Different cultures

Doffen

Doffen

Member
I thought I might put the thread in here. I KNOW we have people from MANY different countries in here, and I find that interesting due to how we can learn from eachother.

The meaning of this thread would be to give some hints, clues and history of your own country and sharing your culture with everyone. You do this by presenting different ceremonies, meals, music, important dates for your country, special persons, languages and so on so that people might get a clue what makes you proud and patriotic of your own country. Basicly add in ANYTHING that might be cool to show others about YOUR country. For me, f.example, I will show lots of stuff that CONNECTS me and makes me proud of the Norwegian culture. And I would love to see stuff from America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and so on! There's to much to see so go post! (This is a thread where you can brag about your country! It's also a thread where you can share stories from your country, like war history, or whatever)

I will add something later, I don't have time right now, but I hope that people will post. I know it's a longshot, but I would really like this thread to become alittle active (I expect something from you dutchies! ;) )
 
Okay, I'll start with something simple, which you may or may not know about. Here in America we celebrate Independence Day on July 4 as a commemorative of the day we officially declared ourselves a country in the Declaration of Independence (1776). Before that, we were only a colony of Britain. It's a tradition to set off fireworks on the 4th of July, also remembering the War of 1812 that we fought against Britain in which our national anthem was composed during one of the battles.

For our family, we usually get together with friends from church and have a big cookout as well (it's nice to do in the summer), and my sister will make a cake decorated to look like the flag, with red, white, and blue frosting. Then after it gets dark everyone (including us!) will be setting off fireworks all over the neighborhood, which is very cool to watch!
 
Great topic Doffen!!! You must really post some of your cultures.
I am dutch and what can I say about the dutch? They are known for their don't behave like an idiot because everybody already is an idiot mentality but when something happens, we are crazy like nobody :eek: Especially when someone is killed due to violence. We can get so upset and angry and we will walk in silence with a group of people to protest against our society.
Our culture? It is about farms, fishing and of course water. Our past is about ruling the seas ( Piet Hein, Michiel de ruyter) and trying to rule as much as we could. The dutch still have this mentality today. Wanting to rule and being unsatisfied when we can't reach our goals. But the dutch are easy going. They don't mind other's business. It is a dutch thing not to care about what someone else is doing (maybe also a bit bad) Our traditions? Cloggs, tulips, windmills, cheese and fries. We do love to do folklore dancings and we still have traditional clothings. Dutch are very proud at their queen and her family (except for me, I don't care about it at all) and one of our national days are queensday (30 april) and Sinterklaas (5 december) At those two days the dutch are off from work and school (not completely at sinterklaas) and we celebrate these special days with friends and beloved ones. At queensday people watch the television to see the queen and her family going to some place in the Netherlands to celebrate this day. The queen will see children and adults doing their best to entertain her and she loves it :D She feels free between her people and especially children everywhere are doing games the whole day. At sinterklaas we celebrate it all together with giving each other candy and gifts. Other traditional days are 4 may when we remember the victims of WW II and lately from all wars during the years after WWII as well. And at 5 May we celebrate the day we were saved by the allied forces during WWII. Canaduiens and Americans, british, Polish and French people are still honored today. I have forgotten many more nations, I am sure.
Our traditional meals? Lots of potatoes with vegetables. And most common our meals are mashed together during wintertime. Poffertjes is our traditional delicatesse (small pancakes) and I can tell ya...most dutch people eat French fries with a lot of ketchup and mayonaise on it :D Maybe my dutch friends can give you more information about the dutch?

WAIT! I forget to mention our world famous painters....
Vincent van Gogh, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Karel Appel, Piet Mondriaan (boogiewoogie). Our painters are prolly the people we have to be proud at the most!
 
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Well, we (again a Dutch person) are worldwide known as being down-to-earth, not spending money if we can and rude.

We are kinda down to earth, at least: more than in other countries. We see things rationally most of the times, and make our decisions also for a lot based on the ratio, also on emotions, but clear thinking does play a huge part. We can be emotional though, and some are, but overall less than in other parts of the world.

We in fact don't waste money, though it isn't as bad as some people might think:D It's not like we don't want to spend anything, not at all, but more that we are cautious at what we spend.

We are not rude, though to foreigners the way we threat each other may seem rude, but that's a whole different story. We do not consider each other rude, but due to the fact that we are more down to earth we can take things in more easily. If a Dutch person talks to a foreigner like, in a discussion or something, we always have to be more cautious, because we might offend someone while we don't mean it like that at all.

At the same time, when someone here bids you a 'good morning' that is what we really mean, and if we ask you 'how do you do' we wait for the answer, 'cause we really think that's important. And we are really interested in other people, and in what they feel and think.

We are also known for our wooden shoes (which was true once, but these days hardly anyone walks on them, i did when i was a little kid), tulips (still country's favorite flower), cheese (extremely true, we make the best cheese in the world:D), painters (look at MGGT's post, she sums them), cows (dunno why, but we do have them a lot yes), windmails (we have them too, though it's not like there's one on every corner or something:p).

We are a constitutional monarchy and a democracy. We do have a queen (and i love having one, it gives a together-binding-feeling), and she is very very important for our culture and the nationalistic-kinda feeling (though we are, most of the times, not nationalistic, but mostly have quite some self-critisism when we're here). But she has like, no political powers what-so-ever. We have a lot of different political parties, and have never one party in the administration, but always two or three.

I could tell you so much more, but part of my culture is living in a GMT+1 timezone, and i should be in bed now.

Happy, Doffen?:D
 
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Um, let's see. In America, we are very lazy, out of shape, and slobs... I can't truthfully say "just kidding", because I'm not :p Anyway...

We celebrate many holidays, but with more emphasis put on festivity than symbolic or serious stuff. I guess that's kind of unfortunate. Like at Christmas, which is on December 25th for us, most Americans focus on giving gifts or decorating or eating ten trillion pounds of junk instead of celebrating Jesus's birth. o_o And Easter has become more focused on the "Easter Bunny" who supposedly comes to every house and leaves candy. :rolleyes: (yes, more junk.) Thanksgiving, which is a time to be thankful for everything we have, including the junk, has become a time to eat turkey and potatoes and pie (yes, pie) and become even fatter than we already are.

We're not a very serious country. =p *sigh*
 
xBella.MyEdwardx said:
Um, let's see. In America, we are very lazy, out of shape, and slobs... I can't truthfully say "just kidding", because I'm not :p Anyway...

We celebrate many holidays, but with more emphasis put on festivity than symbolic or serious stuff. I guess that's kind of unfortunate. Like at Christmas, which is on December 25th for us, most Americans focus on giving gifts or decorating or eating ten trillion pounds of junk instead of celebrating Jesus's birth. o_o And Easter has become more focused on the "Easter Bunny" who supposedly comes to every house and leaves candy. :rolleyes: (yes, more junk.) Thanksgiving, which is a time to be thankful for everything we have, including the junk, has become a time to eat turkey and potatoes and pie (yes, pie) and become even fatter than we already are.

We're not a very serious country. =p *sigh*
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Americans are also quite self-deprecating. ^An example!
 
America is not a horrible country, and I would appreciate if no one else said that. Some Americans are horrible, but I would assume some Dutch, Norwegian and Congolese are horrible, too.

Since there are a lot of people from the USA on the forum, I won't do our culture here, but let me mention some culture from the islands where I have lived.

My first Caribbean island where I lived and worked as a scuba instuctor was Bonaire, in the Netherlands Antilles, so there was a lot of Dutch culture, St. Nicholas Day and Queensday and all like that. But being a Caribbean island, we also had Caribbean culture.

Carnival was my favorite part. It was a celebration basically from Epiphany until Ash Wednesday, but few people are deeply religious, so mostly it was a time for a big party. The final two weeks before Ash Wednesday were for the biggest events, including:

* Tumba -- actually this happens before the Carnival season begins, and it is a huge battle of the bands, when the carnival song is selected. This song will be played endlessly throughout the season, but the Tumba festival itself is fun; everyone crowds into the stadium to hear all the bands and dance.

* Jump ups -- the neighborhoods with a float in the grand parade will parade their float around the neighborhood with a band, and everyone dances all night or all day, whatever. A jump-up can break out anytime before Carnival.

* The children's parade -- parents get their kids all rigged up in costumes on the Sunday before the grand parade, and ride them around on floats. Bonaire was such a small island, this was a tiny parade, but still fun. On Curacao and Aruba, the parades are bigger. The children are adorable in their costumes, and it is such a fun parade.

* The lighting parade -- we did not actually have this on Bonaire, but on the Sunday night before the Grand Parade, or the Saturday night before, on Aruba and Curacao, they light up the floats and have a night parade. This thing goes on until morning, and everyone dances all along the parade route. In Bonaire, I don't think we had the technology to light the floats, but I attended this in Aruba, marvelous.

* The Grand Parade -- on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday is the Grand Parade, and this is a huge party. On Bonaire, because the island is so small, the Grand Parade goes around town twice on Sunday afternoon, and then there is music and a party until night. On the bigger islands, the parade can last much longer, and the party goes on all night.

* Exploding Momo -- Momo is a wretched clown, the prince of Carnival. On Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, there is another parade and party, culminating with a fake clown, Momo, being blown up with fireworks! I love that part where they explode the clown. It's fantastic.

I think religiously, Momo represents all our sins we have committe during Carnival season, as Lent begins the next day and we are supposed to go to church, receive the ashes and repent. As I say though, not that many people are deeply religious on these islands. So.

it's Carnival season now! As we say in New Orleans, "Laissez le bon ton roulez!" Let the good times roll.
 
I doubt very much if there is any other nation that can equal the United States in the sheer number of ITS OWN citizens who write books, make movies or give speeches claiming that THEIR OWN country is horribly evil....WITHOUT anyone arresting them for doing so.
 
US, has been covered several times *though not in a good light*
lets talk about Oregon...
We have gorgeous waterfalls and greenery.
There are lots of rednecks and savethetrees hippies and such here. and lots of the populous is on meth:(
we love 4-h and outdoor sports.
according to a special on tv, we also love biking more than taking the car...
we also get lots of rain.
that was my summarized version.
 
Are you saying that Oregon is a separate culture in itself? Well, I have heard that, unlike other states, the residents of Oregon DON'T want tourists to come to their state. Is that true?
 
This is going horribly off track. You're part of your culture, and everyone who gripes about their country in this thread should be required to post what he/she is doing to fix the problems. After all it is the citizens of a country that make up its culture.

Every country bears some guilt and shame because it's made up of people. I'm sure you can't find one Englishman who is proud of the Opium Wars, and you can barely find an American who isn't into wearing white sheets that will endorse pushing the Amerindians off their land.

If you're looking for a perfect place, you have one option. Live a good life, pray for forgiveness...and die. You'll find that perfect place. It doesn't exist here. But my two homes...England and the US...I say God bless them.
 
I think Ferny her idea is great! We do have a lot of americans here so maybe they should write about the culture in their State or maybe hometown? It is great to see what kind of traditions are common in whatever State. For travellers like me it can help me when I am going to visit a State :D
 
Oh interesting topic :) A little bit about my own place.

-We have thirteen Santa Clauses, they used to be very mean back in the old times but have now gotten better and started to be nicer (thanks to the American Santa :rolleyes: ) but they still were old-fashioned clothes and are sometimes really scary.

-Our National Holiday is June 17th because of that one that day a very famous poet was born, and that poet helped the nation battle for our independence (his name was Jónas Hallgrímsson)

-We were under the rule of Denmark for about 650 years and just got our independce in 1944. We still remain in good contact to Denmark and there´s mutual respect between Iceland and Denmark.

-This island was inhabited by Norwegians mostly about 1100 years ago because they were escaping the rule of a king called Haraldur Harfagri (Doffen you know whom I´m speak of I expect). But they also brought slaves with them from Britain so the people here are of Norwegian and Celtic heritage.

-No joke, but it´s a tradition here to eat sheep heads and shark and various other strang food during February in a festival called Þorri.

-We are a small nation so we tend to get waaayyy to proud of our country and think too highly of us.

-The language is very similar to Old-Norse and hasn´t changed that much ever since the country was inhabited so itæs quite an ancient and unchanged language :D
 
I knew a beautiful girl from Iceland when I lived on Bonaire, and she told me about the 13 bad Santa Clauses! I laughed so hard! They would come down out of the mountains and steal things -- merry Christmas to you.
:)
So, yah, the women from Iceland are beauties.
 
Copperfox said:
I doubt very much if there is any other nation that can equal the United States in the sheer number of ITS OWN citizens who write books, make movies or give speeches claiming that THEIR OWN country is horribly evil....WITHOUT anyone arresting them for doing so.
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Well, since you probably have about 1000 times more inhabitants than we do, i don't doubt that's true:D

Oh, those descriptions of Iceland sound cool, SR! (Except maybe for the 13 Santas :p). Your description of Bonaire sounds so cool too, inkspot! I really want to go there sometime! (And to the other two ABC-islands).

And Ferny, what is 4-h ?

And of course there are things in my country that i don't like. For example we are very 'free' in certain things that i don't feel we should be free in, which are ethical things like abortion, euthanasia, and some other things. Though our current government did put a hold to that, so that it won't get worse than it is (fortunately). Also certain drugs policies i think are quite bad, like we don't forbid soft drugs completely, but it is legal in certain places (the so-called 'coffeeshops', NEVER say you're going to a coffeeshop when you get in the Netherlands:p).

Both a good and a bad thing is the tolerance in my country. The people here can stand a lot, and we tolerate many things, and have respect for many things. That can be very good, like when you live with people from different cultures or religions you learn to respect them (that doesn't mean you think or say they're right, but you can still respect them). And it can be very bad, 'cause with every ethical problem people say things like 'well, he/she should decide that themselves, not us'.

Our main language is Dutch, of course. World-wide known for the almost impossible-pronounced 'G'. Very funny, people who haven't grown up here who can speak Dutch almost perfectly still cannot pronounce the G right:D. We are almost the only country where people pronounce the G like that.
Our language is (in my opinion) quite a beautiful one, though it wouldn't be my first choice to learn, since it's not spoken in many countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, ABC-islands and Suriname, and also in certain places in Australia).

Some words in English have a different meaning in Dutch, like:

Kind means in Dutch 'Child'
Slim means in Dutch 'Smart' or 'Clever'
Van means in Dutch 'From'

And our capitol is Amsterdam, a very beautiful city, with very much cultural stuff, but i wouldn't want to be there in certain places at night...

Other than that it is really a marvelous city!
 
yah, unlike europe, the US is quite large. we could easily be our own country if in europe or elsewhere.
i think it is safe to say that throughout the US there are seperate cultures. my county for example, is more rural and farming minded than like portland.
4-h is a nation (or purhaps international, i dont remember) "club" made up of groups of clubs that compete at county and state fairs in areas such as livestock, homemaking, electronics, writing, etc.
 
Funny Lieke!!!!!!
Yeah, if you say: I want to go to a coffeeshop, it means you want to go to a place where they sell softdrugs like cannabis etc. Another thing I don't like about my country is the justice system. In some cases the punishments are way too low.

Oh...I will continue what Liekje ( :p ) started:
Boom means tree
Arts means doctor
Lol means fun
Trap means stairs or ladder
Room means cream
Book means order or book (like a holiday booking)
Beer means bear
 
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