For example, I’m a white Jewish guy but I’ve adopted the Japanese practice of keeping dedicated house slippers at the front door.
Before I quit drinking I believe I was following Russian culture with my vodka intake.
Drinking cheapest vodka possible chasing it with cheapest bear possible, then fight, sing, fight again, vomit all over the place, and fall asleep face down in a bowl of salad?
I heard Koreans use metal chopsticks and bought pack home. Took some time to learn how to use those but so much easier when I can put those in dishwasher.
I hate metal chopsticks. Maybe I’m a bad Korean. I just find that they don’t grip as well.
Is this what you mean by Korean spoon? What is better about them? I really love the ceramic spoons you get with Chinese soup, those are great for stews.
American, here. Got a bidet, and I am never going back. The fact that this isn’t standard in American households is disgusting.
Oh so true! Before I visited Japan for the first time I thought having shit left on my ass is just a normal thing. But later I also visited Morocco and they have a bucket of water on the toilet so you can wash yourself. It seems it’s only in Europe/America where people don’t wash themselves after pooping.
There are bidets in many countries in Europe too. In Spain, most houses have them, and I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing in France and Italy.
They have been disappearing in France, sadly, because people couldn’t afford the space…
I’m adding integrated bidets to all our toilets in our oncoming renovation though.
I got a bidet but then I read you have to turn it off at the connection to the water (at the bottom/back of toilet) every time or eventually the gasket can wear out and it will explode and the water will just go and go and go. If that happened at night or when noone is home you’d have major water damage!! I thought you could just use it with the trigger. Do people really actually fully stop the water every time? I uninstalled mine because I don’t think I can reliably remember to do that.
The T-adapter? That’s not mechanically complex and should literally last forever if made out of the correct materials and isn’t touched all the time. It should be no more fault prone than the connection to the toilet.
A misaligned thread or a washer not fitting quite right might be an issue from a bad install. That’s an easy fix though and you should see a leak before things go catastrophic.
If your really looking for piece of mind I’m sure there are t adapters that can close themselves down in certain failure states.
I was what I think we would now call a “weeb” in my junior/senior year of high school, and had studied Japanese culture before making a short trip over there in the summer. One of the things I learned was that blowing your nose in public is seen as bad manners, and it really stuck with me. When you think about it, it is pretty gross to loudly blow snot into a tissue (bonus points for carrying a handkerchief!) in front of others, like (as an American) we’ll just do this at the dinner table without batting an eye.
To this day, I try not to blow my nose in public places or in front of folks if I can avoid it, because it has grossed me out ever since learning how Japanese culture perceives it.
Wtf? That is super gross. I’m Canadian and I don’t know anyone who would do it at the dinner table. I’ve seen my boss do it at his desk but he turns to face the corner next to his desk first.
Ime most people go to the washroom to do it, or at least make sure they’re not near anyone else.
I’m American and I don’t think anyone in my social circle would blow their nose at the dinner table. Yours might just be gross.
Or, you’re an American who lives in a country/continent where there are a wide variety of people outside of your little bubble who have different backgrounds and different cultural norms that you’ve very likely never considered.
See, I can be demeaning too!
See, I can be demeaning too!
Good thing you explained what you were going for because it was kind of hard to follow.
You made an assertion about all americans:
like (as an American) we’ll just do this
and someone wished to dispute it based on their own experience.
You described a behaviour as gross and indicate that it is common in your social circles. How is it demeaning to says that your social circles are gross? @htrayl is agreeing with you
How could I adopt a practice from a culture that isn’t my own? What constitutes ownership of a culture other than its adoption, and what is culture other than a set of adopted practices?
This seems unnecessarily pedantic given the harmlessness of cross-cultural pollination but I’ll take the question in good faith.
Obviously all cultural practices are necessarily adopted from individuals, groups, and other cultures. What I mean is that some cultures have practices that differ from the ones that are commonplace in the ones you may have grown up in or currently live within. I’m asking about those practices, the ones that aren’t necessarily homegrown or common in your own life.
So the culture one grew up in one’s “own” culture. Reasonable definition.
I grew up in Illinois. My mother made stollen each Christmas because she had encountered it in Germany as a traveling 20-something and she kept it.
It’s not my culture as an American, but as a member of my family it is my culture. This kind of thing is why I ask.
If you wanted to participate in the discussion with a less abrasive nature, you could share that story from your mother’s perspeyand how it became your own personal culture.
However, I would consider it not to be your culture, but a family tradition. Your culture is more rooted in community than just your own family in my opinion.
