August 15th, 2006, 03:40 PM
posted to rec.travel.air,rec.travel.europe,soc.culture.british,soc.culture.usa,alt.politics.bush
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Draconian vacation policies for US slave workers
Thanks for saving me some time, Miguel. :-)
"Miguel Cruz" wrote in message
news:spam-57B051.10072815082006@localhost...
"Tchiowa" wrote:
Miguel Cruz wrote:
"Tchiowa" wrote:
Nonsense. The difference in culture between New York City, San
Francisco, Miami, New Orleans are every bit as great.
I'm having a hard time grasping this claim.
Take New York and New Orleans, to be charitable.
OK.
The vast majority of people speak the same language.
The "versions" of English that they speak are different. A high
percentage in both cities speak English as a second language. Spanish
is very common in NYC. French is dominant in New Orleans.
French is not "dominant" in New Orleans. Some people speak it, but not
that many in daily life. Most people speak English every day. Just as
most people speak English in New York.
They have 95% of the same TV channels, substantially the same
popular music and films,
The music scene in New York and New Orleans don't even resemble each
other. New Orleans is famous for it's jazz clubs while NYC is more
classical and show music.
Jazz clubs and Broadway shows are a small proportion of the music
listening that goes on in the respective cities (and come to think of
it, a couple days ago I saw a big New Orleans jazz band in New York;
never went to any shows). Most of the music people are listening to is
top-40 crap that is substantially the same across the USA but much less
the same as the top-40 crap in Europe.
Yes, they all watch MTV. But of course so do the people in Berlin and
Athens.
Greece has its own music video channels that broadcast Greek pop music;
this is not heard anywhere else in Europe. Neither New York nor New
Orleans has any such thing.
the same brands in the shops and the same chains of shops.
Same is true for Athens and Berlin.
To a far lesser extent.
Contrast this with Athens and Berlin. A tiny minority of the people
have shared fluency in any language.
Almost all speak English.
Simply untrue. Many people in Germany speak English at some level; not
nearly so many in Greece. Outside of tourist-facing industries and
international business you will not have an easy time finding English
speakers in Greece older than 30 or so. I lived in Greece, and it became
pretty clear to me pretty quickly who I had to look for in order to find
someone I could communicate with in English.
To compare this with the situation in New York and New Orleans, where
almost everyone has shared fluency, is pretty bold.
They share a handful of TV channels,
mostly the channels that are available in New York and New Orleans as
well. Popular music and films are different, the cuisines have less
overlap,
You think New Orleans food is similar to what you get in NYC?
I think that the regional cuisine in New Orleans is different from
what's most commonly eaten in New York. But that's not all - or even the
majority - of what people there eat. Most of the food eaten in New
Orleans is very similar to most of the food that's eaten in New York.
Basically I think you're comparing the specific regional idiosyncrasies
in New Orleans with those of New York and then pronouncing that the two
cities are very different. But those idiosyncrasies, however colorful,
are not terribly representative of typical behavior in the two places.
Most people are part of the USA cultural mainstream.
Most political issues in NYC are local as are the issues in New
Orleans. "All politics is local."
The elections that people talk about the most in both cities are the
national ones.
Few people in Athens or Berlin are spending much time talking about EU
parliamentary elections.
miguel
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