Culture Topic

[Charles Claythorne]

I was discussing in the TWG chat and thought it would be cool if we posted about our cultures and cool things about them! You can even post pictures and videos and things!!!

Despite what I unintentionally led TWG Chat to believe, I am not actually Thai (because I am actually a Wolf). I'm a Pakistani American (so, predictably, I'm also Muslim).

Both my parents were born in Pakistan before moving to New York with most of my grandfather's (on my father's side) family. Pakistan is a very group-oriented country as far as families are concerned; it's not unusual for aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and children to all live under the same household. The extended family is very closely knit together (in fact, my mother was shocked when I told her that I intended to live by myself after a few years if I could afford it WHOOPS).

Naturally, an extended family living in one place is going to live in a big house.

With exception of the rich areas where modern houses are built, a majority of houses in Pakistan are made of dirt and mud.

Here's an example of a slightly smaller one in one of the rural areas (which is most of Pakistan, haha). Many usually have second and third stories. Some even have cattle somewhere! Most notably:

Yummm.

Speaking of food! Pakistan (as well as India and Bangladesh since they may as well still be together as one country) loves spices! My personal favourite foods being chicken tikka and kababs:

So delish.

Surprisingly to some though, South Asia is known for some of its sweets as well. In particular, my favourite is barfi:

They're sooo amazinggg. AND THEY CAN COME IN RAINBOW.

Of course, there are a bunch of unfortunate things about Pakistan too (secretly harboring Bin Laden, a 50% illiteracy rate, a corrupted government, the existence of ragging, etc.) and I can't frankly say that I'm exactly proud of my heritage, but not much I can do about it. So I may as well relish what good there is to it!


EDIT: i will hypothetically award one hundred wii points to whoever posts the best food

[kommisar]

I'm Acadian.


in 1604, French explorers settled in Atlantic Canada at Ile Saint-Croix (now part of Maine). This area would later be called "Acadie" as part of New France. in 1632, the first north american population settlement (rather than trade settlements like Quebec, Jamestown, etc.) was established at La Have in modern day Nova Scotia. Acadia spread throughout modern day PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

This colony was entirely separate from Quebec and barely had any help from France's military. After the end of the 100 years war, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, thus surrendering all of New France's Acadian territory to Britain. Acadians were permitted to keep their lands under British rule, but had to swear allegiance to the crown. Instead, Acadians asked for neutrality, saying they would join neither France or Britain in the event of a war.

August 10, 1755, British governor Charles Lawrence was ordered to deport all Acadians from their land due to fear of an uprising since the British were outnumbered 1 to 10. Some were deported back to France, some to Quebec, and a great number to the 13 colonies (lots in Massachusetts, even today ancestry is here) and Louisiana (which still belonged to France at this time). Cajuns in Louisiana are direct descendants of Acadian deportees. Some hid in the woods thanks to the help of Native Americans that they had created a great alliance with.

After the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Acadians were allowed back into Acadia but had lost all rights to their lands.



410 years later



we're still here. August 15th is Acadia day and we celebrate by going out in the streets in a giant parade making as much obnoxious noise as possible to remind people we're here for good.


we have our own kinds of poutine here. Poutine Râpée. It looks disgusting and unless you grew up with it, probably tastes equally as disgusting. I love it though

[Funnygurl555]

Originally Posted by Charles Claythorne

Despite what I unintentionally led TWG Chat to believe, I am not actually Thai (because I am actually a Wolf). I'm a Pakistani American (so, predictably, I'm also Muslim).

WOLF BUDDDIEEEESSSSSS (actually it would be really cool if we became wolf buddies let's rig random.org)

Surprisingly to some though, South Asia is known for some of its sweets as well. In particular, my favourite is barfi:

They're sooo amazinggg. AND THEY CAN COME IN RAINBOW.

Barfi, rainbow.. ahaha, ahahahahahahahahaha (sorry i had to i had to)

Originally Posted by kommisar

we have our own kinds of poutine here. Poutine Râpée. It looks disgusting and unless you grew up with it, probably tastes equally as disgusting. I love it though

woah

--
ok not double posting gonna make a post now

I'm Somali!!!!!!!!!!

Somalia's kinda in a Civil War that started in like the 1990's and stuff sooo.. yep. Before gaining independence in 1960, Somalia used to be a British and Italian colony. Actually because of that my parents both know Italian (English is their third language).

My rents and my older sisters (they're like 17 and 18 years older than me... yeah haha) were all born in Somalia and then moved to Canadia in the early 90's. A couple years after that, my older bros and I were born (so yep, I'm Canadian). I live in Minnesota now, which has the largest Somali population in the States. Unfortunately there aren't that many of them in the city that I live in, but in the Twin Cities you can't miss 'em seriously!

Somalia's primary language is Somali like woah who woulda thunk that??? (and having a country in Africa where people are pretty homogenous with their first language is pretty unique to Somalia actually). Somalis are Muslim as well

i'm actually not but yeah hehu ^^''''

We're pretty darn family/group-oriented as well. That's really cool because my extended family is ginormous, so now I know tons of cool people =D

Hm, and for food and stuff

So like this thing is called canjero. Idk how to describe it in the real world because yeah, but it looks kinda almost like a pancake??? You put sugar, oil, and tea on it and it's sooo good. Somalis typically eat this with a meat thingy called oodka and some dates and that's breakfast!!

Oh on that note Somalis make great tea. Seriously. Can't touch our tea makin' skill js

We also eat these thingies, which are called sambusa. They're like triangle-shaped things with veggies and meat in 'em. They're really good too, though I don't tend to eat them myself

Also I'll be frank I have no idea how this is made (it has like butter and sugar and stuff) but it's called halwa and it's like the greatest thing ever but it's so bad for you. Like really bad. But it's amazing

[___________]

Originally Posted by kommisar

we have our own kinds of poutine here. Poutine Râpée. It looks disgusting and unless you grew up with it, probably tastes equally as disgusting. I love it though

Yum!

Originally Posted by Charles Claythorne

They're sooo amazinggg. AND THEY CAN COME IN RAINBOW.

Barf! (jk yum)

Originally Posted by Funnygurl555

So like this thing is called canjero. Idk how to describe it in the real world because yeah, but it looks kinda almost like a pancake??? You put sugar, oil, and tea on it and it's sooo good. Somalis typically eat this with a meat thingy called oodka and some dates and that's breakfast!!

Yum!



I'm of Chinese ethnicity. Yes, the Mandarin one.

China's doing fine right now, just being extremely Chinese with its country of course (censorship lols). It's not a Communist nation anymore unlike North Korea, just capitalist. In recent years the country's been growing at an enormous rate but some of that is starting to slow down as Americans reclaim their jobs, minimum wages go up, etc.

My parents were born in mainland China and moved to British Columbia, Canada in the 1990s. That's where my two older sisters (20 and 22 now) were born. Then they immigrated to the US, Illinois specifically. I was born there (judge me all you want for not being Canadian!). Our family moved to Wisconsin in the early 2000s and we've been there ever since. Life is good here.

Believe it or not there are seven main dialects of Chinese, a lot. I actually don't know much Chinese myself but w/e

The relatives and extended family are all in China, so we don't see them much. There is actually a sizable Asian proportion here where I live (it's a college town), which kind of makes up for that.

There's your traditional stir-fry rice and noodles, you can find those at any Chinese-American restaurant. No need for showing those images.

Ba pao is basically the Chinese hamburger. It's delicious!

Zhong zi: sticky rice and meats wrapped up in a leaf. (mm)

Then we have the not-so-common parts of the meat that's eaten, as no one likes it to go to waste.

The fish-bone soup is quite good.

Chicken feet:

There aren't any Chinese desserts of note, sorry.

As for being in China...well, that's kind of intense. Driving on the streets is pretty chaotic, traffic jams too. There was one that lasted for a whole nine days, once. Everything is crowded there; you need to push to get through one, compared to America's crowds. Parts of the cities smell of urine and feces, and everything's just a BIT dirty over there. People yell at each other in Chinese far more than people yell in America. Usually one person's trying to give another important instructions for something, that's why.


EDIT: twg chat represent

[Charles Claythorne]

Acadian is just such a cool term. It sounds really intelligent and esoteric! I remember briefly learning about Acadians and Cajuns in American History, but I never figured they had their own unique culture and everything (I suppose that's why they were vocabulary terms!). Shame you forcibly were expatriated from your land, but it's great that there's plenty of pride and nationalism still present there!
Your poutine is bound to be better than ESCARGOTS THOUGH. It doesn't really look that bad either!


Speaking of food though, I really want to try that canjero. Food that's aesthetically pleasing, pleasantly smelling, and tasteful is the best type of food!

Also, we have sambusas in Pakistan too!!! Except we refer to them as samosas.


As I don't keep up with politics (national or global), I never realised that China wasn't behaving as a communist country. I had heard about it being very capitalistic for one under communism, but it's interesting that it's only a communist government nominally.

East Asian food is usually hit or miss for me; either I'll find the foreign taste to be oddly nice or I'll put it in my mouth and want to spit it out immediately (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, CLEAR LOOKING NOODLES).
That said, I've found delight in tasting certain foods I never would have thought of tasting as a result of its cuisine! I'm mostly a fan of seafood, so most of the things I've enjoyed are of that type of cuisine. I think I've tasted fish-bone soup before though! Or at least, something with some fish bone brought. It wasn't too bad!
And I mentioned this in the chat, but even though chicken feet doesn't sound appetising at all, THEY LOOK SO SCRUMPTIOUS.

[MeaCulpa]

All the foods you guys have been posting look like I want all of them, but blanky's reminded of this (repost from twg chat holla):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lK475dxZds

Anyway, I was born and raised in Toronto with Italian ancestry. I think most of you are probably aware of the typical Italian foods, but I can post pics of pizza, pasta and Italian-style meats if you guys are in the mood. Pizza in Italy is a little different than North America in that the crust (and the whole dough layer) is super thin, and the toppings are a little bit more awesome (prosciutto, artichoke hearts, big chunks of ham, arugula, etc.). Besides that, can't really comment too much on the Italian culture, aside from it's predominantly Catholic, the big cities are pretty touristy and the small towns/villages have a suuuper chill way of life.

Funny enough, the area I grew up in was predominantly Asian so I actually eat way more Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese food than Italian food. Even (especially?) now that I moved out into downtown Toronto, I'll take sushi or pho any day over an Italian restaurant.

[Funnygurl555]

pastaaaa \o/

also

Originally Posted by ___________

Ba pao is basically the Chinese hamburger. It's delicious!

i would literally eat this this looks pretty good to me

[.Gazelle.]

I'm Liberian, Liberia is the only country in Africa founded by United States colonization while occupied by native Africans. My mother immigrated to america due to the civil war that was raging at the time, and so i became one of the first children in my family born in america.
As for food it ranges from looking delicious to pretty damn gross, but it all tastes good

huge pics incoming
Jollof Rice

Fufu (pretty much a ball made from the flour of cassava, served with soup)

Palm Butter Soup (looks really unappetizing but tastes great)

and Check Rice

[MinaciousGrace]

i have opened my eyes to the sacred truth and upon this day call for a privilege that this great and blessed community has heretofore been deprived of—we must be given a culture subforum for it is our divine right and we will no longer stand for being oppressed and shall this right be withheld so be it we will drive the oppressors into all the fury and flame of the four gaelic hells and there we will stitch our individual cultures each into the eyes of our oppressors and yea i give up this is totally taking too much effort

[igotrhythm]

Originally Posted by .Gazelle.

I'm Liberian, Liberia is the only country in Africa founded by United States colonization while occupied by native Africans. My mother immigrated to america due to the civil war that was raging at the time, and so i became one of the first children in my family born in america.
As for food it ranges from looking delicious to pretty damn gross, but it all tastes good

huge pics incoming
Jollof Rice

Fufu (pretty much a ball made from the flour of cassava, served with soup)

Palm Butter Soup (looks really unappetizing but tastes great)

and Check Rice

Isn't Liberia the only other country that doesn't use the metric system?

[lurker]

I'm a white American. I should stop there.

[blindreper1179]

white American. All I know is my great times whatever uncle was George Washingtons lieutenant. That, and I'm an ancestor to the royalty of Wales.

[lurker]

i went on ancestry dot cahm once and according to that i'm an acestor of greek mythology!!!!!! it's crazy right? my grandson's gonna grow up to be poseidon!