On culture and politeness:

My mom is English, and I never really noticed the ways this cultural difference influences me until recently, when I travelled some and started observice culture more carefully. I was learning Spanish (and learning English grammar for the first time in the process) and I realized that I use the conditional tense, i.e. “could you” rather than “will you” or “can you” way more than anyone I know… except my Mom. I also one time got all huffy when I was with my friends and they wanted to sneak into line way ahead of a lot of people to get into a movie. I refused and went home, to their total amazement. I think both of those are kind of English behaviors.

Anyone from across the pond who could corroborate?

I.e. the middle-aged woman in Paris who helped me find my hotel when I was lost (total stranger). She and I had no common language, racial background (I’m guessing), nationality, and probably a lot of other things. She had no obligation to help me, but did it anyway –And the US is seen as having a pretty violent culture in many places, or so I have heard. Maybe sort of like those West Africans? Should she have been scared of me?– It might’ve been brief, but for 5 minutes is was sort of a community of two — not held together by history, race, nationality, or anything else like that. Just a human being relating to being lost & being a human, and deciding to help was it, I think.

I’ve not been to all that many other places, but I’ve had similar things happen in Japan, England and parts of the US distant from where I grew up/live.

Oh, regarding California: one of my uncles (this was in Alabama) once asked, me “why don’t you say ‘sir’ to your elders?” As I froze in confusion another uncle said “maybe they don’t say that in California.” Uncle #2 was right — a kid saying that in Cali. will be taken to be a smart-a**. Maybe some North/South (or equiv.) seeming rudeness are cross-cultural misunderstandings.

Well, at this point I can’t remember what the heck I started out trying to say, but hopefully it’s in there somewhere.

http://www.olimu.com/WebJournalism/2007/Texts/LostEden.htm

I tried to drag that as a link, but that didn’t work.

The Derb is a rather geeky guy himself, having written a book on the Riemann Zeta function and prime numbers. I own a copy.

on another topic, i like to see the demographics changing. not that i have anything against my own culture, or the white and the black southern cultures that were already here when i transplanted into this region, but to me the pace of demographic change here in the southeast is exhilarating. i am trying to think what would it be like if the fastest growing immigrant group were from a culture that i *didn’t* instinctively feel friendly towards… but still i think i would realize that america is a nation of immigrants (even the indigenous apparently came from asia?!), i mean they kind of all are, but USA more so than other countries even. and that people of any origins can settle down here and pretty much be about what america is about. not that i am entirely sure what america is about, but i meant mostly the positive stuff like hard work and living a nice peaceful life and being decent citizens. my immigrant friends, whether here legally or illegally; whether mexican, colombian, ethiopian, french, etc.; they are all about that.

and plus: you should NEVER EVER underestimate the ability of immigrants to figure out when they are being handed bullshit. the entire immigration process and trying to make it here, is a huge training in BS detection. plus, most ppl who want to leave their country for ours, have been “trained” on governments that have made them extremely cynical about political leaders, so… just get real, ok?!

/rant