I’ve just read these great articles talking about different places, their people and way of living. It’s a themed series from Matador Network which is called “You know you are born and raised in…”. It’s a fun and very interesting way to learn more about foreign – and why not local? – cultures.
The Sao Paulo version was quite accurate, so I assume the others are as well. I’m so glad to know now that France’s favorite time of the day is 4 pm, Argentinians put a bottle on the top of their car hoods when they feel like selling it and Germans don’t like small talk. We Brazilians never drink a mango and milk smoothie, it’s almost an actual sin, I swear. This must sound equally funny to any foreigner.
I’m always amazed to see how different we are from each other, even though we should not be that diffent in theory. Clearly the articles are written by locals, so it’s also a nice way to learn how to describe in English the habits of one’s country. Another way I found to know this was buying a printed travel guide of Brazil, so I can translate into English information about my country using the correct foreign vocabulary.
But to me one of the most interesting aspects of this series is that everything is written without any judgements or stereotypes. Well, at least the articles I’ve read tend not to, if you happen to come across any that didn’t do so well, please let me know. Let’s get to know one another based on our pet peeves and excentrities. The world is already annoying as it is, let’s not contribute to make it worse.
Here are many other articles. I say give it a go, you will certainly have a few laughs.