[Michele]

Hoping you don't mind... but reversing your ideas may also bring about curious customs...

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

1. The local superstition is that pictorial representations of the dead bind them to the living world. For that reason all such images are destroyed unless the subject is considered by the state or next of kin to be worthy of a kind of damnation. Therefore their cities are adorned with statuary of their most despised traitors and criminals.

An accurate enough statue makes you immortal. This is not normally allowed, because the right thing to do is to pass away, at least upon having reached old age, making room for your descendants. So only exceptional leaders or artists are given a statue. They generally disappear, so the idea is that they are still alive, but gone elsewhere. If they are seen dying, then the likeness of the statue wasn't accurate enough.

2. Seeing someone else eat is reserved for close family members. Restaurants therefore enclose their tables in privacy curtains.

Conversely, other bodily functions do not require privacy.

3. The locals don't wear clothes

You always keep at least some small piece of garment on, even when you bathe, have sex, or get treated by a physician.

4. Men and women are expected to live separately meeting only in designated areas for commerce except during the fertility festival.

Any one-sex gathering of more than three persons is considered really inappropriate.

5. A failure to be polite when speaking to others is a criminal offense.

Politeness is seen as a sign of weakness, cowardice and inadequacy.

6. Displays of anger and sadness are regarded as symptomatic of mental illness requiring medical intervention.

Lack of visible emotion when this would seem socially appropriate is regarded as symptomatic of mental illness requiring medical intervention.

7. All body hair is depilated, with eyebrows cosmetically painted on.

No shaving or cutting, ever.