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Cultural Differences Quotes

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Cultural Differences Quotes

“The secrets of the kitchen were revealed to you in stages, on a need-to-know basis, just like the secrets of womanhood. You started wearing bras; you started handling the pressure cooker for lentils. You went from wearing skirts and half saris to wearing full saris, and at about the same time you got to make the rice-batter crepes called dosas for everyone’s tiffin. You did not get told the secret ratio of spices for the house-made sambar curry powder until you came of marriageable age. And to truly have a womanly figure, you had to eat, to be voluptuously full of food. This, of course, was in stark contrast to what was considered womanly or desirable in the West, especially when I started modeling. To look good in Western clothes you had to be extremely thin. Prior to this, I never thought about my weight except to think it wasn’t ever enough. Then, with modeling, I started depending on my looks to feed myself (though my profession didn’t allow me to actually eat very much). When I started hosting food shows, my career went from fashion to food, from not eating to really eating a lot, to put it mildly. Only this time the opposing demands of having to eat all this food and still look good by Western standards of beauty were off the charts. This tug-of-war was something I would struggle with for most of a decade.”

FeminismModelingCultural DifferencesBeauty StandardsTraditional Cooking
Book:Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir
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“The more we claim to discriminate between cultures and customs as good and bad, the more completely do we identify ourselves with those we would condemn. By refusing to consider as human those who seem to us to be the most “savage” or “barbarous” of their representatives, we merely adopt one of their own characteristic attitudes. The barbarian is, first and foremost, the man who believes in barbarism.”

CultureAnthropologyBarbarismCultural DifferencesSavagerySavageBarbarianCultural RelativismEthnocentrism
Book:Race et histoire
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“Traveling is not only the art of getting lost, but true travelers, in a sense, never return home. If they do return, they never see home the same way they did before leaving. They begin to see the foreignness of home after experiencing being at home in other foreign lands. Traveling, I have learned, is not all about the touristy and the beautiful places as we see them in tourist guides. Traveling can be frightening in many ways, most important of which is the realization of how much sadness, pain, impoverishment, and despair exist next to, behind, under, over, and above the mountains, the blue lakes, the pristine beaches, the highly rated hotels and restaurants, the well-designed museums and historic and cultural sites, the fancy shops that, in many places, most locals can neither access nor afford. There are places so sad that the fanciest building one can see there is the airport! There are other places where the airports are run down and depressing, but once you step out of the airport, you discover that such places are full of life, meaning, and physical and spiritual nourishment. There are countries, namely the developed countries, where everything looks shiny and perfect, yet as soon as you enter, you encounter so much loneliness, depression, hate, racism, and lifelessness. Things are never as they appear at first glance. Traveling leaves us with more questions than answers – it is so bittersweet." [From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”

CultureDiscoveryTouristsTourismTravelingCultural DifferencesTravelersNarrow MindednessForeignnessWorldview And Perception
Author:Louis Yako
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“Time has become a melding of minutes and months and the feeling of seasons. […] Leon says it is the Bhutan Time Warp and I know what he means. Time does not hurl itself forward at breakneck speed here. Change happens very slowly. A grandmother and her granddaughter wear the same kind of clothes, they do the same work, they know the same songs. The granddaughter does not find her grandmother an embarrassing, boring relic.”

TravelCultural DifferencesBhutan
Book:Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan
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“In addition, when they talked as if city people lived by different values, they were not emphasizing abortion, or gay marriage, or the things that are typically pointed to as the cultural issues that divide lower-income whites from the Democratic Party. Instead, the values they talked about were intertwined with economic concerns.”

PoliticsWisconsinCultural DifferencesRural AmericaRural
Book:The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker
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“There are still people in the United States who believe they are more privileged than others. This may be because of their color, politics, national origin or economic and cultural status. This is the root of many of our national problems and the reason that we should consider carefully who the next president of our country should be!”

ColorSlaveryPrivilegeAmerican HistoryCultural DifferencesMma Captain Hank BrackerNational Problems
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, The History of Liberia
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“Organisations often appoint leaders for their IQ. Then, years later, sack them for their lack of EQ (Emotional Intelligence). Common Purpose argues that in the future they will promote for CQ - Cultural Intelligence.”

LeadershipPersonal DevelopmentLeadership DevelopmentLeadership TrainingCultural Differences
Book:Cultural Intelligence: CQ: The Competitive Edge for Leaders Crossing Borders
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“We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be “just like us,” so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple “selves” have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different “moods.” In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients.”

TherapyDissociative Identity DisorderPsychotherapyMultiplicityMultiple Personality DisorderAssumptionsCultural DifferencesMisunderstandingsDdnos
Book:Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
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“What do women who live in houses, wear traditional long skirts, speak Romani to their family members and are offended when somebody calls them 'Gypsies' have in common with women who live in caravans, wear shorts, use only the occasional Romani word and refer to themselves as 'Gypsies?' What does a Romani coppersmith in Bulgaria share with a Romani used-car dealer in Los Angeles? How can a Spanish musician of Gitano background feel represented by a Hungarian Romani member of the European Parliament?”

CitizenshipNationalityGypsyCultural DifferencesRomaniRomani Gypsies
Book:I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies
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“I made American pancakes this morning. Would you like some? I am about to serve the first batch to my guests." "I can make some for us," I said, taking in the batter, the greased griddle, and the bowl of apricots. "You can go and fuss over the guests." "Ah, bien," she answered, loading a platter full of beautiful apricot-studded pancakes to take away. "Bon, I pour the batter and place the slices over the top just so. They're very moist because of the crème fraîche, and then I serve them with a crème anglaise." "It looks great," I said, taking the ladle in hand and stirring the batter, just to get a feel for the consistency. "Don't worry about us." Sandrine grinned her thanks, and I turned my attention to breakfast. "I can do that, if you want to sit," Neil offered. I waved him away. "I can make pancakes in my sleep." "I liked that she called them 'American pancakes'." "Well, they are. French pancakes are crepes, and German pancakes are a whole other deal altogether." I ladled four puddles of batter onto the griddle, enjoying the sizzling sound they made as batter met butter. "English pancakes are closer to crepes, just thicker." "Reminds me of when I was in Toronto for a conference. I tried to order a Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza but got tongue-tied." I laughed and began to arrange the apricots. "What did you do?" "I said 'Hawaiian' instead. The guy seemed to know what I was talking about." "Quick thinking." "Thank you." "In truth, between the crème fraîche and the crème anglaise topping, I think these pancakes are a bit more trans-Atlantic than American." "I'll take your word for it.”

FrenchPancakesCultural DifferencesToppings
Book:Reservations for Two
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“Remember how I told you that a person’s conduct is the first hint we have of a person’s character. Sometimes that’s all we have a chance to see. Their conduct is a manifestation of their character. You agreed. Remember, Dr. King? That was going to be part of the speech, and that’s going to help out a lot of people—black and white—in the future if you include those words.”

RacismEqualitySocial IssuesEqual RightsCultural DifferencesTolerance RespectDr Martin Luther King JrColor Of Character
Book:The Color of Character
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“Ebrei, rom e certi hanno una cosa in comune: la loro cultura è sopravvissuta per migliaia di anni senza mai avere confini nazionali da difendere o dietro cui proteggersi. È davvero una questione a cui gli storici dovrebbero interessarsi e cercare di spiegare. E che attualmente potrebbe avere molto da insegnarci.”

CultureCulturaCultural DifferencesStoriaRomNazioneConfiniCeltiEbrei
Book:Diario di bordo di uno scrittore
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“Put 'em who threaten possessions and power together with 'em who offend our tastes in sex and dope. Those who're touched, put 'em in asylums. Pack off old ones to 'senior communities,' nursing homes. Our children? Keep'em prisoner, baby-sitter as warden. School? Good for fifteen to twenty years. Army afterward. Liberated, we live in prison. No this, no that. Kill us before we die!”

ArmySocial JusticePrisonSocial CommentaryCultural DifferencesSenior CitizenCultural RevolutionElder Care
Book:M: Writings '67–'72
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“Change your default. Take the risk of expecting the next black man you encounter to more likely be an opportunity than a threat. Productive rather than pitiful. Human rather than hurtful. Dependable rather than destructive. A man, rather than a menace. Change your default. It's true, some will let you down. Some of your race have let you down too. But, your default view of your race hasn't likely changed.”

Black Lives MatterRacism In AmericaCultural DifferencesRacial Inequality
Book:Wounds
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“In WASP families, if you don't get along with someone, you have as little to do with them as possible. In Jewish families, you move next door, to make them as miserable as possible.”

HumorCultureFamilyFamily RelationshipsFamily DramaJewishCultural DifferencesCulture CritiqueWasp
Book:Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own
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“Most of our life is miscommunication, and when you add a language barrier to it, it just becomes total mayhem and confusion... It just adds to it with all of the cultural differences. It could be an American family meeting another American family and you could still have a total clash. With family, it's like visiting another planet.”

StillsLife IsLanguageDifferencesOur LivesPlanetsAddMeetingsConfusionBarriersClashVisitingCultural DifferencesAmerican FamilyMayhemMiscommunicationLanguage Barriers
Author:Julie Delpy
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“I've always been asked the question, "What is it with Australian men?" It's weird because most of my friends here [in the United States] are American men. I think there's cultural differences. It's a really American thing to kind of wax your chest. As a man it's like, "Get rid of that unsightly hair!" In Australia it's like, "Mate, what are you doing? Why would you do that? Doesn't that hurt?" So there's a few little differences that keep us.”

ThinkingMenKindLittlesStatesDifferencesHurtUnitedUnited StatesHairMy FriendsAustraliaChestsMatesAustralianCultural Differences
Author:Jennifer Lopez
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“The beauty of when you watch good television or films is that, yes, you may have a multi-cultural cast but those roles could be anybody - they could be white, they could be black. To show the world that we have more in common than we have different with each other is to me the ultimate goal of all of that. It does help unite in people's mind the thought that people are the same. Yes, there's going to be cultural differences, but for the most part, we are all in the same gang as human beings.”

PeopleWorldMindHumansMayDoeDifferentHelpingShowsFilmGoalBlackDifferencesHuman BeingsWhiteCommonRolesWatchesTelevisionUltimateCastsGangUltimate GoalCultural Differences
Author:Mekhi Phifer
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“The language of the culture also reflects the stories of the culture. One word or simple phrasal labels often describe the story adequately enough in what we have termed culturally common stories. To some extent, the stories of a culture are observable by inspecting the vocabulary of that culture. Often entire stories are embodied in one very culture-specific word. The story words unique to a culture reveal cultural differences.”

EnoughStoriesCultureLanguageDifferencesSimpleCommonUniqueLabelsVocabularyOne WordCultural Differences
Author:Roger Schank
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“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”

WorldInspirationalCountryCultureJourneyThis WorldAdventureTravelAll TimeWanderAround The WorldNovelistsDestinationTime TravelDiscoveringOther CountriesTraveledTravelerFunny TravelHippieTourismTravellerTravel WritingGreat TravelInspiring TravelTravel The WorldDifferent CulturesTravel AdventureAdventurerAdventure And TravelSeeing The WorldCultural DiversityCultural DifferencesPhotography And TravelLuggageInspirational AdventureRoads TraveledBackpackingTravel AbroadNomadicTravel And TourismDiscovering YourselfTravel JourneyRoads And JourneysNext AdventureInspirational Adventure TimeTravellers FunnyTravel BugCountries Of The WorldFunny AdventureStudy AbroadBeautiful CountryFeet And TravelForeign TravelBest CountryShort TravelDiscovering The WorldPowerful CountriesInspiration To OthersCultures Of The World
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“This Administration [of Barack Obama] favors a pluralistic world and respects cultural differences, so it's wrong for the West and American elitists to judge how women are treated under Sharia. I'm going too long on all this, but I choke up on the President's legacy of reaching out to the Muslim world. It's an emotional thing.”

WorldLongPresidentDifferencesEmotionalJudgingWestFavorsTreatedAdministrationBarackLegacyReachingReach OutChokeElitistCultural DifferencesMuslim WorldShariaEmotional Things
Author:Joe Biden
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