Cultural differences

[hatcheckgirl]

On 8/9/2021 at 8:27 PM, surfergirl said:

G'day friends. I'm from Australia.. My great grandfather was from Germany. like after the 2nd Worldwar, So its nice learning about cultural differences.

I haven't had the opportunity yet to venture outside of Aussie, 

I have loads of friends from many different backgrounds. I enjoy getting to know them, 

I've done a lot of traveling in the Outback. what I have noticed there's a different way of life & expressions just by going into another state.

Like no one waves to you when you are in the city. But when you are towing a campervan and heading Out to the Nullabor for eg. People wave to you  When you are driving. 

Hiya Gabe!  I have travelled a bit throughout Oz, but was brought up in Sydney so am a city girl.  I found when I moved to Perth that cities can be very different.  Sydney people never greet or care to notice you.  Perth people were much friendlier and laid back, because it's a smaller city.  But during the past decades, it's changed here too.  No one really greets and "hello witnessing" is pretty challenging.  But you're right, the country people are much more friendlier.

 

In our territory, when we used to do door-to-door, the most friendliest people are the migrants.  We have good conversations with Afghan, Syrian, Indian, Sri Lankan people and you can tell they appreciate a friendly face and manner.  Other migrants who came earlier on, like Greeks and Italians, are not at all friendly, and the Aussies are too laid back and apathetic (mostly).

 

It's nice being in a multicultural country  

[Thesauron]

Johan, I have never been to Sweden but I have been to Iceland. Are Icelandic and Swedish cultures similar? I tend to lump all Scandinavian peoples together but probably I am completely wrong.

They are similar but certainly not the same. Iceland is a small island nation that became independent in 1918. They rely heavily in fishing for their economy. The result is a somewhat conservative population with few risktakers. Swedes, on the other hand, have been independent for very long, and has become a skilled merchant nation shaped by the nations they traded with. They are still shaped very much by influences from outside its borders.

While Icelandic is very old and has changed very little due to its isolation, Swedish has changed and evolved a lot.

I do like their small RTO working to translate and produce spiritual food for a few hundred publishers. They have a very high standard.

[carlos]

1 hour ago, Thesauron said:

They are similar but certainly not the same. Iceland is a small island nation that became independent in 1918. They rely heavily in fishing for their economy. The result is a somewhat conservative population with few risktakers. Swedes, on the other hand, have been independent for very long, and has become a skilled merchant nation shaped by the nations they traded with. They are still shaped very much by influences from outside its borders.

While Icelandic is very old and has changed very little due to its isolation, Swedish has changed and evolved a lot.

I do like their small RTO working to translate and produce spiritual food for a few hundred publishers. They have a very high standard.

Thanks, Johan. We have watched some Scandinavian and German series recently and we notice people there speak and react in very different ways than we do here. Sometimes it's hard to understand what's going on because people are so different.

 

The Icelandic RTO is surely doing a wonderful job. They are working so hard to produce publications that will only be used by a few hundreds, as you say. Not long ago they released the Greek Scriptures, which is a huge task for a small RTO.

[EccentricM]

15 hours ago, hatcheckgirl said:

have travelled a bit throughout Oz,

Did you meet the wizard?

[hatcheckgirl]

No, funny that….. 🤔

[carlos]

One very important part of Spanish culture are bars. Well, bars in Spain are not the same as bars in America. They are not seedy locals where men go to get drunk or go out with prostitutes. In fact, such dens exist here too and are called "American bars".

 

Bars in Spain are a kind of cheap restaurants, more or less suitable for all audiences, where people go to have a drink (wine, beer, soda or a coffee) and meet friends. You can also eat tapas or a sandwich, many bars even have a kitchen and give menus. A big part of Spanish social life happens at bars. People meet there to talk, to discuss politics or conspiracy theories or rip celebrities to pieces, to watch important soccer matches with company, or simply to read the newspaper for free. If I meet a brother on the street and we are not in a hurry, one of us will probably say: "fancy a coffee?" or "fancy a beer?" and we will go to the closest bar to chat for a while. Or in the good ole times, when field service was house-to-house, at some point you were always bound to take refuge in a bar from the scorching heat or the freezing cold.

 

Fancy a bar?

[EccentricM]

2 hours ago, carlos said:

Bars in Spain are a kind of cheap restaurants, more or less suitable for all audiences, where people go to have a drink (wine, beer, soda or a coffee) and meet friends. You can also eat tapas or a sandwich, many bars even have a kitchen and give menus.

Sounds a lot like British pubs (minus the regular drunks and night time brawls we have here with our local culture of drunkeness 😄). I hear Brits in Spain are "notorious" for being drunkards over there, any truth to that statement?

[carlos]

19 hours ago, EccentricM said:

I hear Brits in Spain are "notorious" for being drunkards over there, any truth to that statement?

Unfortunately yes. People lose inhibitions when they are in holidays, and alcohol is really cheap and easy to obtain in Spain.

 

A recent trend is known as "balconing". Young British tourists, completely drunk, jump from their hotel room terrace to the pool.. which may be four, eight or ten floors below. A number of them do not calculate well and get squashed on the ground. I say it's natural selection.

 

 

[EccentricM]

 

@carlosMadness, lol.

[BLEmom]

A young brother from England was over here and was a bit horrified how much we rode around in cars. I don’t think he’d ever seen so many drive throughs. He said “you even have them for the banks?”  Yep!  lol 

[EccentricM]

3 hours ago, BLEmom said:

A young brother from England was over here and was a bit horrified how much we rode around in cars. I don’t think he’d ever seen so many drive throughs. He said “you even have them for the banks?”  Yep!  lol 

Yeah over here, most things are local, and we have public transport for everything.

 

If you have to drive more than one hour to work, you're either someone who can't find a local job (lack of local opportunities), someone who travels "as" their job, or someone in some very high end career. Having to travel more than one or two hours for work (which in itself is semi-abnormal for most folks), and having no public transport to get there is seen as ludicrous by most people here.

 

And what's seen as even more ludicrous by Brits when it comes to America, is needing 'any' type of transport just to go to the shop to buy groceries or get to a postal service. Since most places here have anything localised, even outside of cities and towns.

 

Most kids here also walk to school, there is no such thing as school buses (with some very rare exceptions, like special needs groups and so on). If school is far, either a parent will drive you, you get a taxi, or you take the local bus, but most opt to walk to school. I myself when I was in high school would walk for about an hour across various streets and grass fields to reach school.

Edited August 13, 2021 by EccentricM

[BLEmom]

9 hours ago, EccentricM said:

Yeah over here, most things are local, and we have public transport for everything.

 

If you have to drive more than one hour to work, you're either someone who can't find a local job (lack of local opportunities), someone who travels "as" their job, or someone in some very high end career. Having to travel more than one or two hours for work (which in itself is semi-abnormal for most folks), and having no public transport to get there is seen as ludicrous by most people here.

 

And what's seen as even more ludicrous by Brits when it comes to America, is needing 'any' type of transport just to go to the shop to buy groceries or get to a postal service. Since most places here have anything localised, even outside of cities and towns.

 

Most kids here also walk to school, there is no such thing as school buses (with some very rare exceptions, like special needs groups and so on). If school is far, either a parent will drive you, you get a taxi, or you take the local bus, but most opt to walk to school. I myself when I was in high school would walk for about an hour across various streets and grass fields to reach school.

Yeah my nearest grocery is 5-10 minutes by car. Don’t have time to be walking that. Lol. 
America is such a big country that it was set up completely differently than Europe.  Except in cities the size of New York, everyone drives. Public transportation is usually a bit seedy and not the safest in a lot of areas. Trains crossing states and the country are expensive. For the time involved you might as well fly. Even if the population here got as dense as Europe, the infrastructure would have to change enormously for it to be a walking country as opposed to a driving one. 
I live on a main road with no sidewalks. If I want to walk for exercise safely , I actually have to drive somewhere to do it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Amygdala]

1 hour ago, BLEmom said:

Even if the population here got as dense as Europe, the infrastructure would have to change enormously for it to be a walking country as opposed to a driving one. 

I watched a documentary once about the reason why in the US there isn't high-speed trains. To start building more train infrastructures in American cities, particularly for public transportation, would cost US billions, and alot of private business sectors would be involved, making it difficult for planning.

 

In Canada it is normal to commute to work both short and long distances, taking up to 1-2 hours. Living in bigger cities in Canada are becoming less and less affordable.

 

Another difference in Germany is the formal form of "you" is used to address strangers, or older ones, or those in authority. At work, you would call your boss by their last name ("Mr - or Mrs. -), using the formal "you" to address them. Only if they say you can address them by first name, and the informal "you" can a person switch to using first name basis. This formal usage of addressing people doesn't apply in the congregation, and everyone addresses one another with the informal "you."

[carlos]

20 hours ago, Lieblingskind said:

Another difference in Germany is the formal form of "you" is used to address strangers, or older ones, or those in authority. At work, you would call your boss by their last name ("Mr - or Mrs. -), using the formal "you" to address them. Only if they say you can address them by first name, and the informal "you" can a person switch to using first name basis. This formal usage of addressing people doesn't apply in the congregation, and everyone addresses one another with the informal "you."

Same here. We use the formal "you" (usted) exactly the same as you do in Germany, but never in the congregation.