Persian food, especially the rice dishes.
They all have something. It’s like just statistically inevitable, since none of them were really designed.
Pretty much every culture other than progressive Western has stronger extended families, which is nice. Squatting is a great way to sit if you start young. Both eating everything with four legs except a table, and being vegetarian are more logically consistent dietary preferences. Toilet paper is dumb.
Languages are pretty similar. English has some nice features, but having a word for the day before yesterday would be handy, for example.
Peru - super fresh, locally grown food; incredibly hard working people who are super friendly
Ireland - craic
New Zealand - respect of the environment, freedom camping
France - long luxurious meals with family/friends; delicious pastries; willing to burn shit down when political leaders forget who they work for
Vietnamese: The absolute bonkers way they combine a turbocapitalistic hustle culture with slow living / enjoying life
German humor. (Yes, seriously)
They joke about efficiency/optimization etc. One of them is a man visiting a small grocery shop with the intention of buying some olives.
It start by him asking the price for a glass of olives. What about two? What about 5? etc. prices per glass goes down for each increase.
Then you see him leaving the shop with several large boxes of olives.
Songkran in Thailand.
Live in hot country, so New Year celebration is to hit the streets and have an all in waterfight!
“Celebrations are known for public water fights, which symbolize ritual cleansing.”
So much fun. It takes place during the hottest time of the year.
I like the cultures that have leaned more into socialism. Not just for the practical benefits to society, but because they just seem to be more caring and community oriented in general. In the US I always feel so isolated. There are all sorts of norms that put up barriers between people and can make people feel like they’re on their own when they need help. I’d like to live somewhere where people would care and do something if their neighbors needed help or where I wouldn’t feel so weird talking to strangers. Maybe this is too idealized. I know no culture is a monolith, but there seem to be some better tendencies in other countries.
EDIT: For all the time I’ve spent watching anime (including 2 trips to Japan), I have a hard time thinking of much I actually admire about actual Japanese culture. They’ve got the toxic work culture, they’ve got the confucian family thing going on, there’s the xenophobia, and then there’s their… suspicious obsession with some other questionable countries like the US, UK, and Germany. I guess anime can be funny and they have nice trains. So at least they have that. Oh I guess they also seem to be more chill when it comes to religion. Like it’s still there, but it doesn’t seem like the intensity of it is enough to cause regular problems like it does in the Western world.
Dutch cycling culture
French long lunches
Spanish siestas
Portuguese late dinners
Italian punctualityJapanese not wearing shoes indoors / providing slippers for guest’s and picking up after yourself or just making sure the space is clean before you leave. Also bath house culture.
We don’t do the slippers thing but here in Canada we don’t wear shoes indoors either. I shake my head when I see people in American TV shows laying on a bed with their shoes on lol.
The French widely mistrust their politicians.
I was also coming in to say I envy the French tendency to fuck shit up when their politicians act like scumbags. In the US we just drool and watch fox news tell us it’s actually for our benefit that we sacrifice our lives for billionaires.
Not enough, apparently.
The Spanish got it figured out with their siestas.
Also starting each question with the upside down question mark so you know how to read it out loud properly.
I’m working on a conlang.
Thanks for that tip.Do they do that informally too? In formal English language writing, the majority of interrogative sentences can be correctly interpreted by their starting with “question words” or helping verbs. This breaks down in informal writing e.g. “you up?” vs ”Are you up?" In the little Spanish I know, I’d say “¿Estas despierto?” (I know I’m missing accents but I speak Spanish way more than I can read it.) Would I still text it to someone that way even though extra characters are what is typically taken off in informal writing? In the English example, the helping verb is removed. In the Spanish version, would the upside down question mark be removed?
Oh fuck yes!
Came here to say this
I’m not a big fan of India, but their cuisine and especially its focus on vegetables instead of meat is something I always thought was great
I’m not vegetarian or anti-meat or anything like that, but eating more vegetables and less meat is good not only for your health, but also the planet IMHO
In general I’m jealous of countries where the norm is for them to eat healthier food. I grew up eating the typical crap 'Murican diet and it’s left me very unhealthy. I’ve been trying desperately to change that, but it’s such a slow process to change what you’re used to. I get repulsed by things that people in other countries just look at as at worst a normal part of their diet or sometimes they even actively like it. I wish I had grown up being socialized on that before things got so out of hand.
The food culture in France. Eating lunch for 2-3 hours (not every day naturally), enjoying tasty, well-prepared food and enjoying fine company.
Slow, mindful, deliberate living and working.
And which culture is that?
There are several, mostly indigenous.
Ayurveda, Curry.
livin la veda loca
