Weird British culture?

[Grey Fox]

What's a tradionnal breakfast like in Japan?

[fhdz]

Thats only because most normal countries were converted to driving on the right by Napoleon or Hitler or Henry Ford.

The Trinity of Driving Dictators!

[Valmy]

Ok how could Napoleon dictate automobile driving habits decades before they were even invented?

I know he was a visionary leader but that is ridiculous.

[Iormlund]

It might come as a bit of a shock but there have been roads and streets (and traffic) for millennia.

[crazy canuck]

compare and contrast views on anime.

[Admiral Yi]

What's a tradionnal breakfast like in Japan?

Rice and eel, IIRC.

[Valmy]

It might come as a bit of a shock but there have been roads and streets (and traffic) for millennia.

I am quite aware of that they were all over the US...but I cannot help but notice the wagon ruts tended to run right down the middle of the road, not form on the right side of them.

When traffic is traveling at 50km/day rather than 70km/hr there is less of a need for laws telling people where on the road they can move.  Besides, if traffic laws have been around for millenia then why are we giving Henry Ford/Napoleon/Hitler credit?  Why not Hammurabi's chariot codes?

[Capetan Mihali]

Internal decor has to be a big thing differentiating Britain and Japan.  Granted I don't really know what it is apart from TV/movies, but if you could somehow capture the different attitudes towards domestic space, that could be insightful.

Different attitudes towards embarrassment and mockery -- British "taking the piss" culture might strike the Japanese as strange, I don't know.

Public transportation behavior.

Boozing culture; I know that Japanese businessmen are supposed to get smashed a lot, but there must be some clear differences to point out.

[Iormlund]

It might come as a bit of a shock but there have been roads and streets (and traffic) for millennia.

I am quite aware of that they were all over the US...but I cannot help but notice the wagon ruts tended to run right down the middle of the road, not form on the right side of them.

When traffic is traveling at 50km/day rather than 70km/hr there is less of a need for laws telling people where on the road they can move.  Besides, if traffic laws have been around for millenia then why are we giving Henry Ford/Napoleon/Hitler credit?  Why not Hammurabi's chariot codes?

Maybe because we don't know on which side of the road one had to enter Babylon. Or Rome, where most certainly there was traffic enough to have several lanes and sidewalks on main roads.
We do know though that Napoleon cared enough to standardize this wherever he went, just as he spread the metric system. Maybe he felt it was useful for army logistics, maybe something else.

[jimmy olsen]

Incidentally I'm going to be presenting with a Puerto Rican who I only learned was such last week having previously thought he was Mexican.

Also, Korean kids clean their schools same as Japan.

[Jacob]

What's a tradionnal breakfast like in Japan?

Rice and eel, IIRC.

The times I've had it there was usually a variety of pickled things, some fish, some rice, maybe broth and natto.

[viper37]

What is unusual in Britain?
What aspects of British culture do foreigners find particularly weird?

- language
- driving on the wrong side of the road
- weird tv shows being popular for many years (Benny Hill, Mr Bean, etc)
- the royal fetish (also quite common in you oversea colony, the Dominion of Canada)
- A totally different religion from Catholicism, yet almost the same, like replacing a non-elected head of Church by another non elected head of Church, albeit calling it "King" or "Queen" instead of "Pope" to feel really different.
- No annoying teenage pop stars, but cool bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.  That is so weird for someone living next door to the US...
- According to Asterix, all food is boiled with mint... if that's true, it's a double-yuck on both count. 

[mongers]

What is unusual in Britain?
What aspects of British culture do foreigners find particularly weird?

- language
- driving on the wrong side of the road
- weird tv shows being popular for many years (Benny Hill, Mr Bean, etc)
- the royal fetish (also quite common in you oversea colony, the Dominion of Canada)
- A totally different religion from Catholicism, yet almost the same, like replacing a non-elected head of Church by another non elected head of Church, albeit calling it "King" or "Queen" instead of "Pope" to feel really different.
- No annoying teenage pop stars, but cool bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.  That is so weird for someone living next door to the US...
- According to Asterix, all food is boiled with mint... if that's true, it's a double-yuck on both count. 

- Yes, Idiomatic English must be difficult for non-native speakers.

- Shield arm not exposed to other travellers makes perfect sense to me, a lefty.   

- A lot of those tv shows are more popular abroad than at home.

- Again, it seems to be foreigners who often obsess about royalty, most Brits can take it or leave it, it's no big thing.

- No I think CofE is very unlike Catholicism, in that nowadays there's very little dogma left, Anglicanism can be pretty much whatever you want it to be, which is why in my opinion it fails as a religion.

- I think talking about two heavy rock bands, in their prime 40 and 30 years ago respectively, doesn't say a lot about the state of british pop music. We now have plenty of teen bands and thanks to Simon Cowell et al, seem to be in a race to the bottom with the Americans, as to whom can come up with the most synthetic product.

- mint, what's mint, bar humbug.

[Viking]

Ok how could Napoleon dictate automobile driving habits decades before they were even invented?

I know he was a visionary leader but that is ridiculous.

It has to do with the preferences of cart and coach teamsters and horseriders and rules of passing in traffic. There are good reasons for each side depending on era.

- roman teamsters would pass each other on the left, controlling their small carts was done either from the front right horse or seated on the right side of the carriage and they passed each other on the side where they could see and avoid crashes between the carts.
- later heavier carts with more horses would be controlled from the back left horse so the teamster could conveniently use the whip, such carts would pass each other on the right since the teamster was on the left.

- armoured knights would pass each other on the right since that place their shield between the horsemen
- in later less belligerent periods they would pass on the left because mounting the horse from the left was most conventient both with choice of leg and decorative swords getting in the way, these people would prefer to mount from the side of the road rather than the middle so they move to the left

these are some of the theories. But Nappy standardizes the procedure for carts across all the lands he conquers regardless of what previous tradition was.

[Admiral Yi]

Damn fine post Puff.  Very informative.  Hip hip!