30 Fun Facts You Might Not Have Known About These Cultures And Religions, As Pointed Out By Folks In This Online Group
While attempts at going to outer space and exploring the cosmos, or diving deep into our vast oceans and trying to figure out where the heck is Nemo are all fine and dandy, but there’s more to learn about the world we live in than just physical exploration.
Take learning about cultures, religion, and just all things societies, for instance. Humans are complicated beings in general, but the social and societal structures we’ve built is the same vast vat of everything as is the ocean deep and space infinite.
People on AskReddit were curious about these exact things in a now-viral thread, where u/yahyahashash asked the lovely people of Reddit to share things they’ve discovered about a different culture or religion that completely blew their minds.
Over 9,400 comments later, we have a slew of fun facts and bizarre insights into how humans function on a cultural and religious level, blowing even more minds along the way. Scroll down to check the best of the best answers to the question, and be sure to upvote, comment, and share your thoughts and things you have learned in the comment section below!
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In Sikhism, the turban is a symbol of total equality.
Before Sikhism was the religion it is today, the turban was worn only by the wealthy upper classes. The person who started the Sikh religion donned the turban to show people that everyone is truly wealthy in spirit, and that it is the duty of all people, rich or poor, to help one another.
So the Sikh turban became a symbol of equality in humanity, and as a sign that that person can be turned to for help.
How much which country you grew up in f***s with your sense of scale.
I was born and raised in Canada, lived here all my life. We're the second-largest country in the entire world by area, behind only Russia. When I went to visit some friends in Germany, we got talking about Canada and I mentioned how I went to university in a city that was "only" a four hour drive away from my childhood home. I commented that I liked it because it was far enough away to have some independence, but still close enough I could drop by and visit my family on holidays or breaks.
This caused them to laugh uproariously, much to my confusion. One of them eventually explained that a four hour drive would take you more than halfway across the entire country of Germany and it was not what any of them would consider "close". These same people, by the way, had a church just outside of their town that was over 800 years old and no one thought that was particularly remarkable.
That's when I learned the difference between European and North American cultures. A European thinks a 100 km trip is "far"; a North American thinks a 100 year old building is "old".
Driving from West to East from Blackpool to Hull, you'll run out of land before you hit the "four hour" mark (between the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool to the delightfully named Sandy Bottom Pumpkins in Hull is at most a 3.5 hour journey). Obviously, there are wider points on the mainland, but you can go coast to coast and *run out of land* before doing this person's University trip.
Not only is Jesus in the Quran, he is the most mentioned person in the Quran (if you count direct and indirect mentions). Islam teaches Jesus was a prophet and was a precursor to Muhammad.
In other words, Jesus is a central figure in the Quran, and the Islamic faith not only believes in Jesus but generally reveres him.
Also his mother Mary is one of the most important women in the Quran.
Buddha has snails protecting his head so that he can meditate in the scorching sun. And here I thought it was a hair style.
It is a shame that this is the first post, it is an internet myth. https://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2009/07/buddhas-hail.html?m=1
I taught English in a middle school in South Korea. When I was roaming around in the hallways, I found that not only were the girls holding hands, some boys were holding hands as well. They were just "friends". There weren't any homophobic cries or jokes being made. In North America, if that happened, you'd be automatically labeled gay.
I have friends from different countries that come to America and realize it’s not that much accepted. Its sad, honestly
In Turkish, there's a so-called "gossip tense." A specific kind of past tense that indicates that someone else told you this.
Chinese languages: mandarin and Cantonese and other Chinese dialects are mutually unintelligible but the written language is exactly the same. Two Chinese people speaking different dialects would have no idea what each other is saying but they could communicate by writing
When the British Empire sent a spy into China to steal the method for cultivating tea, the spy didn't even bother learning Chinese. Wherever he went, he just pretended to be from somewhere else in China. Nobody questioned it. On the other hand, *written* Chinese from two thousand years ago is totally intelligible to the modern Chinese reader - and if you don't think that's a big deal, remember Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales six hundred years ago and without annotation it's incomprehensible.
When I first became Buddhist, the fact that the Buddhist response to the question of whether there was a creator of the universe or not is basically "It doesn't matter". It's one of a list of questions that the Buddha was asked and refused to answer one way or another, or even speculate on, because they're irrelevant to Buddhism. Coming from a Western background, it kind of blew away a lot of my ideas about the purpose and function of religion.
There’s a Micronesian island where all the inhabitants are color blind. They know when fruit is ripe by the smell. It just gave me a new understanding of how people see the world and the different pathways cultures take to solve the same problems.
Honestly, as someone who is colorblind, the most difficult problem is telling if something is good to eat, like chicken, beef or even baked goods. Usually I take a bite and pray I don’t die :)
maletgs said:
Japanese stamps instead of signatures.
samosamancer replied:
I lived there for 2 years and I’ve still got mine with my name in katakana. It’s a whole process to procure one and then have it registered as your official signature.
This would be so much easier than having to write your signature all the time.
So much stuff from Japan.
I think if I had to pick one it was how seriously they take customer service there. Like, it's just night and day from literally anywhere else in the world I've been. At one point I needed to go visit a bank to get some cash and I asked the cashier at the store I was at where the nearest bank was. In most places in the world, if you got anything more than a shrug, it would be some vague directions; a really nice place might give you a map or an address for your phone and point out where you were going.
In Japan, the cashier bowed, stepped out from behind the cash register, grabbed an umbrella (a typhoon was passing through, so it was pissing down rain at the time) and *physically escorted me* the TEN BLOCKS between the store and the bank, holding the umbrella above my head the whole time (and getting absolutely drenched himself). I felt really bad about it and tried several times to tell him that an address was fine, but he insisted he would walk me there. It was just a totally different mindset towards how to treat a customer or a guest. Honestly pretty humbling.
Also the "no tips" thing threw me for a loop. Not that I didn't know about it, but I didn't know how seriously it was enforced. There was a point where I was running late for an important event and had taken a cab to where I was going. I still remember the total cost - 3481 yen; since I was in a hurry, I grabbed 3500 yen, hastily gave it to the driver and dashed out the door. I make it about 10 metres away and I suddenly hear, "Sumimasen! Okyakusan! Sumimasen!!" (Excuse me, sir! Excuse me!!) from behind me. I turn around and the cabbie has gotten out of his cab and dashed after me, just to hand me the 19 yen (about 19 cents) change that I'd left behind.
I spent 2 months in Tokyo. I was overtired (2 babies under 2 with me) and I accidentally left my purse in the laundromat and didn't realize it until a few hours later. I panicked, and went to the hotel concierge to see if they could assist me in calling them. The lady walked me to the laundromat, they were closed so she called the owner, who came over to unlock it and take me in. My purse hadn't been touched and was still sitting on the shelf that I left it on. Japan was one of the most amazing places I've visited as far as customer service and cleanliness is concerned. They go way above and beyond. I also noticed that there's no such thing as a "McJob" there. Every person takes pride in their work.
The Spanish eat dinner at like 10pm and party until like 4am and still have energy to go to work the next day. Idk where they get the reserve of energy to do that but it’s wild
I remember when I was a kid I was shocked when I realized a good chunk of the world did not eat rice regularly in meals lol.
Our internal visualization of time more or less follows the direction of writing.
I'm from Brazil, and i can only speak for Brazil, but this feels online with the rest of euro-centric culture.
I mean that when we talk about the Past or the Future, the trend to gesture from left to right, which just so happens to be the way we write. I spent some time in Taiwan, where they used to write from top to bottom and sure enough, "yesterday" is literally translated as "the day above" and tomorrow is translated as "the day below". And it's more than just that, think of timelines, horizontal versus vertical. The whole internal visualization seems to be related to that
I would love some input from someone who speaks a language written from right to left because right now this theory feels like grasping at straws but somehow kinda right. Please someone prove me wrong
Some languages consider the past to be uphill and the future to be downhill. Eurocentric worldview often puts the past behind us and the future before us, but some languages do it the opposite (you can "see" the past, so it's in front of you, but you can't "see" the future, so it's behind you)!
That a lot of americans literally cannot get anywhere without a car and that getting your drivers license is as a result extremely vital for gaining any independence (which is why the car is so synonymous with the american meaning of 'freedom'). I've talked to americans for years and only recently thanks to Not Just Bikes did I find out just how car centric american culture is.
"A developed country is not one where the poor have cars. It's one where the rich use public transportation." quote-eco-...d17145.jpg 
Adam Jones said:
India has more than 200 languages and dialects.
candygram4mongo replied:
India and China are both better understood not as analogous to European countries, but as what Europe as a whole would look like if they had a single government.
22 official languages besides Hindi and English. Each state has its own language and culture. At minimum you know 2 or 3 languages.
Danish people leave their children outside of stores when they go shopping.
Being from the USA, you would be arrested for that 100%. Immigrants have been in the past, probably more than I would ever have thought.
In the UK you would be considered a bad parent too because the baby might get kidnapped or attacked in some places. When I was a child it was common for babies to be left outside in their prams while mothers did the housework. Then again, neighbours would keep an eye on other people's children. Because everyone knew everyone else, neighbourhoods were much safer than today. Strangers stood out from the locals and there weren't the cars for a quick getaway if someone committed a crime. Nor did you have to lock your doors and windows even if you were only in your garden.
Kodiak-Marmoset said:
Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian: essentially the same language.
scelt replied:
Same people too, but don't even try to tell them that. If you would suddenly remove religion, I have no idea what would they find to argue about, but they would find something.
Source: I'm one of them. Won't tell you which, but as you see, it doesn't matter.
In Switzerland, perhaps A and D too, when you pick up the phone there is a routine that must play out before the conversation continues:
*ring ring*
Receiver: “Hello this is *business*, my name is *surname*, good day.”
Caller: “Hello Herr/Frau *surname*, my name is *surname*.”
R: “Good day, Herr/Frau *surname*”
C: “Good day, Herr/Frau *surname*. I am calling because ….”
Also you can’t just say goodbye and hang up, you will spend a good 2min saying goodbye and wishing the other a good day/evening/weekend and thanking them and saying you’re welcome until you both say “Also Tschüs” and **then** hang up.
I'm from South America, when I went to Germany I went to a meeting in a bar and ordered water out of politeness so I wouldn't be there without paying for anything, bc I don't drink alcohol. To my surprise water is free and from the tap. Started ordering sparkling water instead from there on lol.
In Germany there is a holiday in which, during the dead of night, a guy will get his friends together, take a thin, tall tree, strip it of its branches, decorate it, write the name of a romantic interest on it, then anonymously strap that tree to the house of said romantic interest.
When I was first told about this, I thought my German instructors were exaggerating, but nope. The next day the city was FILLED with decorated trees. And I didn't hear anything that night. I still don't know how they did it so quietly.
Some cultures your friends treat you on your birthday and other cultures you treat your friends on your birthday. An example would be paying for a birthday dinner with friends.
I had no idea that Catholics had more books to the Bible than Protestants had until I was a young adult.
Literally every damn thing about Mormonism. I could give you an entire book about the things. What should I call it though…
Edit: Some people are asking for the goods so let me blow your minds.
1. Mormons has bizzare ceremonies in the temples which are definitely “sacred” not “secret.” Haha. I researched these 15 years ago, but there was no proof of what actually happens. Then youtube happened. Watch Mormons do baptisms, with a proxy, for dead people. Watch them act out crossing into various levels of heaven using code words. Check out the secret underwear.
2. For many years Mormons boasted that they found a golden book that was transcribed with the help of an Angel. It is now accepted, even by the general authorities that the “book” which mysteriously disappeared was transcribed by Smith using seer stones that were placed in a hat. Yea folks, he was a con man. There is a whole history of seer stones. What’s more is that the church admits this now.
3. Smith was married to and had sex with girls as young as 14. He sent their husbands away and then had to “bite the bullet” and marry them for the good of their community and the authority if god.
4. The Salamander letter
If you are truly interested, google Jeremy Runnels and the CES letter. In short, Runnels was a passionate Mormon. He had some questions and was encouraged to write out his issues and send them to an LDS authority to get some explanation. He wrote a 70 page document called the CES letter that led to his excommunication. The CES letter has been them cause for many Mormons to leave the church.
Have fun! Im sure I got some details wrong here and there, but nothing of any importance.
There's a saying, "If you want to get rich, start a religion". A lot of cult weirdos do it for sex as well as money.
I watched a documentary on the salamander letter. Wasn’t it disproven? The guy who wrote it was a very prolific counterfeiter. It shook the church but in the end it was proven false. Still, Mormonism is strange in that it’s a modern religion. All religions have weird and unrealistic stories but the fact that the Mormon story survives in semi-recent history is shocking and also somewhat alarming. People are gullible.
You’re confusing the last part with Mark Hofmann, the murderer who wrote the Salamander Letter in an attempt to con the Church.
Off to go read about "the Salamander Letter..." EDIT: It's not really free, it's a book now, I would have to pay for shipping, they suggest a "fair price" of a minimum $14.95 donation. I wonder why they don't just publish it free on their online site if they really want people to question LDS. I read wikipedia, etc. and this letter really was a very skeptical , analytical takedown of the LDS. https://cesletter.org/
https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb1400621n/_1.pdf
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Like another comment here I would like to say that it is a little inconsiderate of you to kind of make fun of a religion. But, I would like to say it a bit nicer and not call people names. The baptism of the dead is for people in the after life so they have a choice. They don't have to accept it. And if anyone wants to know anything about the church, you can just ask a member. Most will be glad to answer your questions.The golden book is called the Book of Mormon, because Mormon wrote a lot of it and put the rest into one volume. That's also where we got the name "mormon" from, but we do go by LDS members now. And obviously we believe that the marriage to young women is horrible now, and don't do it.
A group based on a scam and that encourages pedophilia is not to be respected
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Truth about Mormon theology, Part 3: 11) Much of Mormonism's appeal is that the people are so friendly and accepting when new visitors come to call in a local ward church. The sense of community is enormous and very appealing to emotionally hungry people who are not getting their emotional needs met at home or their traditional church. All of this "love" goes away in 3-6 months if the visitor doesn't buy in and become a willing convert. After six months with no conversion or baptism, the "love" turns into indifference or even contempt. After a year with no progress, the visitor will be discretely asked to leave. If they don’t leave, they will be treated with all the contempt due a parasite. 12) This all started with the gold tablets Smith supposedly translated using magic glasses, the Book of Mormon. It was commonly reported in the community Smith lived in that he had borrowed the story from an unpublished novel about Christ in the Ancient Americas, which was in circulation in that community. Mormons stoutly reject this assertion. People who can believe in gold tablets that disappear, magic glasses, spirit inspired automatic translations, and angelic visions tend to refuse to believe this all started with an unpublished novel. 13) Modern genetic and DNA analysis shows that Central American peoples such as the Maya do not have genomic coding for middle eastern peoples from 700 b.c. to 700 a.d. Any genomic evidence like that is of recent addition to their gene pools. Central American peoples genomic origin is ultimately in the Gobi Altai mountains of western Mongolia, not the middle east. This is one of the strongest refutations of Mormonism, since Mormon history as told by Mormons indicates the original Mormons settled in Central America and mixed with the peoples there.
Temple robes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as the robes of the holy priesthood, are worn only inside Latter-day Saint temples and reserved for the highest sacraments of the faith. White symbolizes purity. There is no insignia or rank. The most senior apostle and the newest member are indistinguishable when dressed in the same way. Men and women wear similar clothing. The simple vestments combine religious symbolism with echoes of antiquity reflected in ancient writings from the book of Exodus. -church of Jesus Christ.org
interesting trivia: the super-rich Howard Hughes retired to Las Vegas. He was surrounded by gangsters, professional gamblers, & con-men for most of his life, some of them working for the US military since he had extensive business dealings with them until they decided he was too unstable. He picked Mormons for his personal assistants and employees during retirement since he felt they would not cheat him as much as the non-Mormons he had been dealing with.
Truth about Mormon theology, Part 4: If Mormons want to hold these beliefs as cherished faith, that is okay with me. They have the right to believe what they will. My job is just to love them. If they are dissatisfied with this whole strange system and want out, I can help them with this. God will eventually sort us all out, myself included, quick to acknowledge that.
Truth about Mormon theology, Part 2: 6) Money is very important to these people. To start on the path to godhood, a man must be a full 10% tither. This is required to get the local congregation or ward "recommend" letter, which allows entry into a Mormon temple. The temple ordinances are required practices for godhood rank. This means that your Mormon salvation depends on your tithing. This amounts to buying your “salvation” with money. Mormon families will tithe first and feed their kids later on what’s left over, if they fall on hard times. It can be very expensive to be a Temple Mormon. 7) Temple rituals and practices are very recognizable to Free Masons. Smith was a mason. He borrowed and adapted from Masonry many of the bizarre secret rituals used in a Temple. 8) The Pearl of Great Price Mormon scripture document was lost and then found in the Mormon archives in Chicago. It is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The page is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The translation Smith provided is completely bogus. It has nothing to do with what is normally published as “Pearl of Great Price”. 9) The Mormon scriptures speak of the white flying god from the east who brought the gospel to the ancient Americas. The Indians of southern Mexico made sculptures of this god , Quetzalcoatl, which are all demonic in appearance and have nothing to do with a white man with white dove wings. The sculptures look like iguana dragons with bat wings and fierce teeth. 10) After repeat archaeological efforts since the 1840s, no tangible archaeological evidence has ever been found for a civilization in the Americas from 700 B.C. to 700 A.D. as Mormons claim. There should be evidence available of many big cities and millions of inhabitants over a 1000 year period. The civilization supposedly stretched from the Yucatan to northern New York state. There is simply no evidence for this, none. However, when asked, Mormon scholars are sure that the next archaeological expedition into southern Mexico or the Yucatan will find everything.
to put up a rare positive comment, Mormons are very dualistic, rejecting "evil" and "worldliness"...they really do try to live at a higher moral standard than non-Mormons and sometimes succeed... they do a lot of good works to help the poor and people in need... there are no mormon homeless, every ward (local church) is supposed to have some sort of charity farm or workhouse where they can go to get work and stay if a Mormon family goes on hard times... (I'm not Mormon)... they try to pass as regular Christians in their beliefs, but Mormon beliefs are genuinely weird and FAR far removed from Nicene Christianity... they feel closer to God believing all their weird stuff, so I let them alone unless their hearts are searching for something else or better... it can happen, people leave the Mormon church every year, sometimes after strict discipline by leadership which they feel is unfair and hypocritical... Visitors will be made to feel loved, wanted, and respected from their first visit, which is refreshingly different from the reception they get at the average church... This provides a degree of community/family feeling that a lot of people are so missing these days, which is very appealing to anyone who has had to sit alone at church on Sundays... The welcome mat will be withdrawn if the new prospect doesn't convert and buy in to all their stuff by about the sixth month of visiting... The strict legalism, rules, & rituals of Mormonism appeals to peoples of the pacific for some reason... Some people need a lot of structure, rules, and people telling them how to live.
Check out Murder Among the Mormon's on Netflix - "The series follows Hofmann, one of the most accomplished forgers in history, who created forgeries related to the Latter-day Saint movement. Hofmann created e*******e devices resulting in two deaths, and was exposed as a forger and sent to prison"
out of panda jail, hooray, a reminder if you don't mind: this is an entertainment blog, okay? If you are not happy with what you read here, look at another post... out-of-pan...8e8287.jpg 
There is a whole lot of unnecessary Mormon bashing on this website. It’s very annoying when the bashing is all nonsense. 😳
Truth about Mormon theology, Part 1: 1) Mormon salvation has nothing to do with the cross or his blood atonement. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross was just a good example. It is the starting place for a Mormon man's efforts to become a God. Jesus is the ultimate example of a man who became a god through martyrdom. 2) Mormon men aspire through the rituals & beliefs of the church, clean living, good works, and tithing to become gods. The women do not get to become goddesses. The best women can hope for is to marry a Mormon man who becomes a god and to be his consort. 3) Mormons do not believe in the Trinity. They believe that God is three persons and three beings, the "triple God". They do not believe God is three persons and one being, the Trinity. They never tell this to new converts. It may be three years before a new convert finds this out, presumably after he has bought in sufficiently to the new belief system. Mormons believe that Jesus and Lucifer are “spirit brothers”, who share the Heavenly Father as the father of both. They believe that the Heavenly Father was once a regular man who promoted himself to godhood. They believe that the Father had physical relations with Mary to produce Jesus. 4) Mormons renounced plural marriage as a belief and Utah territorial law so Congress would accept Utah's petition to become a state. It goes on unofficially and behind the scenes all the time. Mormons typically keep quiet about the practice, if relatives or neighbors are doing this. 5) If a Mormon woman & mother converts to Trinitarian Christianity & leaves the church, the common path forward (in Utah anyway) is for the man to divorce his wife & get custody of the children. This is true even if the children are under the age of six and need their mothers. Similarly, if a Trinity belief woman converts to Mormonism, and if she cannot persuade her husband to follow, Mormon pastors encourage the new convert to divorce her Christian husband so she can marry a Mormon, since this is her only hope of spiritual progress to become a goddess consort. The Mormon Church presents itself as very pro-family, but pastors routinely encourage divorce and encourage taking small children away from their mothers. This is a staggering hypocrisy, rarely reported and little known.
Actually, a lot of this stuff is just assumptions made by someone who obviously didn't research a lot, and is really just basing their information off of rumors they heard. Literally none of this is true, and if it is, it's not that common to happen. A lot of Latter Day Saints are great people. For example, Utah is the best place to go if you're homeless, and it's filled with people in the LDS Church.
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Where do they buy their secret underwear? and do they come in plus sizes?
This information is not correct. Smith was happily married but was told to help the word this way. I know it doesn’t sound much better but his wife knew and Smith didn’t like it either
Shame on the editor for posting this mishmash of misinformation. Its an ugly, twisted, post for an otherwise interesting thread, and certainly makes me question the editor's focus
Well I’m LDS, and I find what was written here ugly. Truly ugly. I have family members of different faiths, atheists, agnostic, friends from Jehovah Witnesses to Catholics and never ONCE did I degrade them because of there beliefs or no beliefs. Too bad you can’t say the same thing.
Is it wrong to point out pedophilia? The Mormon church is a cult, considering they cut off people who leave the church. Any organization that does that is a cult. That's one of the most fundamental criteria. You absolutely should degrade your friends if they continue to believe in in the Catholic pedophile ring. Shame on them and all the children they have hurt by supporting that church.
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This is a prime example of vindictiveness and lack of context. It is also interesting how terrible the grammar as well as common sentence structure is completely absent from the negative comments.
I remember about 20 years ago the Mormon Church had a self created PR nightmare when it was found out that they had gotten the lists of holocaust victims and were baptizing them. Mormons are huge into genealogy because the go back in the research and baptize their ancestors.
Unfortunately, mostly this is a misrepresentation or completely dishonest. Which leads me to guess these are ideas from a Pastor who is scared of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stealing the sheep in his/her flock who pay his/her salary.
Check out Deannaartist on tiktok. She was a temple ordinance worker and breaks it all down
I could have guessed a list of "fun" facts about religion, if it included "Mormons", would be low key critical and frankly rude. Why do other organizations/cultures/religion deserve respect, but we don't? Try something like this: Fun fact: "Mormons" don't like being called Mormons. They belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They believe in Jesus Christ and do their best to worship and follow Him. As they don't serve or worship Mormon, it is actually rude to keep calling them Mormons. Now you know! Remember kindness. Everyone deserves it, most don't get it.
You may disagree with how the information was presented but the content is still laregely true. The truth isn't venomous, it's liberating
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I grew up Mormon and you are mistaken. While I will admit I don't know everything, the golden plates, seer stones, the magical glasses allowing the plates to be translated and the white salamander letters are all true. Believe what you like, but don't deny the truth. Also, I know first hand that the baptism for the dead is true. The belief is that people dies before the churn was founded and need to baptized into the church. It's why the LDS are leaders in genealogy. They also believe that Kolob is the planet closest to God. The garments are a thing. Up until the 70s, black folks (and maybe all people not white) were not allowed to hold the priesthood. It got changed when the church would lose its tax exempt status for discrimination. I don't see the LDS as any worse than any other major religion but don't deny the facts. And remember, you are in the world, but not of the world.
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Studying the Russian language, I came across this really interesting word, тоска (toska) and its verb form, тосковать (toskovat’). Its meaning is very difficult to translate into English because it has such a deep cultural context, but it essentially can mean, depending on context, a sort of heart-wrenching, painful longing, or a sense of nostalgic wistfulness, sometimes for something you don’t even know. From the Russian-language wikipedia article for this word:
>No English noun conveys all the shades of the word. On the deepest and most painful level, it is a feeling of intense mental anguish, often with no explainable cause. In less severe cases, it can be aching heartache, a desire for incomprehensible what, painful languor, vague anxiety, torment of the mind, an unclear craving. In specific cases, it means striving for someone or something, nostalgia, love and suffering. At the lowest level - despondency, boredom.
What’s interesting about this word is just how much this feeling absolutely permeates Russian literature and music. For instance, there’s this one piece I absolutely love where one part of it always gave me the sense of reaching towards something desperately, but never quite grasping it. I never knew how to describe it, but this word encompasses it perfectly.
Edit: Because a few people asked, the piece I had in mind was the Passacaglia from Shostakovich's Violin Concerto no. 1
The Welsh language has a similar meaning word, hiraeth, to express a deep yearning.
Some Hindu rituals involve slamming coconuts into the ground. I remember passing through a street in Chennai in a cab and all of a sudden like 50 people slamming coconuts into the ground at the same time
I can't wait to go back
In temples mostly but just about anywhere something religious happens. We do it to make a promise to god that we will leave behind our negative stuff and seek to become a better version of ourselves
Public sex education in Marrakech, Morocco. A circle of people pops up on Djemaa El Fna. A guy in his 50/60’s gathers people of all ages. He used sign language and talks and jokes around. Like a stand up street performing sex educator. In a Muslim country. They were basically standing next to their mosque. Post bias adjusted.
We probably should be doing something similar in the US, now that the conservatives have us marching rapidly towards book burnings and no reproductive rights.
Temple culture in Taiwan:
The people who run the temples, and put on holiday performances for their respective gods, are a community of lost boys and society's rejects. They have an unsavory reputation, associated with petty crime and drug use. Each temple is basically a carnie street gang with a folk religion theme. They take your real money in exchange for fake money, which you are supposed to burn so your ancestors have money in the after life (insert mandatory inflation joke). Sometimes the temples have rivalries, and brawls break out between devotees during religious festivals and competitions.
Folk religion is alive and well in Taiwan, but at the same time, people who take it seriously have a "trailer trash" image, so it's considered cringy to be too interested in it. Good upstanding citizens just burn incense, say a prayer to their ancestors, take pictures if it's a touristy temple, and leave.
I have visited Taiwan before and it is literally the coolest place ever! (also the night markets are incredibly cool)
wetlettuce42 said:
That Americans have garbage disposals in their sinks.
president_of_burundi replied:
I'm American and they might as well be a myth to me. I've only ever seen them in horror films, so as far as I know they're just a thing that you accidentally drop something down, then reach into to provide Dramatic Tension and/or get all your fingers cut off.
it is only for food waste, and you need to run water while using it. It is better to compost your food waste - saves water and helps grow new food. Before moving to a condo building, we composted - had volunteer fruits and veggies in our flower garden - it was funny seeing cantaloupe growing between the flowers.
Coming to Vancouver, Canada and learning not only that I _had_ to tip, but that the nicer the place (meaning the pricier the food), the higher the expected tip up to the “standard” 20%.
I remember being new around 8 years ago. I went to a kinda nice restaurant downtown and treated a few folks, left a 5% tip for service I thought was bare minimum. The server came up to me as we were leaving - she must have been having a bad day or something, because she was literally on the verge of tears asking what she did wrong. I caved of course, and gave her the missing 15% in cash. Still, that was bizarre.
If restaurants etc paid decent wages tips wouldn't be necessary. An expensive restaurant can afford to pay its staff a decent wage. If the service or food is bad why should they expect a special reward for it? If the tips didn't come in maybe the service would improve.
Swedish, Norweigan and Danish.
Three totally different languages with very similar structures and grammar. Not wholly unlike Spanish, French and Italian, only closer. We can understand each other pretty well but not actually speak in any other language than our own (and English ofc). So it's not unusual to find danes, swedes and norwegians hanging out, speaking, and communicating through their respective languages, with each other.
When my dad and grandparents moved to Canada, they were extremely confused and grossed out by people eating rare and medium rare steaks.
Don't ever let them order a "blue" steak! They will expect it to moo.
In India, they don't just have head nods for "yes" and head shakes for "no"... there's another one where the head does this side-to-side wobble. I can't remember what it means, since from what I could understand, it has a few different meanings depending on the situation.
Mostly for “okay”. Whenever I see someone doing that I always picture them saying “okay didi”(which means okay sister) in the voice of a small child
As an American living in Hungary (and as I’ve said elsewhere on Reddit) it STILL gets me sometimes how much Hungarians shake hands. Meet someone on the street? Shake. Finish talking to them and walking away? Shake. Walked into the office in the morning? Shake everyone’s hand near you, and the people you meet at the coffee machine, and possibly the security guards if you’re friendly with them. About to leave said office for the day? You bet your a*s you’re shaking hands.
I’ve been here 17 years now and this one still manages to surprise me sometimes.
In the middle east sitting on a way where your leg rests on your knee and your foot points at someone is extremely insulting
You just don't sit like that
Unless you want to get a serious a$$ whipping. Showing someone the bottom of your foot says "you are lower than the dirt I walk on."
In middle eastern culture, complementing someone’s stuff may results in them giving it to you… for example, if you were to tell someone: ‘Nice watch!’, they might give it to you. I am someone who tends to compliment a lot, with 0 intention of it being given to me. Nor do I expect to give my stuff to someone if they compliment it. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around this one…
Ha! I'm with you on this one. There was once a Queen of England who used to expect things she expressed a liking for to be given to her. Apparently when she visited anyone they would hide away the stuff they wanted to keep.
I visited a friend in Donegal, Northern Ireland about 6 years ago. They showed me lots of different sites in my few days I visited. One evening we went to a local chip shop, we were sat in her car eating our food and a trailer being pulled by a car came up next to us.
This trailer had a man and woman tied up on the back of it, covered in what looked like food and dirt. They were laughing and seemed to be having quite a good time. Right behind the trailer was a convoy of about 8 cars all beeping their horns and cheering, they went around the town and then all drove off. I was super confused as tk what had just happend, my friend told me the man and woman in the trailer were probably soon to be newly weds. That it's tradition for friends to go into their home unplanned and take then out, ties them up and throw things at them and parade them around the town. She actually seemed confused that I didn't have a similar tradition back home or that I had never seem anything so strange.
When I lived in China, I had two different Chinese people on two different occasions come up to me and correctly identify my religion and culture. I am Mennonite and I dress as such. And this is interesting because many Americans don’t know what I am.
When I see a nerdy looking guy in a certain type of white shirt and tie in the street, it's usually a mormon.
In Jainism, Jain monks, nuns, and some followers avoid root vegetables such as potatoes, onions, and garlic because tiny organisms are injured when the plant is pulled up, and because a bulb or tuber's ability to sprout is seen as characteristic of a higher living being.
My Jain friend told me that most Jains are vegan because they don’t want to harm the cows and the animals. She says that one of the main principles is to not hurt any living being from the tiny ant to the giant whale. Not sure about the other stuff she told me since she tends to lie a lot
I've been into Korean culture the past year because of KDrama; here are some of the stuff I've read up on that kinda blew my mind:
- The concept of Korean age which is 1 or 2 years older than what they call "international age". Koreans consider the time you spent in the womb as your first year of life and each Korean gains an additional year on the new year.
- Speech levels are everything in Korean and you are supposed to speak more formally to someone who's older than you. That's why when strangers meet one of the first things they ask each other is their age so they know if they should speak formally to each other.
- There are only a limited number of surnames in Korea because of the concept of clanship. Each name corresponds to a regional clan. And some names are rarer than others.
- Patrilineality (who your birth father is) is a big deal in Korea. Because of this until 1997 it was illegal to marry someone with the same last name as you if you had an uncommon last name because that most probably meant you were from the same clan and therefore your marriage was incestuous. Exceptions were usually for people with very common surnames like Kim and Park. For this same reason Koreans also used to look down on double in-laws (ex. Your sister marries a guy and and then you marry that guy's brother) because it is also seen as incestuous.
- Patrilineality also extends to adoption and having children out of wedlock. To this day many Koreans refuse to adopt because there is a stigma around taking care of another person's child. And if they do adopt, they would prefer to adopt a girl rather than a boy because the boy would not be able to carry on the foster family's bloodline. This is why many more foreigners tend to adopt Korean orphans. Likewise, having a child out of wedlock and being a single mother are also frowned upon in Korea due to this culture.
In France it is customary to use the more formal "Vous" (you) to address someone until they invite you to use the informal "Tu". Children and animals can be addressed as Tu though.
The way they tie towels around the waist in India.
I've always done that thing where you wrap the towel around your waist, then tuck it in so that it's held closed by the towel pressing against your abdomen. However moving around with it like this can cause it to come lose.
In India, they instead [fold it a completely different way, they fold it outwardly], apparently it's their "standard" way of doing it, which makes a hell of a lot more sense.
In some countries, when someone asks you, “how are you?” they actually want an answer beyond just, “fine, thanks.”
I was accidentally very rude for following my social custom. If you actually answer that question where I’m from, people will look at you with shock.
Yeah. In America you say good/ok/fine and one day I was having a really bad day and I said not too good and the guy stopped for a sec and was like well I hope you get better
How cheap life is in some parts of the world.
My Dad was asked to do a speech for the UN in India at one point and brought myself and my mother along for the trip. The UN put us up in a six star hotel (first and only time I've ever been in one - didn't even know they *gave* a sixth star prior to that trip).
Anyways, we had a meeting with a UN rep who went over the pre-travel preparations - what vaccines we would need to get, what documents we would need to have, who to call if something went wrong, so on and so forth. My Dad asked if we should invest in a travel safe for our belongings, worried that things might get pilfered out of our room. At this, the UN rep just laughed and said, "If you even make the *accusation* that something has gone missing from your room, the first thing that management will do is fire everyone who worked on that floor of the hotel, whether they were anywhere near your room or not. There are literally thousands of people who want those jobs and the hotel could replace their entire staff in an afternoon if they so desired. Your stuff will be fine."
And he was right - it was. You got a real sense being there that people (in particular workers) just... weren't valued as much as they are in North America. Everyone was replaceable. It was a weird experience.
German trains are remarkably on time. Drivers follow the passing lane rule religiously.
Also the New Testament is very different than how it’s practiced and lived for the most part. The disdain of materialism, humility, privacy of prayer and of charity, is missing in a lot of what I’ve seen.
The way Christianity is practiced in a lot of countries these days bears no resemblance to the teaching of Jesus Christ. If what Jesus said is true they're going to be mighty disappointed one day when they think they've got a ticket to heaven.
Thealmightyfug said:
That Big Bird is different colours in different countries.
GrindinMolcajete replied:
They’re not actually Big Bird. They’re all Big Bird’s cousins from across the world.
His cousin Abelardo from Mexico has visited Big Bird in the US a few times.
Clarification there are multiple birds who are all related and some have visited each other.
hauj0bb said:
Tea with butter is a thing in Asia.
WormLivesMatter replied:
This is common in the us too but for coffee, at least the state I’m in. Weed butter is used too sometimes.
Culture and the types of food. Take something as simple as Icecream for example the flavors can be significantly different from what the majority in my country would even be comfortable trying. I recently discovered Cheese flavored ice cream at a local shop and am trying to work up my courage to try it.
I've seen ice cream flavors based on vegetables, and bacon, and I'm super curious.
Americans have to tip everywhere.
We tip in restaurants, and cafes, hotel housekeepers and bellmen, cabbies and some delivery drivers and a few others who provide a service or from whom we want something special... tipping a doorman at a club to get a better table, or something like that. I wouldn't call that exactly everywhere. In some places it is forbidden to tip; the people who carry your groceries to your car, for example, retail establishments in general, and it's not required in restaurants or cafes where you get your own food and take it to your table yourself (but there is an optional tip jar on the counter in most places).
Most americans walk around in shoes in their homes and schools.
Something that I’m fascinated by is that there are different types of squats. I grew up in Europe and learned the “Western” squat as a child. A few years ago I learned about the “Asian” squat, where the whole underside of the foot touches the ground. It’s much more stable and squat toilets are so much easier to use with this.
Standing or walking with your hands in your pockets is seen as very bad manners/rebellious in Japan. It’s something only thugs or bad guys do. As an American, it took a while to break that habit.
It's cold outside u forgot your gloves, course your gunna put your hands into your pockets to keep them warm
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Travelled in Africa. Was warned that you do not stop to help someone injured along the road. First explanation was that it was a well known trick, especially at night. You stop and the injured one jumps up and along with his friedns in the ditch mug you. Second reason was that in smaller villages if you stopped at an actual accident you would be picked out as different/unknown so you must be the one at fault and could be attacked by the mob. Being a first responder it was a weird thing to consider.
Venezuelan native here: it is very common to greet one another with insults. Example: "Marico I miss you" I miss you f****t... "mamahuevo que paso" Ball licker what's up. It is really like the most caring thing you can do to a close friend.
America is a very car-centric country, outside of the cities it's hard to get around without one. I've never seen a house in America that didn't have a garbage disposal. And they don't have knives in them. You'll still lose part of your hand if you put it into a running disposal. Water is free here. Europeans think it's funny that America is so big, that huge distances and time-consuming commutes are not uncommon, but let an American snicker at how tiny their country is, and their claws come out.
Something that I’m fascinated by is that there are different types of squats. I grew up in Europe and learned the “Western” squat as a child. A few years ago I learned about the “Asian” squat, where the whole underside of the foot touches the ground. It’s much more stable and squat toilets are so much easier to use with this.
Standing or walking with your hands in your pockets is seen as very bad manners/rebellious in Japan. It’s something only thugs or bad guys do. As an American, it took a while to break that habit.
It's cold outside u forgot your gloves, course your gunna put your hands into your pockets to keep them warm
Load More Replies... Travelled in Africa. Was warned that you do not stop to help someone injured along the road. First explanation was that it was a well known trick, especially at night. You stop and the injured one jumps up and along with his friedns in the ditch mug you. Second reason was that in smaller villages if you stopped at an actual accident you would be picked out as different/unknown so you must be the one at fault and could be attacked by the mob. Being a first responder it was a weird thing to consider.
Venezuelan native here: it is very common to greet one another with insults. Example: "Marico I miss you" I miss you f****t... "mamahuevo que paso" Ball licker what's up. It is really like the most caring thing you can do to a close friend.
America is a very car-centric country, outside of the cities it's hard to get around without one. I've never seen a house in America that didn't have a garbage disposal. And they don't have knives in them. You'll still lose part of your hand if you put it into a running disposal. Water is free here. Europeans think it's funny that America is so big, that huge distances and time-consuming commutes are not uncommon, but let an American snicker at how tiny their country is, and their claws come out.
