Born there = Same Culture?
Mar 29, 2023 19:34:41 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Mar 29, 2023 19:34:41 GMT -5
Born there =Same Culture?
Nope! I might have been born in Puerto Rico but I do not share the same culture as the people who were born and raised there. Having arrived in New York at approx. age three, my culture tends to be more Americanized. For example, I write read and think in English much more fluently than I do in Spanish. In fact, I learned to speak, read and write Spanish to a fair degree at age 23.
I still need a dictionary when reading Spanish poetry and still don't know things about Spanish words that are very common knowledge to those raised in a Spanish-Speaking country like Puerto Rico. For example, I just recently realize that the word for breakfast in Spanish, desayuna is composed of two parts that make logical sense words, des, to stop, and and ayuno, to fast.
I also recently learned that the word baloncesto=basketball, is composed of two words, balon=ball and cesto=basket. The word-order seems reversed to me. Of course, to those raised on the island, this is very obvious. Yet I just recently realized it at age 76.
I also don't feel comfortable with the Puerto Rican female habit of acting or feeling offended when you say good-morning! May in help you! or otherwise try to hold a casual friendly conversation in waiting rooms. To me their instinctive-like snubbing reaction feels rude and odiously unnecessary.
I am far more comfortable with the reaction of Afro and Anglo American women who simply reply with a "Good morning!" or even engage in casual friendly conversations without totally snubbing or going frenetically berserk as if a "Good morning!" had been some kind of personal insult.
Another Puerto Rican custom that I find annoying is the intense hostility that people living in the same building display to anyone who lives alone. As if they consider it some kind of a horrible social leprous stigma or deadly threat to there domestic tranquility. It's as if the person is being constantly suspected of scheming to do them some kind of harm and must be kept at a very far distance. Any attempt on the person's part to be friendly is met with hostility. In fact, they go out of their way to not even look at the person and acknowledge his existence lest the person feel he can become more familiar and endanger them.
Neither do find marital infidelity a comical thing to sing about or to joke about as certain Latino cultures do. Neither do I share the idea that people should retire early from show business because they find the aged visually offensive and their attempts to entertain ridiculous. This can go as far as hooting them off stage while suggesting that they retire. Hints of it start when entertainers reach the late thirties and increases until the entertainer is forced to take the hint or else relocates to another country where such a view is not held.
So no, just because I was born there doesn't mean I share those cultural idiosyncrasies.
I still need a dictionary when reading Spanish poetry and still don't know things about Spanish words that are very common knowledge to those raised in a Spanish-Speaking country like Puerto Rico. For example, I just recently realize that the word for breakfast in Spanish, desayuna is composed of two parts that make logical sense words, des, to stop, and and ayuno, to fast.
I also recently learned that the word baloncesto=basketball, is composed of two words, balon=ball and cesto=basket. The word-order seems reversed to me. Of course, to those raised on the island, this is very obvious. Yet I just recently realized it at age 76.
I also don't feel comfortable with the Puerto Rican female habit of acting or feeling offended when you say good-morning! May in help you! or otherwise try to hold a casual friendly conversation in waiting rooms. To me their instinctive-like snubbing reaction feels rude and odiously unnecessary.
I am far more comfortable with the reaction of Afro and Anglo American women who simply reply with a "Good morning!" or even engage in casual friendly conversations without totally snubbing or going frenetically berserk as if a "Good morning!" had been some kind of personal insult.
Another Puerto Rican custom that I find annoying is the intense hostility that people living in the same building display to anyone who lives alone. As if they consider it some kind of a horrible social leprous stigma or deadly threat to there domestic tranquility. It's as if the person is being constantly suspected of scheming to do them some kind of harm and must be kept at a very far distance. Any attempt on the person's part to be friendly is met with hostility. In fact, they go out of their way to not even look at the person and acknowledge his existence lest the person feel he can become more familiar and endanger them.
Neither do find marital infidelity a comical thing to sing about or to joke about as certain Latino cultures do. Neither do I share the idea that people should retire early from show business because they find the aged visually offensive and their attempts to entertain ridiculous. This can go as far as hooting them off stage while suggesting that they retire. Hints of it start when entertainers reach the late thirties and increases until the entertainer is forced to take the hint or else relocates to another country where such a view is not held.
So no, just because I was born there doesn't mean I share those cultural idiosyncrasies.