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07-09-2019, 10:54 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Curious Local Customs
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.
2. Seeing someone else eat is reserved for close family members. Restaurants therefore enclose their tables in privacy curtains. 3. The locals don't wear clothes 4. Men and women are expected to live separately meeting only in designated areas for commerce except during the fertility festival. 5. A failure to be polite when speaking to others is a criminal offense. 6. Displays of anger and sadness are regarded as symptomatic of mental illness requiring medical intervention. 7. All body hair is depilated, with eyebrows cosmetically painted on. |
07-10-2019, 10:53 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: Curious Local Customs
The local culture has social customs deeply rooted in times of plague. Touching is forbidden outside of family and when conversing personally or inside of a building it is considered rude not to cover your mouth.
The area was settled by people who didn't have strong animal husbandry skills and their isolation from other towns has kept them from adopting other social norms. Horse and Dog are on the menu and your affection for those animals is funny to them. Five generations ago, several wars in rapid succession caused this town to stop relying on the leadership of men. Boys are now raised to raise children and keep the home clean while women of the town labor and guard. Such a town would be understandably wary of anyone who comes in with strange opinions about a woman's place. |
07-10-2019, 08:55 PM | #3 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Curious Local Customs
On the anniversary of someone's death, for a number of years based on status (once for commoners, several decades for a king), the deceased's body is exhumed and given an additional funeral.
The king has a slave. Every third year, the king and the slave swap places. The first chicken to hatch each year is given to the church. It is permitted to roam freely in the church grounds and buildings, and it is sacrilegious to harass it (even to shoo it away to stand should it decide to sit on your lap).
__________________
RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
07-11-2019, 10:51 AM | #4 | |
Icelandic - Approach With Caution
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Reykjavķk, Iceland
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Re: Curious Local Customs
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Assuming, of course, that QI is a reliable source. |
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07-11-2019, 01:58 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: Curious Local Customs
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Many cultures have family gatherings at the family gravesites. The ones with mummification or intentional skeletonization seem to also add pulling the ancestor's remains out. Early Christians would hold services at small altars set up at martyr's niches. Pagan-era Rome buried the dead in the catacombs, and are thought to have had family meals with dead relatives in them, so the Christians turning it to the services in the 2nd C wasn't a huge red flag. |
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07-11-2019, 04:52 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Curious Local Customs
"Quite Interesting" is a British game show / comedy show. Host Stephen Fry (in the ones I've seen) tells a panel of comedians about some topic, and asks them questions. Often enough, the panelists are just using those as springboards for jokes, but the game show bit is to give correct answers, preferably interesting ones (to score more points) while avoiding the obvious answers to the questions (as the topic is generally chosen to be something where the "everybody knows" answers are wrong).
You can find episodes on YouTube and no doubt elsewhere. Just watch a few. It's easier to watch one to get the idea than to explain, and usually reasonably entertaining thanks to the interactions of the panelists, hosts, and the topic. |
07-11-2019, 07:00 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Curious Local Customs
Given that China is usually the most populous part of the world and the fact that it's part of the Taoist tradition to exhume and scrape the bones of the deceased several times, I wouldn't be surprised if digging up your ancestors and doing something ritually with the remains was in fact often the normal human practice, and it's *not* doing it that's weird.
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-- MA Lloyd |
07-17-2019, 08:27 AM | #8 | |||||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
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Re: Curious Local Customs
Hoping you don't mind... but reversing your ideas may also bring about curious customs...
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07-17-2019, 04:28 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
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Re: Curious Local Customs
Young women wear a scarf to signal they are available for dating. Young men wear one to signal they are taken.
Due to ancient wisdom about ill words sticking in the mouth, any serious conversation is followed by spitting. In a farming village, men take care of large animals like cattle and pigs while women take care of small animals like goats and chickens. Everybody just seems to know where the line is between "large" and "small" On this space station, all resources must be reclaimed. The room with the recycling chamber is usually used for food waste, but can be well decorated for funerals. After the body is processed, the total nutrient counts are displayed and then talked about as if the deceased's virtue were somehow related to the amount of water and phosphate given back to the station. NOBODY mentions that one month later a new lottery will be held for who is now permitted to have a baby. Everybody in town seems to have a necklace of teeth. Human teeth! Children's teeth! Turns out, this is what they do with baby teeth once they fall out. They believe that one should be cremated with one's ENTIRE body, so they keep their original teeth with them always. Beets are an important part of every meal. EVERY MEAL! Some people strongly believe that you will get sick and die if you skip a few. Stewed beets, dried beets, beet juice... so many beets. |
07-18-2019, 12:20 AM | #10 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Curious Local Customs
The town used to select it's leaders based on physical contests, but now elects them. The contests are now reduced to ceremonial demonstrations, with the elected leader always allowed to win.
__________________
RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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