Skip to main content

LEFT BEHIND

I'm always a little bummed out by those books and web sites that tell you about etiquette in other countries, because it reminds me that there are places where my kind is not wanted. Oh, I could try to "pass", but it would be like having my hand tied behind my back. Literally. I love this quote:

In fact, even using your left hand to gesture or wave is simply not done. This is not due to any sort of discrimination against left-handed people. It's actually based on the general lack of toilet paper throughout the region and the normal method of cleaning oneself after certain bathroom functions!
Oh, it's not prejudice, so if I tell them I wash my hands a lot (and some righties from the US and Europe are not so clean by their standards), they will understand and stop trying to suppress my natural movements, because it's totally rational. It's silly to pretend that every country doesn't have prejudices and irrational rules, it's not like the US and Great Britain are so perfect. What really bugs me is the way these guides blithely make such statements as if it's the easiest thing in the world. Hey, travel expert, why don't you go to a strange country with your right hand tied behind your back and get back to me.
Labels:

Comments

JethSeux said…
You tell em Sweetie,
Lefties of the world unite!

If you ever run into the creator of one of those etiquette web sites or books, be sure to flip them off for me, WITH YOUR LEFT MIDDLE FINGER!
5:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MY BUBBLE

This is real heavy metal, by the way . So, this guy whose name I swear I'd never heard but appeared to have gone to my high school tried to friend me on Facebook. His main interests were the band Stryper and Republicanism, so I didn't add him. I mean, really, Stryper ? I thought teens in the 80s only listened to them because they liked metal and their parents forbade any other band as a direct path to the worship of Satan. When you leave home, you throw away their records and listen to real metal. But then I read this article that said we are all getting trapped in a bubble of like-minded people who parrot our ideas back to us, due to social networks and rss feeds and apps only giving us the people/opinions/stories we want to hear. And I thought--maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'm OK, because I do have a lot of weird interests that make it pretty hard to find people who are on the same page with everything. I have social network connections with people around roleplaying game
1 comment
Read more

HOME ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE: THE EMBIGGENING

  Chromecast CD storage Antenna Blu-ray player Apple TV Receiver Record player VHS Tape player So, I decided to spend my tax refund on home entertainment this year, as TV keeps getting better, whereas movies... not so much. My computer is old, but it still works, and replacing a computer seems less urgent when you have mobile devices. It feels like a long time ago when RAM and processor power seemed so important in order to use the latest bloated software, but now with so many webapps and sites designed for mobile, as long as your Internet is fast enough, you're OK. Lifehacker says to spend money where you spend most of your time, and I now use my tablet more than my desktop. Also, with all the streams I have access to, there was one chink in my entertainment system -- my TV was not actually big enough to appreciate high definition. Well, it seemed like a good deal in 2007, at $200 more than my new one which is almost twice as big. The main thing stopping me
Post a Comment
Read more

TOP TEN LIPSYNCH FOR YOUR LIFE SONGS FOR A DRAG KING EQUIVALENT OF RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE

 The Advocate has suggested that the greatest (i.e. only good) reality show ever, Rupaul's Drag Race , have a drag king contestant.  That's fine, but it would be much more entertaining to have a whole drag king competition. One of the best parts of Drag Race is seeing all the different types of queens compete: beauty queens, funny queens, conceptual queens, androgynous queens, scary queens, singing and dancing queens.  I want to see punk kings, gangsta rap kings, cock-rocking metal kings, panty-dropping R & B kings, country kings, baggy-pants burlesque comic kings, and of course, Elvis. I picked out some songs that make me think of different aspects of masculinity:  swaggering men, heartbroken men, lustful men, romantic men, philosophical men, and suicidally depressed men (interesting fact: I can think of dozens of songs by men about suicide, but only one female one: "Gloomy Sunday". What's up with that?) "That's Life" - Frank Sinatra
Post a Comment
Read more