Five Things About My Culture

[browngirl]

I first saw this in sparkymonster's journal, and most recently in griffen's.

List 5 things which are basic common knowledge in your culture, which people outside are unfamiliar with. This is not about obscurity, but something everyday to you, that others go "bzuh?" at.

Ah, but what is my culture? I'm an immigrant! I've got more than one! And I like to talk, so here are at least two sets:

As I've experienced it, anyway. :)

1. Steak is cooked in sauce in a pan, until fork tender.
2. Everyone used to have livestock, even in the city; goats still roam Kingston, afaik. Middle-and-upper class people do this less these days, but everyone has fruit trees they eat from, etc.
3. The hottest weather is no reason not to have a big bowl of soup.
4. It is an acceptable option for parents to leave their children with trusted friends or relatives for months or years, so that the parents may do a long-term project that might not be a good environment for their kids. (Like going to another country to work but not to settle, for instance.)
5. When writing a letter home, it is very strongly recommended that one include some money. That may be more of an immigrant thing than a Jamaican thing, though.



Well, really, having grown up in NYC. On rereading, most of these aren't true in Boston.

1. Lock your doors.
2. Get out of people's way.
3. Public transit is a way of life.
4. It's not actually that people are all bad. They just could be, so a modicum of wariness is sensible.
5. Jaywalking is a fine art, to be accomplished with one's brain on. If they hit you and you were being an idiot, it's your fault.

I'd say more, but Eva (sitting on my lap) keeps trying to type!

Comments

And hey

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Vito_excalibur's nifty discussion of this meme! (http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/186350.html)

"Bzuh?" moments for me

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Numbers 2, 3 and 4 are "bzuh?" for me on your first list, and number 5 is a "bzuh?" for me on your second list.

Truth be told, I'm afraid of livestock (and, to be honest, most animals). The house I grew up in had fruit trees in the back yard, but most of the fruit went uneaten. We didn't trust it.

Re: "Bzuh?" moments for me

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The house I grew up in had fruit trees in the back yard, but most of the fruit went uneaten. We didn't trust it.

If you live in a place where there's substantial lead contamination in the soil, you probably shouldn't trust foodstuffs grown in it. Common sources of lead contamination include:

1. Lead paint that's flaked off of older houses over the years and decades. Lead paint was banned in the 1970s some time, so if your house was constructed after then and/or the trees are sufficiently far away from the house you're probably good.
2. Near the road, the soil is often contaminated with lead from the exhaust of cars that used leaded gas in decades past. I don't know exactly when leaded gas was banned; IIRC it was the late 1980s sometime, with the phase-out starting in the early 70s. The extent to which this is a problem is a function of when the road was constructed (later is better) and how heavy the traffic is/was on it during the time when leaded gasoline was in use.

Of course, YMMV; if there's an EPA Superfund site down the road or upriver from you, you might have other, bigger problems.

[lomedet.livejournal.com]

oooh...thank you for these! It's always fascinating to get a glimpse into someone else's common knowledge. And thank you also for the link to the discussion on vito_excalibur's journal - really interesting stuff.

I'm contemplating doing this meme myself, but can't quite decide from which perspective. Currently, I'm an immigrant (albeit a highly privileged one), and so many if not most of the things I take for granted make the people around me go 'bzuh?' But my self-perception is still that of an American, so maybe I should try it as if I still lived in the States...::ponders::

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

I had fun doing the meme from more than one POV. The theme of ibarw this year is "intersectionality" so rock out with multiple cultures.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

The hottest weather is no reason not to have a big bowl of soup.

In Trinidad, too! :D I was amazed by the soup section!

[brownbetty]

Oh, man, fruit trees. When I lived in Mexico we had an orange tree and a lime tree in our back yard. OM NOM NOM NOM.

My mother is from upper-class ranch background (which is to say, she is from a background where being a rancher counts as upper class) and sees nothing odd about keeping livestock, but everywhere else I go it seems to be regarded as something you only do in abject poverty (and very low class, dear.) It's a bit weird.

I wonder if I should try doing one for the prairies?

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Well, I admit that I see a major class difference between 'We own a ranch' and 'we have a pig living in the backyard/house'. Now, if you own a ranch, you may also have smaller livestock as well for family use, but that's more a factor of 'if you've got a large ranch, you have to be at least somewhat outside the city, due to the nature of having enough land to be a ranch. Keeping food animals seems to be more common and less class-linked the more rural the area is.' But it's also possible that that's either a historical or an outsiders perspective. (Historical because once upon a time my family owned ranches, so I've heard a lot of stories about that. Outsiders because I am definitely a city-girl.)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

(5.) is definitely an immigrant thing.

yeah, on big-city culture:

(1.) I'm continually shocked by the number of people who post to b0st0n or davis_square about how their apartment got burgled through an unlocked door, open window, etc. Dude. It's the city. It ain't New York, but it ain't Podunk, either.

(2.), In Boston, the rule seems to be to stop just inside doors, at the top of an escalator, etc., to have a half-hour kaffee klatsch, and give dirty looks to people who say "excuse me" and try to get by.

(5.), In Boston the rule is to step off the curb, either mid-block or contrary to the indications of any traffic lights in the immediate vicinity, in front of an automobile that's traveling at the 30mph speed limit, while you're yakking on your cell phone and consuming your morning latté. Do not look up at the sound of screeching tires as the driver attempts to stop. If the driver sounds the horn, give him or her the dirtiest look imaginable, as if to say, "How DARE you drive your DIRTY, FILTHY *hock* *spit* AUTOMOBILE down MY street!"

[libitina]

Being a pedestrian in Boston was pretty freakish for me. You guys have the drivers well trained. I'd just look at the road, and people would stop and wave me across... and then I'd be all, "No, dude, just go on. I'm in no rush at all." And they'd insist on waiting. And this happened several times, so it wasn't just one weirdo.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I get that a lot, enough that sometimes when I'm not intending to cross yet, I wind up doing it just because they seem so insistant; but they also go ripping through the crosswalks, despite the fact that there's a $100 fine for a car crossing a crosswalk that has a person in it (unlike what many drivers think, it's not ok to drive through the crosswalk while the pedestrian is still in it, even if they're past the part you'd drive on). I swear someday I'm going to sit out by Porter Square with a digital camera and just take identifiable pictures of drivers doing that.

[sophinisba]

Romanians eat a lot of soup in summer too. It took a bit of getting used to.

Thanks a lot for sharing and for the link to vito_excalibur's post. :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Indians do (1) and (3) :) (5) not so much these days, I think, but it used to be common enough.

Jaywalking

[almeda.livejournal.com]

My (Manhattan-born) mother insists there is a massive difference between true jaywalkers and 'idiots who wander out into the street.' Professional pride, for one. :-> Also, true jaywalkers never expect the cars to change their behavior -- it's like playing live-action Frogger. Whereas IWWOITS will just set out in the blithe conviction that of COURSE everyone will stop for them -- pedestrians have right of way, don't they? Everywhere?

[ilthit.livejournal.com]

I sometimes suspect that steak should be cooked that way, but tend to be either too lazy or too thrifty of sauce.

Belgians often have livestock in the suburbs. This was a surprise to me. Finns don't. Nice clean modern houses with a goat behind it. We didn't do it in Finland. Goats were only in the countryside.

We also lock our doors and get out of people's way and use a lot of public transport. The getting out of way is more out of politeness. Also, Finns don't make eye-contact with strangers on the street, unless they speak to them first; it would be rude. And if you speak to a stranger on the street, you should have a better reason than trying to find someone to chat with, because then you're not only rude but also weird. :D