Silliest Cultural Traits

Hello! Now, with the holidays drawing nearer and nearer where I live, I figured it was best to start something fun; hopefully give at some people a smile. The manor I want to use? Exactly what the title states, what are some of the most silliest cultural traits through the depths of time? For instance, did all Sumerian men have to turn 90 degrees to the left every time someone sneezed? Stuff like that,please go nuts people!
 
For many German-Americans, the only thing that reminds them of their German ancestry is saying "Gesundheit." whenever someone sneezes.

In each dialect of Chinese, there exists at least one term meaning "screw your mother". They are so prevalent that there a collective term "national swear word" for them. (国骂/國罵)
 
I've heard of the tradition in some English town of rolling cheese down a hill. I'd have to ask one of our British members if they know if they eat the cheese at the end or not.
 
Somehow, it does not surprise me that the Chinese have a special way of saying 'Scrw ya mom!' in every dialect possible. It is also hilarious
 
When Haitians greet each other in Creole, the person greeting says "Sak pase?" and the response is "N'ap boule." Apparently Haiti is so hot that the translated dialogue is:
"What's up?"
"I'm burning."
 
I've heard of the tradition in some English town of rolling cheese down a hill. I'd have to ask one of our British members if they know if they eat the cheese at the end or not.
That's somewhere in Gloucestershire.
I think that the winner gets to take that cheese home as a prize.
 
For many German-Americans, the only thing that reminds them of their German ancestry is saying "Gesundheit." whenever someone sneezes.

In each dialect of Chinese, there exists at least one term meaning "screw your mother". They are so prevalent that there a collective term "national swear word" for them. (国骂/國罵)
The term can also mean "grass mud horse" if you use different tones for the words. I've heard the grass mud horse is a popular internet meme in China since it's used to stick it to censorship.
 

Driftless

Donor
Not really silly, but one of the oddities common many of the US immigrant food cultures: most seem to have a flat bread of some type, and a food unique to it's native culture that repels most other groups ;)

For example: from my Norwegian ancestors: Lefse (potato starch & flour flat bread) and Lutefisk (reconstituted dried cod (looks like and has the mouth feel of transluscent white jello......). One of my freinds, who is Jewish, contributed Matzo & Gefilte fish. Tortillas & Menudo from Mexico and so on.

I think part of this pattern is that each are peasant food and a way of retaining some cultural connection to the home society
 
For many German-Americans, the only thing that reminds them of their German ancestry is saying "Gesundheit." whenever someone sneezes.

In each dialect of Chinese, there exists at least one term meaning "screw your mother". They are so prevalent that there a collective term "national swear word" for them. (国骂/國罵)

When you mention "sneeze" and "Chinese Dialects" together, it reminds me that in my hometown, whenever someone(typically kids) sneezes, people around him/her would say "100 years"(一百岁/歲); and if it's a string of sneezes, then it's "100 years, 200 years, 300 years", etc, until the person stops sneezing. I usually stopped at three hundred, but the highest my roomate got was six hundred years old.

It's interesting to note that different Chinese dialects can have totally opposite superstitions. Singaporean Chinese seemed to believe it's obligatory to have a hair cut during the first lunar month. But where I grew up, for seemingly no reason at all, the superstition goes that cutting one's hair in the the first month of the Chinese Calendar is equivalent to curse your uncle on you mother's side to die, hence the saying "First Month's haircut kills you uncle"(正月剃頭死舅舅).
 
There is one silly cultural stereotype about us Germans that is actually true: Digging holes at beaches. Oh, how we love doing that.
 
Not really silly, but one of the oddities common many of the US immigrant food cultures: most seem to have a flat bread of some type, and a food unique to it's native culture that repels most other groups ;)

For example: from my Norwegian ancestors: Lefse (potato starch & flour flat bread) and Lutefisk (reconstituted dried cod (looks like and has the mouth feel of transluscent white jello......). One of my freinds, who is Jewish, contributed Matzo & Gefilte fish. Tortillas & Menudo from Mexico and so on.
And for the English (as in, recent immigrants rather than descendants of 'colonial era' ones), crumpets and marmite?
;)
 
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