A Wee Bit of Cultural Wisdom

Hello, fellow Leapers! Today, I'm going to take you on a "magic carpet ride" (à la Steppenwolf) and give you a peek into some funny and interesting traditions and practices of other cultures.

 

-Did you know that in Albania and Bulgaria, people nod their heads up and down to mean "No" and shake their heads back and forth to mean "Yes"?

 

-There's a culture in Brazil, the Pirahã tribe, that lives only in the present. Their language utilizes absolutely no past tense verbs and no subordinate clauses. For instance, instead of saying, "When I have finished eating, I would like to speak with you," a Pirahã would say, "I finish eating, I speak with you." The Pirahã people also have no words to refer to numbers or colors. Linguist Daniel Everett explains the core of Pirahã culture with a simple formula: "Live here and now." In their culture, the only thing of importance that is worth communicating to others is what is being experienced at that very moment. "All experience is anchored in the present," says Everett.* 

 

-In Asian cultures, white is the color of mourning. Red, rather than white, is the color traditionally worn by brides. In addition, sending white flowers to a loved one for any occasion other than a funeral is considered very offensive because white flowers are associated with death and mourning.  

 

-In many cultures, objects are considered to have a certain inherent life or energy. Some objects are "hot"; some are "cold." Some are considered "clean"; some are considered "dirty" or "unclean." I recently read an example in which a Canadian woman (married to an Indian man) was cleaning her house and placed a pair of shoes neatly atop a pile of her husband's books. When he returned home from work, he was horrified and immediately removed the shoes. He explained to his wife that in India, books were considered "clean" and "sacred" because of the wisdom they contained. Shoes, on the other hand, were considered to be some of dirtiest objects in the Indian culture. Under no circumstances would an Indian person have put the shoes on top of the books.

 

Wow! Who knew? I do understand that, though, because books are considered sacred in our home, too.

 

I learned a pretty funny cultural lesson myself when I went to Romania in November of 2001. I had bought clothes, accessories, bath products, and other gifts to give to Catalin's family. One of the gifts I had bought was a bottle of Curve perfume by Liz Claiborne, which was popular at the time. When I gave it to Andreea (now my sister-in-law), you would have thought it were a grenade from the way everyone stared at it. 

 

Years later, my husband finally told me that "Curve" in Romanian means, well, let's just say, "women of the night."

 

Whoops!    

 

Anyone else out there have some "cultural funnies," mishaps, or interesting social or cultural taboos that you want to share? Please post a comment here! Thank you.

 

*For more info, see Spiegel Online, "Living Without Numbers or Time," by Rafaela von Bredow, available at this link: spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,414291,00.html