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Cultural Incompetence
It’s easy to poke fun at foreigners or immigrants when they fail to fully grasp local customs and idioms. But sometimes we fail even at our own customs. That’s when the real razzing begins.
Crawfish are not exotic here on the edge of bayou country. I was born in Louisiana and have lived nearly my entire life somewhere along the I-10 corridor of Cajun cooking between Houston and Pensacola. So you’d think I could peel a mudbug in nothing flat.
But the honest truth is I’m slower than a Democrat with his own money when separating meat and shell. I’m slow at many things, but this one hurts my pride as a Gulf Coast Southerner.
This is not a mouth made for spicy foods either. Tabasco, cayenne, Slap Ya Mama — it makes no difference. I have an Irish tongue made for eating dirt. Black pepper is sufficient.
Do you similarly shame your family by failing to properly represent your blood, your hometown, or some other heritage while participating in sacred rituals of frivolity? Do you dance like an Englishman? Do you swing a bat like a soccer player? Are you a poor excuse for a Californian, a bad Italian, an embarrassment to Steelers fans, or an impostor of another kind?
Why not tell us so we can make fun of you too?
Published in Humor
Isn’t this non-CoC compliant?
I was born and spent my first 14 years in north Jersey. And yet when people learn this they are surprised. The usual response is, “You don’t have a Jersey accent. You have a Midwest accent.” Then I say, “I need to get some WATER to make COFFEE.” Then they get it.
At an airport bar once, I fell into a conversation with a guy who was from Jersey. He asked me what part of the state i was from in what I can only describe as the most New Jersey way imaginable.
”Taylor Ham or pork roll?”
You don’t eat bacon?!
Or catfish, flounder, and other bottom-feeders?
That’s exactly what my dad says. He feels the same way about duck.
Well, actually these days the only way to get bottom-feeding catfish is to go out to the crick and catch it yourself. Everything else is raised in vast square ponds in Mississippi and fed on cornmeal. We used to fly our plane back and forth from Texas to Georgia and the number and size of those catfish farm ponds is incredible.
Well, I was born and raised in Seattle in the 1950s. When I was a kid, a group of about 10 of us played outside with no adult supervision for hours. I got an excellent public education, which included orchestra in elementary school. I don’t remember seeing tents on the sidewalks of downtown Seattle, or hearing complaints of parks filled with used needles and human waste. Seattle certainly has changed (see my recent post), and I refuse to go there unless for a pressing purpose (like the Seattle Chamber Music Festival). I reject my hometown, and can’t wait to move to another state someday.
The husband and I visited Portland recently and were prepared for all that but were pleasantly surprised by how great the service in every restaurant (and there were many GREAT ones) was. We were prepared for rude, Antifa, #BlackLivesMatter, etc., screaming folk but saw none of that. Plenty of folk living on the street, however. We were a little worried when we picked up our rental car at the airport and the license plate was BDS 666.
YES!! We had cricks in Wyoming, too!! Our children would get a kick out of visits to the homeland of their parents just to listen to people talk. Then, they’d point out that I would change how I said things when I was there. It was not possible to talk about some of the Wyoming life things without using local vernacular. Just sayin’
And the crick that RB is referring to is probably in the state of Warshington
I think it was still spelled creek, just pronounced crick.
It’s the same in Utah. The farther you get from Salt Lake, the more pronounced the accent. I still can’t bear to hear “we was” . I spent a chunk of my life in small town Utah.
Worshington.
My stepfather was born and raised in Idaho. He pronounced it “crick” his entire life . . .
In our family we refer to Native Idahoans (including my wife) as Tater Heads.
Springsteen is not my Boss (although Frank is the Chairman of the Board)
Socal boy born and raised who doesn’t like going to the beach. Not that I hate the beach itself. But I’m definitely not getting into beach mode, with the swimsuit and sun and stuff. Not too fond of sand. And I HATE seagulls.
Doesn’t everyone hate seagulls?
Isn’t that why they invented Alka Seltzer?
I’ve never eaten one. Are they tough?
Seagulls mastered international communication long before we did. You can’t even see the earpieces or whatever they use to signal “FOOD!” from miles away.
Rats of the sky.
Only when they write bestsellers, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . .
I grew up in Minnesota and did plenty of Minnesota things.
But I never went ice fishing until I had moved away, and I’ve still never ridden a snowmobile.
And although I’ve hunted pheasants and ducks, I’ve never hunted deer.
I’m not a very good water skier, and I’m only an ok hockey player. And the first time I tried curling was in San Jose, California.
And I’m really not into tent camping.
The first time I visited Canada was after I moved to California, and it was a trip to Montreal.
But if there’s one thing I brought with me from Minnesota, it’s the ability to shame Californians when they complain about the cold weather. “You think this is cold? Let me tell you about February 1996….”
I grew up in the Canadian Rockies (born in Portland, moved up there at age 6). Whenever people around here complain about it being cold, I tell them “It ain’t cold until you sniff and your nostrils stick together.”
I’ll have to remember that one. I have been through wind chills that were something Cod-awful like -40. After that, you think you’ll never be warm again. Until it gets up to a scorching 60 F and you’re wondering why you’re sweating.
I was standing on a scaffold cutting a hole in a tilt-up panel in Durham, NC when it was about -25 F. Fortunately, it wasn’t a wet-cut saw.
60? There’s nothing sweatier than a January 45!
Exactly.
One December we spent a week at the in-laws’ in Michigan. The temperature never topped 10˚ F. On the way home, we stopped for gas in Joplin, Missouri. I noticed the people in the gas station were looking at me . . . oddly. I commented on this to my wife and she said “It’s probably 30˚ outside and you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt.”
Exactly. It’s all in where you came from and how big the change is, not some arbitrary number.
My rule of thumb is the long sleeve shirts come out under 45, long pants under 35. But I would also rather be in -10f and sunny in my hometown in Canada than in 38f in Portland with rain and 25mph winds.