tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52002638256317847632024-03-08T16:25:35.712-08:00Understanding CulturesThe purpose of this blog is to attempt to disect cultures that I have been exposed to and to develop some thoughts about what accounts for the general charcteristics we see in them.Andrew Sheldonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15469120006156639030noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200263825631784763.post-92103528981786584152008-10-01T22:20:00.000-07:002008-10-01T22:24:16.799-07:00Are all incidents of racism so bad?<div style="text-align: justify;">A lot of negative feedback is made against expatriates or residents of a country. in these instances its worth reflecting on who is the racist. Often you will have a foreigner making a statement about a country or its people, and some local citizen labelling them a racist because they have passed a negative judgement.<br /><br />It is most often the proud nationalist that is the racist, more so than the person who makes a positive statement which is regarded as a 'generalisation' out of context. Logic is afterall based on generalisation and differentiation. Its natural to make generalisations when engaging in a discussion of culture and its behavioural traits. Only is blatant dogmatism inappropriate.<br /></div>--------------------------------------------------<br />Andrew Sheldon <a href="www.sheldonthinks.com">www.sheldonthinks.com</a>Andrew Sheldonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15469120006156639030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200263825631784763.post-77179514651101573432008-07-10T15:49:00.000-07:002008-07-10T19:20:04.125-07:00Miss Universe 2008 - Australia will win<div style="text-align: justify;">Recently my GF texted me a link to the Miss Universe 2008 Pageant- see <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.missuniverse.com">www.missuniverse.com.</a><br />Who can resist a peak at the best looking girls from around the world. Well what I think is interesting about such a pageant is the possibility for the contestants to be representative of the people, since they would have won contests or pageants in their own country, which means a lot of people in their own country would think that they are beautiful and that their values embodied theirs. Its not a perfect measure of course because people can only judge based on the judges questions and maybe they had a poor choice to start with, particularly for the smaller countries.<br /><br />Anyway based on my assessment of the contestant videos presented on the website, I judged the following to be the best three. You might think that I am biased because I am Australian, but actually I do not tend to identify much with Australia, and tend to think this girl (nor I) are typical. By far she was better than the other candidates. Miss Jamaica was great too, but stuffed up on her ethical values, even though I liked that she engaged with people that way. Colombia was only slightly better than the other runner-ups.<br /><br />1. Miss Australia: Attractive, smart, positive, assertive, sincere, goal-orientated<br />2. Miss Jamaica: Smart, masculine, positive, assertive, analytical, honest, altuistic<br />3. Colombia: She was genuine, cute, fairly attractive. Not intellectually strong though.<br />Other runner-ups were<br />4A. Miss India: Not attractive, but smart, goal-driven, pretentious, emotive<br />4B: Nigeria: This women is very attractive, but lacks depth<br />4C. Norway: Positive, attractive, warm, but superficial.<br />4D: Guam: Smart, cute, positive, sincere, emotive, not great looking, but ok. Short.<br />4E. Trinidad: Sincere, fairly attractive, warm, superficial.<br />4F. Dominican Republic: Not great looking, positive, sincere, uninteresting<br />4G: Mauritius: Very attractive, positive, superficial<br />4H. Panama: No English, but warm and friendly. Confident.<br /><br />I have not ranked the others but here are the reasons why they did not measure up:<br />1. Bahamas: Warm, superficial, not deliberate, sincere<br />2. Albania: Attractive, ok English. The morbid accent, superficial. She 'would like to be the cherry on the cake'.<br />3. Angola: No English<br />4. Antigua: Superficial, pleasant, not special<br />5. Argentina: No English<br />6. Aruba: Not deliberate, superficial, emotive, 'she bites her nails'<br />7. Belgium: Superficial, vague, tragic<br />8. Bolivia: Superficial, grounded, masculine<br />9. Brazil: No English, ugly<br />10. Canada: Superficial, ditzy, plastic, uninteresting<br />11. Cayman Islands: Very positive, masculine, superficial, but nice genuine girl<br />12. China: Superficial, materialistic, pretentious, spiritual, cold<br />13. Costa Rica: Superficial, attractive, but not interesting<br />14. Croatia: Tragic, healthy, superficial<br />15. Curacao: Too young, uninteresting, cute<br />16. Cyprus: Masculine, tragic, superficial<br />17. Czech Republic: Superficial, vague, uninteresting, though fairly attractive<br />18. Denmark:Attractive, superficial, not goal-orientated, uninteresting<br />19. Ecuador: Attractive, vague, superficial<br />20. Egypt: Superficial, insecure, emotive - but perfect if you are a manipulative man<br />21. El Salvador: Hate the hair style, not interesting, not attractive, superficial<br />22. Estonia: Workers Party hairstyle, cute in a stern way, sincere, not interesting<br />23. Finland: Panic attack candidate, superficial, emotive, materialistic<br />24. France: Good to see a French person speaking English, vague, superficial, attractive, but she will age badly. Too self-indulgent.<br />25. Georgia: Terrible mouth & teeth, uninteresting, superficial<br />26. Germany: Attractive, superficial, uninteresting, cute<br />27. Ghana: Unattractive, cute, positive, pity about the face, otherwise ok.<br />28. Greece: No English, no presence.<br />29. Guatemala: No sincere, plastic face, no English<br />30. Honduras: Ugly. No English.<br />31. Hungary: Uninteresting, superficial.<br />32. Indonesia: She looks great, though softly spoken, sincere, grounded, anxious, insecure<br />33. Ireland: Ditzy, emotive, superficial, uninteresting, too young<br />34. Israel: Pretentious, superficial, not so attractive<br />35. Italy: Not attractive, ditzy, uninteresting, poor English<br />36. Japan: Not attractive, well-spoken, little English<br />37. Kazakhstan: Attractive, uninteresting, insecure, too young<br />38. Korea: Attractive, sincere, positive, uninteresting, childish<br />39. Kosovo: Too young, ditzy, uninteresting<br />40. Malaysia: Smart, bitchy, demanding, spoilt, superficial, pretentious. Miss Ugly.<br />41. Mexico: Attractive, superficial, sincere, young<br />42. Montenegro: Pleasant, sincere, grounded, masculine face<br />43. Netherlands: Weird body twitches, boring, uninteresting<br />44. New Zealand: Boring, traditional, colonialist. Uninteresting - very 1950s.<br />45. Nicaragua: No English<br />46. Paraquay: Not attractive, no English, buck teeth.<br />47. Peru: Friendly, no English, confident.<br />48. Philippines: Superficial, materialistic, uninteresting.<br />49. Poland: Boring, unattractive<br />50. Puerto Rico: Ok looking, smart, positive, warm, a bit of a sentimentalist (emotive), uninteresting<br />51. Russia: Warm, smart, but not so nice voice, uninteresting<br />52. Serbia: Not attractive, cute, superficial, too young<br />53. Singapore: Warm, ok looking, superficial<br />54. Slovak Republic: Tragic, superficial<br />54. Slovenia: Superficial, positive, not so attractive<br />55. South Africa: Not smart, superficial, not goal-orientated<br />56. Spain: Warm, superficial, emotive, not goal-orientated<br />57. Sri Lanka: Attractive smile, superficial, not assertive<br />58. Switzerland: Not attractive, warm, superficial.<br />59. Tanzania: Not very attractive, superficial, too young<br />60. Thailand: Attractive, well-spoken, no English.<br />61. Turkey: Superficial, too young, not very warm, poor English<br />62. Turks & Caicos: Smart, not very attractive, boring<br />63. United Kingdom: Superficial, too young, materialistics<br />64. Ukraine: Ugly, has a square head.<br />65. Uruguay: Attractive, not sincere, no English.<br />66. United States: Insular, not very attractive, superficial<br />67. Venezuela: Attractive, warm, superficial, uninteresting, too young<br />68. Vietnam: Poor English, not very attractive<br /><br />Some candidates did not even speak English, so of course they get considered. If you want to be Miss Universe you have to speak English. Duh! International language. Maybe some figure they will be more real in their own language. The Spanish candidates suffer most from this. The other problem was that a lot of the candidates are too young. Not likely to be interesting unless you are over 25yo, and then some.<br /><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />Andrew Sheldon <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.sheldonthinks.com">www.sheldonthinks.com</a></div>Andrew Sheldonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15469120006156639030noreply@blogger.com0