Topics

Oct

Culture Smart: What’s in a Baby’s Name?

by Sheron Long on October 13, 2013

Pregnant woman with blank name tag on her stomach, illustrating the upcoming choice of a baby name that may follow a naming custom

How will the new parents decide on their baby’s name?

Naming Customs Around the World

If you want to start a good conversation, just ask people from different cultures how they got their names. Read more...

Sheron Long Comments

Cultural Diversity/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Worldwide Sites

Sep

Culture Smart: How Do I Love Thee in French?

by Sheron Long on September 15, 2013

Girl playing daisy love game that varies across different cultures

Looking for answers in the daisy love game

Daisy Love Game in Different Cultures

In the USA, when wondering about the chance of love, people pull petals and alternate outcomes: He loves me. / He loves me not. It’s not that clear-cut in France, where the choices are recited like this:

Il m’aime un peu, He loves me a little,

beaucoup, a lot,

passionnément, passionately, Read more...

Sheron Long Comments

Cultural Diversity/France/Language & Culture/USA

Sep

Cultural Heritage Below the Water Line

by Sheron Long on September 12, 2013

An iceberg above and below the water line, serving as a metaphor for the cultural iceberg in which the visible tip of surface culture belies the "deep culture" vastness hidden below the surface.

Culture is like an iceberg where the visible tip belies the vastness hidden below the surface.

What’s a Cultural Iceberg?

The culture or cultures you grow up in affect your deepest attitudes and beliefs, giving you your sense of what’s good or right, what feels comfortable, what behavior is acceptable, and conversely what’s not. What other people see may be only those things “on the surface”—for example, the way you talk or act, what you eat and how you dress.

That’s why culture is often represented as an iceberg. Ten percent is the “surface culture” that shows above the water line and 90%, known as “deep culture, ” is hidden below. Read more...

Sheron Long 17 Comments

Cultural Diversity/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Cultural Symbols

World Views: