Different cultures

inkspot said:
Oh, good. Thank you.

Doffen, I believe Mexico invented the taco, and I believe Texas was once part of Mexico, so in a way you can thank us. Mexican food is very tasty. It would be sad to live in a place where the food was boring.
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Hehe, I don't know. I think Mexicans would care much more about it then Norwegians. You should try eating Norwegian lutefisk (Fish dipped in some kind of acid). That's very.. ehh.. Tasty.

inkspot said:
Now: was all that snow in the video what your country looks like, a lot of snow all the time? That would be very frightening.
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The further north you go, the colder it gets. In the winter, the capital goes down to about -17 celsius (My converter said that was 1.7 fahrenheit). I've experienced -38 before (My converter told me that that was -36 fahrenheit o.O), but that was really north, in Kautokeino.

Norway is covered with big mountains. We have mountains everywhere, and we have many fjords (the word is actually Norwegian ;) ). I love snow, and one of the best defences Norway has against occupation is that; We know how to handle snow, and many other people don't.
 
Powerful cold stuff. Now, do you have 17 different words for "snow" in your language like the Eskimos do? A fish dipped in acid does not sound like a tasty dish to me. I like a catfish, fried. Oh, very yummy.

So let me talk about culture a little ways along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. This state was heavily influenced by Catholicism and divided into parishes rather than counties. Because of the strong Catholic influence, the same carnival festivals like in the Caribbean sort of took root in Louisiana in a big way.

Instead of carnival, though, they concentrate on Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday. It is the day before Lent begins, and traditionally Catholics fasted from many good things during Lent, like they might give up sugar or eggs or drinking. So, the idea of Fat Tuesday was to sate yourself with everything you might have to give up for the 40 days during Lent.

The religious meaning of Madri Gras, well, the idea that it was a last hurrah before Lent, got lost as more people became enthralled with the huge party and forgot about repentance and Ash Wednesday the next day. Although of course devout people who observe the church calendar still go to church on Ash Wednesday to repent and receive ashes on their foreheads as a sign of their sorrow and repentance.

Meanwhile, some traditions of Mardi Gras in Lousiana:

* Black Indians. For a long time the most elaborate floats of the Mardi Gras parade were put together by social clubs called Krewes, and many of these Krewes admitted white people only, and black people developed a tradition of dressing up as Indians for Mardi Gras, with feathered and beaded costumes every bit as elaborate as other carnival costumes. Today there are still "Indian Tribes" but most of the Krewes are not private and are now integrated.

* "Throw me something, mister!" When you attend the Mardi Gras parade, you shout this at the floats as they go by, and the people on the throat throw gold coins and beads to the crowd as they pass. Of course, the gold coins are plastic today, but its the tradition.

* Kings Cake. All the season of Mardi Gras you can eat a King's Cake. It is shaped like a ring, filled with sweet cream cheese and very delicious, and a little bitty plastic baby is baked into the cake. If you get the slice with the baby, it's a symbol of your discovering the infant Jesus, so you are the winner and get a prize, or at least it is good luck for you.
 
Here in the South, we like to drink tea with TONS of sugar! And yes, we hate Yankees. I don't, because my parents are Yankees, but plenty of people do. My mother's father was from Atlanta, but he moved to Michigan when he grew up, so he married a Yankee. My mother told me of one time when her sister, my aunt, was a little girl. My aunt was learning about the Civil War in school, and so she came home and was talking to her dad about it. She was in awe of the fact that "some people from the south STILL hate Sherman, after all these years!!!"

My grandfather was very quiet for a second, and then he said abruptly, "I hate Sherman."

I bet my aunt was careful about mentioning things after that!:p
 
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Doffen said:
Norway is covered with big mountains. We have mountains everywhere, and we have many fjords (the word is actually Norwegian ;) ). I love snow, and one of the best defences Norway has against occupation is that; We know how to handle snow, and many other people don't.
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This description fits my country excatly! Icleand is in many ways a miniature edition of Norway :p Amd we have well over 15 words for snow and over 10 words for horses!

I do sincerely reccommend tasting sheep-heads :) And we also have a very very bad drink called mysa (it tastes sort of like sour milk), whch I find discusting but many people ironically enough love :rolleyes:
 
inkspot said:
Powerful cold stuff. Now, do you have 17 different words for "snow" in your language like the Eskimos do? A fish dipped in acid does not sound like a tasty dish to me. I like a catfish, fried. Oh, very yummy.
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No, no. I didn't think fish dipped in acid sounded very tastefull either. But it's very tastefull, just in a negative way, you have to understand. We like to torture eachother with distastefull food, you see (Part of what makes you a man ;) ).

We do have two words for snow, and they're strikingly similar: Snø and Sne.
Although we have several words for fish and boat ;)

Catfish? :eek: Do they purr?

inkspot said:
So let me talk about culture a little ways along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. This state was heavily influenced by Catholicism and divided into parishes rather than counties. Because of the strong Catholic influence, the same carnival festivals like in the Caribbean sort of took root in Louisiana in a big way.

Instead of carnival, though, they concentrate on Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday. It is the day before Lent begins, and traditionally Catholics fasted from many good things during Lent, like they might give up sugar or eggs or drinking. So, the idea of Fat Tuesday was to sate yourself with everything you might have to give up for the 40 days during Lent.
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Could you explain this alittle more to me? I didn't quite understand this tradition :p ... You use difficult words! Meh barbarian head pops and breaks and shivers and yells, Trolls are not used to deal with other languages!


And Sunnyromance: Ever tried eating the eyes on the sheeps head? I have (and I found it strikingly distastefull, but I was cool; I got to know they stored alot of protein). And yes, our countries are strikingly similar. I just watched the news and saw that the Icelandic Delta Force and the Norwegian Special Ops was training together! yay!!
 
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Which part, the carnival/Mardi Gras thing itself?

OK, in the traditional CHurch Calendar, which would be the Catholic Calendar, 12 days after Christmas we celebrate a holiday called Ephiphany, which commemorates the day the wise men found the baby Jesus, according to tradition. The wise men were not Jewish, they were from Persia or elsewhere, so they represent to us the way Gentiles (non-Jewish people) found Jesus.

So, Ephiphany is a cause for celebration: we celebrate how Gentiles found the Savior.

But coming up the 40 days before Easter is a season when we don't celebrate, it is the season we repent from all our sins, in preparation for Easter and the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection. These 40 days are called "Lent," a season for being sorry about all your sins.

So, long time ago in Catholicism, people took Lent very seriously and they would fast, or give up doing things they enjoyed, like maybe they would not drink alcohol for the 40 days of Lent, or perhaps they would not eat anything tasty like anything baked with eggs or sugar for the 40 days. Or they might stop eating meat for the 40 days.

So, for the time between Ephiphany (the 12th day of Christmas) and Lent, they would party, party, party and eat all the sugary stuff and drink all the alcohol and eat all the meat they could before they had to give it up for Lent.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, the day we go to church, confess and the priest puts ashes on our forehead, which in the Old Testament Jewish people would put ashes on their face to show they were mourning. From then for the 40 days of Lent, we fast (or give up whatever pleasurable thing God leads us to give up).

So ... Louisiana was very Catholic, but also very party-oriented, so they made a huge tradition of celebration from Ephiphant until Ash Wednesday. And the day before Ash Wednesday is called "Fat Tuesday," and it is the day you do everything and eat and drink everything and celebrate like crazy -- because the next day you have to repent.

At least, that is the way it started. Now many people do all the partying and none of the repenting. But of course, others still follow through with the religious parts of the tradition, too.

In Louisiana, Fat Tuesday, or in French Mardi Gras, is still a big party, and in New Orlenas, Louisiana, particularly, they have a huge parade and lots of drinking and carrying on.

Does that help?
 
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My brother said something so funny....The Netherlands are an ice-skating country. Almost every child learn how to skate at a very young age but we can't seem to succeed at icehockey :D
Doffen...I love the nordic skiing sports (especially Biathlon) and the norwegians are always my favorite. When it comes to speed in the snow, the norwegians are going like formula 1 cars :D
 
marshwigglewigwams said:
philippines.. :)
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Oh fun fun! My mate was there just a few weeks ago, and told me to never leave Norway. It was way to hot for him I guess (even though his mother is from there). Though; he throught it was a really cool country (specificly the people).

Yeah, Gil-Galad: It's said that Norwegians are born with skiis already on them :p It's the ONE THING we're good at and that's skiing. If you want to visit Norway, try to do the Birkebeiner on skii ^^
 
The thing with America is, it really depends on what state your in. People that live in different states r really different from each other a lot of the time. ex. I live in North Carolina now,an a LOT of people here like hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, that sorta thing. They like eating stuff like ground-hog, squirrel, deer, bear, trout, sometimes raccoon, (sometimes) basically if they catch it when they r huning or fishing an it's edible, they eat it. an people here have MAJOR country accents. (not all of them, but the majority).
But i used to live in Louisiana, an there, people don't do a lot of hunting, they don'r eat all those things. They like crawfish, spicy food, an a lot of foods no one in north carolina has ever heard of like chicken ettufee (sp) po-boys, praulines, gumbo, an jambalya. There's a lot more suburban-city type places in Louisiana, where as in north carolin (in Western NC, anyway) there's a lot more rural communities. More farms an stuff.
 
Doffen said:
Oh fun fun! My mate was there just a few weeks ago, and told me to never leave Norway. It was way to hot for him I guess (even though his mother is from there). Though; he throught it was a really cool country (specificly the people).

Yeah, Gil-Galad: It's said that Norwegians are born with skiis already on them :p It's the ONE THING we're good at and that's skiing. If you want to visit Norway, try to do the Birkebeiner on skii ^^
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LOL, uh-huh!! its very hot here. especially in my place.. :p
 
fernshirehobbit said:
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.
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Hey fern. I think its really cool that ul cycle rather than drive..wish I lived in a place like that!
In India people use their cars to get to the corner and back! (I think it's because of our innate love of screaming abuse in various languages at the guy ahead of us n keeping our hand on the horn even tho EVERYone knows that they're not goin ANYwhere!! India's a crazy crazy country,) but the madness can be fun!:D
 
Moonshadow said:
Hey fern. I think its really cool that ul cycle rather than drive..wish I lived in a place like that!
In India people use their cars to get to the corner and back! (I think it's because of our innate love of screaming abuse in various languages at the guy ahead of us n keeping our hand on the horn even tho EVERYone knows that they're not goin ANYwhere!! India's a crazy crazy country,) but the madness can be fun!:D
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Oh India! Tell me more about India!! :D

(One thing to add: The Norwegians are the only people who have ever really conquered and ruled England/London ;) )
 
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