Comments on: A Silent Partner: Culture http://usconversation.com/blog/?p=146 Mon, 05 Feb 2018 17:48:30 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.38 By: Elena http://usconversation.com/blog/?p=146#comment-127 Sat, 14 Dec 2013 03:34:20 +0000 http://usconversation.com/blog/?p=146#comment-127 Thank you for this blog post! From now on, I’m going to quote this, “Culture is not just holidays and traditions, food and the national colors.” Simple but profound. Thank you for your example! Yes, quite shocking for people from a number of other countries. Among a great number of things, there were two shocking cultural issues for me: 1) people quoting lines from Broadway musicals just as we (people from Russia/Ukraine) quote lines from the good old Soviet movies (although that’s generational, too. Some younger people know very little about them); That was pretty baffling when I heard somebody singing “Tradition!!!” – from Fiddler on the Roof, or saying something like “Wouldn’t it be loverly” from My Fair Lady… 2) The range of topics that people are free to discuss (quite a few of them are taboos in our cultures)….

And here’s a story :) While I was studying at the University in the US 10 years ago I received an invitation from my friendsto a “Dutch party” for so-and-so Birthday. In our culture a Birthday party is usually organized by the Birthday person and/or his family. In this case the friends were organizing it, and I thought – how nice would it be to dress up and eat Dutch food! I was glad to have asked some friends prior to going.They didn’t laugh at me when I told them how much I’d love to see a Dutch party! Instead, they were kind enough to say, “Oh, “Dutch” means everyone pays for their meal.” :))))

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