Have you ever been in a relationship where the other person did not know the cultural "givens" ? The 1st time was with a Jewish gf who did not know the story of the the good Samaritan. So I had to tell her (on the Jericho road where it takes place) in my best recollection of it as a atheist, the story.
On a lighter note my current gf is from Africa and she did a "what yo talkin about Willis" when I mentioned Led Zep. Now how many of youse get to introduce someone into Zep or similar?
My ex wife and her tribe were not aware of Elvis Presley. The best reason I could think of is that Presley never did an African tour. On the other hand, the late singer Don Williams went on safari in Kenya and also did a tour while he was there. Everyone had his music. Riding in the matatu they would play his music and say "he is called Don Williams."
Just a note on Kenyan parlay here. They always say "he is called" where in America we say "his name is."
Not a relationship per se but I had to teach an octogenarian who had never touched one, how to use a PC from the ground up, from the concept of a mouse cursor and windows, to gaining the coordination to see and click on tiny boxes, and then make it easy enoigh for him to telnet remotely into another music store location and use their POS software. The man once opened for Buddy Holly. Talk about new tricks for old dogs.
Next time you have to tell the story of the good Samaritan make sure they follow up with this salient point about the story's racism ?
My late partner was from a Moslem country (Iran). She never believed and when she came to the US had no idea of Christianity or any other religion. She thought they were all silly even though her family were practicing (sometimes) Moslems. However, after coming here, at 24, she picked up the cultural norms immediately.
My Kenyan ex picked up on cultural norms quickly. One example would be that in her culture there was no Christmas tree or presents and celebration.
@DenoPenno The thing is when she was growing up the Shah was in power and the country was westernized. The revolution started a few years after she came here. She didn't know the language, though. We had the xmass stuff for a while but one day realized it was silly. She had done this for her kids to get to know the traditions.
My 21 year old son did not know what "Let them eat cake" meant. Also about having to go home before your coach turns into a pumpkin.
I introduced my British neighbors to catfish & hush puppies; they were also unfamiliar with bisquick. It was great to be able to do that!
My ex was like someone raised on another planet. He'd not seen any popular movies, read any famous books, or listened to any famous or popular music of the US culture, even though he grew up in the US in a well-to-do family, and was an airline pilot.
His mom was fanatically religious, so he did know the most well-known Bible stories.
I grew up in Haiti with American missionaries, and considered myself culturally clueless, but compared to him, I was a Valley Doll.
You will have many long delightful hours ahead educating your gf into the background story and music of LZ. You will probably find quite a few others to introduce her to after that!
well, i spent a decade in japan. i was once asked there "you're jewish? what kind of christian is that?" i had, for a time, a japanese boyfriend, and he introduced me to the sad, sad culture of the male japanese worker, who will not get that promotion unless he drinks and whores with the boss. fortunately my boyfriend was self-employed.
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My ex mother-in -law (god how I love that phrase) asked when I started dating a Jewish girl "So when do they celebrate Christmas then?"
My family was not Jewish but I married a Jewish woman. My originally Catholic PHD sister-in-law once acted flabbergasted hearing that Jews do not worship Jesus at least a little bit.
@273kelvin, @OCJoe i guess my acquaintance wasn't unique. it's scary, to say the least. most jews (not sure about the ultra-orthodox but they are a tiny minority within a minority) know an awful lot more about christianity than christians know about judaism or even about jews (no, virginia, we don't have horns and a tail, and i have a friend who is both black and jewish who had an experience in an elevator with a couple of little old ladies -- who i am sure didn't know she was jewish but sure noticed she was black -- who kept looking down at her ass to see if they could detect a tail!) i think both jews and atheists tend to know a lot more about christianity than most christians, come to think of it. i can't speak for what muslims do and do not know about other religions, but if they live in areas where they are a minority i can guess they also know more about the majority religion than its practitioners know about islam.
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