Values Dissonance/Real Life: Difference between revisions

** Then in the opposite fashion, using "Afro-Caribbean" or a similar term in Britain is almost always derided as pretentious over-politeness, and "black" is universally acceptable and officially correct (this is probably also because "Black British" has [[Alliteration]]).

** Although a racial slur, the word "macaca" (derived from the macaque monkey) is a fairly common one with French-speaking African white people. When Senate candidate George Allen used it to refer to a videographer at a campaign stop, it all but ended his candidacy; when people learned what it meant, they took it to be as bad as "nigger".

*** Likewise "negro", or "negra", is used as a term of endearment in a lot of Spanish speaking cultures.

*** On most Latin American countries, trying to acknowledge the African roots of its black population by calling them "afro-descendants" or something "afro"-prefixed is often seen as unnecessarily pretentious at best, and as "gringo" influences at worst (despite the Afro-prefixed proponents being often anti-America socialists). The usual retort is "What's wrong with being called black?"

*** Japanese schools tend to be much more intrusive in the lives of their students than US schools. Teachers regularly do home visits and if a Japanese child gets in trouble with the law, their school is notified before their parents are.

*** This is also true in countries in the Caribbean. West Indian people are often shocked by how "disrespectful" American/Canadian children are towards their teachers. As recently as the '80s, if a student misbehaved in school, he was beaten by the teacher.

** Even for how long you went to school varied over the course of history. In many parts of the world today, not finishing high school is quite frowned upon and is associated with lowered job prospects, while as recently as 100 years ago had quite a successful career as a government mechanic despite not having a high school education.

** Students' general attitudes towards cheating. Is it something everybody does, something kind of accepted as long as you really need to pass and don't suddenly end up with the best grade, or is it frowned upon?

** In the UK, ear-piercing of young- even baby- girls is fairly common, at least enough to be unremarkable, although it's seen as somewhat low-class (and schools most likely won't allow it).

** In Germany ear-piercing of 2 to 3-year-old girlsit is pretty much standard and earpiercing of boys is getting more and more popular. No schools, except for a few ''very'' conservative cathloic ones, prohibit wearing ear rings.

* In the UK, the privatisation of water services in the last 13 years has lead to a substantial difference in domestic habits. In the West Country county of Cornwall a tiny percentage of the UK population - and one that is already the most impoverished - has had to pay for sewage treatment upgrades and beach cleaning for a large chunk of the UK's coastline, much of which is to satisfy the tourist trade. As a result the tariffs are very high and many families have had water meters installed to avoid the astronomical standard charge. As the unit cost is still high, this had lead to the habit of restricting water usage and the most generally adopted method is to flush the lavatory for "solids only" and water used for showers, baths and washing floors etc, invariably saved to pour down the toilet. Most British visitors accept these habits but American tourists tend to be horrified by the daily accumulations of family urine in the lavatory.

** Similarly, in New Zealand and Australia, all toilets are equipped with two flush settings: a small flush for urine and a big flush for feces. These kinds of toilets are slowly catching on in the rest of the world as well.

 

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[[Category:Real Life]]