Despite being in a large population center and the train being pretty crowded -- very few empty seats -- the atmosphere was very friendly and relaxed. People made eye contact and smiled at one another, strangers struck up conversations to while the time away, and it was quite pleasant. A barely perceptible coolness set in as the train moved through New Mexico and into Arizona, even though these were less populated areas, but it didn't get really noticeable until the train started approaching Los Angeles. By then the coolness was definitely noticeable. People tended to keep to themselves, and there was no eye contact to speak of. Then the train headed north, and as it approached San Francisco the atmosphere became downright chilly. Many of the passengers who got on for that leg of the trip appeared to sneer at everyone else if they took notice of them at all. What interaction took place, and there wasn't much of it, tended to be rude.
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  12. #48
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by calamus View Post
    I live in rural northern California, but have lived in many parts of the US. Customs and attitudes vary quite a bit from one part of the US to another, and also between subcultures living in the same geographical area (up here it's "hippies" and "rednecks"). The economic disparity between the extremely wealthy and the rest of us isn't particularly noticeable because the extremely wealthy rarely if ever come into contact with the hoi polloi -- except perhaps with their servants, gardeners, and the like -- but live insular existences well out of sight of the masses. Such extreme wealth generally comes from involvement with multi-national enterprises in which US interests are routinely thrown under the bus, so their self-identity as Americans tends to be pretty anemic. They might as well live in Dubai or Zurich, and many of them do abandon the US for tax and other reasons. I believe that's true of the UK as well.

    I remember once taking a train from Texas to California. I got on the train in Fort Worth, part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, a major US city. Despite being in a large population center and the train being pretty crowded -- very few empty seats -- the atmosphere was very friendly and relaxed. People made eye contact and smiled at one another, strangers struck up conversations to while the time away, and it was quite pleasant. A barely perceptible coolness set in as the train moved through New Mexico and into Arizona, even though these were less populated areas, but it didn't get really noticeable until the train started approaching Los Angeles. By then the coolness was definitely noticeable. People tended to keep to themselves, and there was no eye contact to speak of. Then the train headed north, and as it approached San Francisco the atmosphere became downright chilly. Many of the passengers who got on for that leg of the trip appeared to sneer at everyone else if they took notice of them at all. What interaction took place, and there wasn't much of it, tended to be rude.
    About the same in the E Coast, years ago I went from Miami to NY
    You can say the same in the train between Paris and Berlin though
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    West Texas cattle town.

    Probably the three things we noticed first were nearly universal open carry and a distinct hierarchy observed among Spanish speaking immigrants depending on which country's citizens arrived here earliest historically speaking. Oh, and most people pay for things in cash and seldom use checks or credit cards.

    As for the weaponry, it doesn't feel like anything special. Sort of like how a fish doesn't notice the water it's in.

    The pecking order is of note because we can't schedule the funeral home to be in use by two different groups at the same time -- so that our Guatemalan son does not assist at some while our Mexican intern does not assist at others--customer preference, not ours. Having come from Michigan, we never dreamed this would be the case.

    Still not sure exactly why about the preference for cash...
    Last edited by VertOlive; June 1st, 2019 at 04:14 PM.
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Shooting off the cuff here... but when I ask Polish people what is Polish culture, they'll start off with family values and church and, hahaha, pierogi.

    But all cultures value family, church (or some system of belief), and dumplings (pierogi, gyoza, potstickers, ravioli, and so on).

    I suppose fundamental differences could be found in how political and economic systems influence attitudes. And language.

    Polish is so hard for me, because all the words change depending on context -- not difficult for, say, Germans to parse, but utterly confusing to me. It's been a long, slow climb, and I should practice more, of course. Moja wina. But even when meeting people, one doesn't address them directly but in the third person--until one of the participants says, "Please, call me by my name." Then the conversation switches to the informal second person. (I can't help smirking inside when having to ask a shop clerk, "Does mister/miss have toothpaste?"* I usually ask, "Po proszę... toothpaste?"** (Can't think of the word for toothpaste, should have picked a different example.) Or "po proszę, szukam toothpaste."*** (The smirking is a self-defensive reaction, feeling like a fool for not being able to be correct and proper.)

    *"Czy pan/pani ma toothpaste?"
    **Very polite "please...."
    ***Very polite "please, I'm looking for..." (the "for" is implied).

    Meanwhile, the personal pronoun is embedded in the verb. I'd love to see the transgender lingual battle play out in Polish. Comedians and court jesters, I am awaiting with unbated breath!

    In the long term, despite my frustration, I'm sure I'll be grateful for learning Polish (a rest-of-my-lifelong endeavor), because it takes the place of sudoku for helping to prevent dementia. I'm sure of that. *smiley*
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    I have actually thought about this transgender thing for Slovenian as well..impossible. It can't be done. Our language is even beyond Polish...we have also duality, next to singularity and TWO plurals.

    A simple question of "have you eaten yet?" changes based on if you're asking 1 or 2 or 3-4 or 5 people, depending if it's all male group, all female group, mixed male and female group, and in some circumstances even the ratio at which the genders are presented in a group. I think I once counted a question of "have you eaten yet" can have nearly 50 different forms, depending on who you ask. Now consider we have a different way of talking in basically every village (over 50 dialects, that at extreme cases are barely understandable between one another) and you have yourself a clusterf***.

    It was actually an American that moved here (who is actually quite successful doing English voice covers for some of our commercials and such) that had to learn Slovenian and our culture, to point out some of our ridiculous peculiarities. Main problem is: you can not learn Slovenian with books and such. Because NOBODY speaks it. You can learn perfect Slovenian by the grammar rules and you will be barely understood. And you can actually go in slippers and reach a destination within the country that speaks a dialect you will barely understand.

    Quote Originally Posted by VertOlive View Post
    Still not sure exactly why about the preference for cash...
    Interesting, I read that americans love plastic and seldom use cash. Isn't Texas really non-homogeneous in terms of demographics? I'm a little surprised such a community would have such hierarchies.
    Last edited by adhoc; June 2nd, 2019 at 09:56 AM.

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote: "Interesting, I read that americans love plastic and seldom use cash. Isn't Texas really non-homogeneous in terms of demographics? I'm a little surprised such a community would have such hierarchies. "


    Handing over a zip lock bag of cash to pay for a funeral is common (yes, thousands of dollars), as is cash at the grocery, the clinic, and the car lots we have here. It's been a surprise to us as well.

    A tiny agricultural town in a border state such as Texas is anything but homogenous; the choices of the patrons at our funeral home underscore this pretty well.
    Last edited by VertOlive; June 2nd, 2019 at 06:05 PM.
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    I think you misread; I wrote non-homogeneous. I think I’d like to visit Texas one day, it sounds like such an alien culture to me. Who the hell pays thousands of dollars in cash...when I try to visualize Texas in my mind all I can think of is guns, bbq and trucks

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    I'm gonna blurt that people who want to stay off "the grid" or can't easily (legally?) get on it favor cash. I can think of several reasons... but I watch a lot of "television" (YouTube, Netflix) and casually follow immigration issues (and other news).

    I just this morning read this article from NPR about American citizens crossing over into Mexico (for medical care, provided to them free by the Mexican government); it's the return trip that's illegal, because it isn't at an official border crossing.

    In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    I have actually thought about this transgender thing for Slovenian as well..impossible. It can't be done. Our language is even beyond Polish...we have also duality, next to singularity and TWO plurals.

    A simple question of "have you eaten yet?" changes based on if you're asking 1 or 2 or 3-4 or 5 people, depending if it's all male group, all female group, mixed male and female group, and in some circumstances even the ratio at which the genders are presented in a group. I think I once counted a question of "have you eaten yet" can have nearly 50 different forms, depending on who you ask. Now consider we have a different way of talking in basically every village (over 50 dialects, that at extreme cases are barely understandable between one another) and you have yourself a clusterf***.
    WOW! *Laughing*

    Well, why not cover all the combinations?!


    Dzięki Bogu, że to tak łatwe po polsku! [Thank God it's so easy in Polish!] Only two variations: third person plural they: one (females or neutral or both) and oni (if at least one male is in the mix). If present tense, then one word, e.g., jesteśmy (we are), but past tense: byliśmy (at least one male: we were) or byłyśmy (the second-class others (women and animals and inanimate objects): we were). Hahaha.

    How does the language affect attitudes? I mean, it must, right? I might feel special if verbs changed depending on whether or not I were included.

    Huh. Insight coming through, but I still have a problem with changing, in English, they into a singular personal pronoun. It isn't against anyone; no disrespect intended; it's the language. I would love to use another singular personal pronoun to address those who are non-binary. It's just that the word "they" already fills a role.



    As for indicating my laughter above -- that's more amusement and embarrassment that it's hard to keep it straight. When I speak Polish, it's mostly nouns or adjectives, throw in a verb at the end, but not full sentences. I feel like... one hit of acid could clear it all up for me.
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    P.S. I do like that Polish has both singular and plural second person, so that it's clear when I'm addressing you or you both/all ("y'all" and "all y'all").
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by VertOlive View Post
    <snip>


    Handing over a zip lock bag of cash to pay for a funeral is common (yes, thousands of dollars), as is cash at the grocery, the clinic, and the car lots we have here. It's been a surprise to us as well.
    That particular scenario seems very odd in my mind, but many years ago, when I first emigrated, I was in a car dealership, and there was a farmer in overalls and a tattered tweed jacket who bought two Cadillacs, one for himself and one for his wife. He pulled something like $40,000 in notes from all the pockets in his jacket.

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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Not surprised about people in TX paying in cash, they have disdain for banks and government... as it should
    TX is an amazing state, with a incredible variety of landscape and climate, people and cultures, lifestyles and food
    BBQ is really good, and is different in different places.... like a friend says "There maybe a 1,000 things wrong in Texas, brisket ain't one of them"





    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    I think you misread; I wrote non-homogeneous. I think I’d like to visit Texas one day, it sounds like such an alien culture to me. Who the hell pays thousands of dollars in cash...when I try to visualize Texas in my mind all I can think of is guns, bbq and trucks
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    Senior Member VertOlive's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    I think you misread; I wrote non-homogeneous.
    Right, but when you said you were surprised at the hierarchies I assumed...Anyway, come on and visit, we have lots of places we can put up a guest in a funeral home!
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    Default Re: Cultural differences

    Quote Originally Posted by Scrawler View Post
    I was in a car dealership, and there was a farmer in overalls and a tattered tweed jacket who bought two Cadillacs, one for himself and one for his wife. He pulled something like $40,000 in notes from all the pockets in his jacket.
    It's the norm around here.
    "Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine

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