Culture and where we're from

I've been thinking about culture lately

Have you ever noticed that people have their "way" of walking.  And the funny thing is that people from different places walk differently from each other.  Maybe it's the way they move their body, or arms, or the way they don't.  It's different.  Not bad, nor good, just different.

Dairy.  I like my dairy products cold.  I consider warm yoghurt strange.  Over here you really can't buy cold yoghurt.  It's sold on the shelves and people eat it as it is.  Parents will tell me cold yoghurt makes their kids sick.  They also never drink cold water.  Tonight I gave my little man some yoghurt and he said, "Why is it cold?"  Ahh, culture.  "Because I put yoghurt in the refrigerator."  I can't say WE or 'WE SHOULD put it in the refrigerator' since it appears to be a cultural thing.  His preschool gives him warm yoghurt.  So I try to convince him that at our house he has always had cold yoghurt.  He pushed it aside after a moment and said, "I don't like cold yoghurt."  It's not wrong, just not the way I drink it:)

Snacks are so different in different places. I grew up eating snacks like graham crackers, fruit roll-ups, granola bars, etc.  I've never seen a graham cracker or vanilla wafer over here:)  So my little man finds interesting things to snack on like dried peas, eat red bean ice-cream, unique "beef" flavored snacks.  He likes the Chinese soup they eat with their meals (I have never even given him Chinese soup because I've never enjoyed it.  It could be considered very bland and lacking in salt.  His teachers somehow told me how much he enjoys it.)  Every cake recipe I make over here I just about half the sugar content.  If I don't, people will only tell me how "sweet" the cookies or cake was.  So I try to roll with it because it seems that food and taste can be cultural.

I was reading a book about a girl who had freckles to my little man tonight.  He said, "Do I have freckles?" And I talked about how freckles make a person unique and beautiful.  I told him that it's great to be different.  He assured me how important it is to be the same as others.  Culture speaks a different story in many different places.  In some countries, it's important to look different, act different and to be unique.  In group cultures, it's important to look and act the same as others.  

Over here, 99% of all school-aged girls have a bob haircut.  They dress the same, have to have the same haircut (school standards) and are encouraged to blend in instead of sticking out.  I never dreamed of just fitting in.  My culture encouraged me to "be different, take chances, 'just do it' and so many other messages that would never be passed on here.  I don't think western culture has it all right and I don't think those messages are always the right ones in every circumstance.  Does any one culture have it all right?

In regards to haircuts a young girl wrote this: "When I was in high school, boys and girls were not allowed to have long hair (for boys, it concerned hair covering the forehead, for girls, it concerned hair longer than shoulder-length). We weren’t allowed to dye our hair, we weren’t even allowed to use gel. Every week, a team of teachers would inspect each class to check if any student was breaking the rules. If there was, the entire class would lose a point in the overall school ranking. Therefore, most students paid attention to their hairstyles to make sure that they wouldn’t penalise the group. Of course, there were some students who insisted in choosing their own hairstyles and disregarding the rules – they were usually considered bad students."

Sometimes we don't know why we do things.  Is it due to culture?

WHY do I store batteries in my refrigerator?  I've been hassled a lot about it.  Why do I do it?  Because my parents do it.  I didn't know if it was the right thing to do or not.  I just did what they did.  I finally googled it today and the Energizer website say " storage in a refrigerator or freezer is not required or recommended for batteries produced today. Cold temperature storage can in fact harm batteries if condensation results in corroded contacts or label or seal damage due to extreme temperature storage"  Well there you go.  All those years of my batteries being in the refrigerator;) 

All these years I did something without knowing really why I was doing it.  

I have friends who have never had cake right out of the oven becuse they think it will make you sick.  I love when I finally convince them that it's ok to eat and watching their reaction to warm cake;)  They also would never go outside or go to sleep with wet hair because they think they will get sick.  Are these things facts or culture?    This is what I found when I looked up wet hair: http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/cold-flu/wet-head-cold.htm  Wet hair will not give you a cold:)  How many times have we looked at things with our own views, cultural perspectives and dismissed others or other ways to do things. 

What are your thoughts on culture?  Isn't it interesting how we think we do things right until we go someplace different or get to know someone new.

Here are some recent photos...

The morning market.  It makes for a very interesting walk to my little man's school.

Flower tea anyone?  Love it!

Turtles?  I would like to think these are being sold in the market as pets...

Flour anyone?

One of my favorites... you just have to step over the fish that they lay out in order to get up the stairs to my little man's school.  The fish seller puts the tarp in his cart, fills it with water and then he takes a few out to show buyers.  They select a fish, he takes the fins off and they're off home with lunch.   

Veg anyone?

I haven't bought her chicken yet.  But I've gotten pork and beef at the morning market.

Right next to the chicken woman is the small tv and radio man.  What can't you get at the morning market?!

The market starts around 6 and by the time I'm walking out the door of the school, people are trying to rush the sellers off the street (otherwise cars can't get through).  So everyone packs up their stands, puts it on a cart, bike or in a car and off they go until the next morning.

He LOVES music.  

Thanks for reading and checking out my photos!  Let me know your thoughts:)