Travels in the Riel World

That’s the opinion of a number of studies, all recently quoted by NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in an interesting piece that explores some of the possible reasons for why Costa Ricans are generally pretty content with their lives.

One reason, of course, may be the luck of their geography.

Maybe Costa Rican contentment has something to do with the chance to explore dazzling beaches on both sides of the country, when one isn’t admiring the sloths in the jungle (sloths truly are slothful, I discovered; they are the tortoises of the trees). Costa Rica has done an unusually good job preserving nature, and it’s surely easier to be happy while basking in sunshine and greenery than while shivering up north and suffering “nature deficit disorder.”

Or, there may be something else going on, namely an amazing policy decision from several decades ago.

What sets Costa Rica apart is its remarkable decision in 1949 to dissolve its armed forces and invest instead in education. Increased schooling created a more stable society, less prone to the conflicts that have raged elsewhere in Central America. Education also boosted the economy, enabling the country to become a major exporter of computer chips and improving English-language skills so as to attract American eco-tourists.

I’m not antimilitary. But the evidence is strong that education is often a far better investment than artillery.

And, perhaps there is a bit of a cultural factor, as well.

Latin countries generally do well in happiness surveys. Mexico and Colombia rank higher than the United States in self-reported contentment. Perhaps one reason is a cultural emphasis on family and friends, on social capital over financial capital — but then again, Mexicans sometimes slip into the United States, presumably in pursuit of both happiness and assets.

See Kristof’s entire column for more background on the happiness studies, as well as more of his argument for why Costa Ricans seem to have hit on a pretty decent formula for life.

There is no doubt that Twitter has its fans and its detractors. There is also no doubt that this social networking phenomenon is affecting the way that millions of people interact online, as well as the means by which information is distributed. But can Twitter also be having an impact on a culture’s communication styles? Well, perhaps it’s not going that far, but it is certainly provoking a pretty strong conversation about communication styles in India, as reported in this recent news story.

Seems an Indian politician, Shashi Tharoor, used a Twitter post to disagree with a policy favored by his political superiors. And in the process set off a cultural firestorm over communication styles and respect for hierarchy.

That message, along with a few others mildly questioning the merits of India’s new, stricter tourist visa policies, landed him on the front page of most of India’s English-language newspapers, which accused him of a very big mistake in Indian politics: appearing to disagree publicly with his superiors on a delicate issue.

Politicians in democracies the world over have warmed to Twitter, the microblogging service, and other social media tools, like Facebook, to connect with voters…But in India, the world’s largest and most boisterous democracy, it has not caught on with elected officials. Indeed, many of India’s power elite, whether in politics, the news media or business, seem to look askance at Mr. Tharoor’s enthusiasm for a medium that collapses the distance between the governors and the governed and dismantles the layers of protocol and decorum that keep elected officials and senior bureaucrats here aloof from the everyday concerns of those they serve…

Twitter enthusiasts say the news media make a fuss about it because it usurps its traditional role as intermediary and interpreter between the powerful and the masses.

Twitter and culture. Fun stuff. And hey, if you’re interested in knowing what goes in Indian politics, then you too can follow Tharoor’s Twitter account.

Do Arabs appreciate stand-up comedy? They do. At least, that seems to be the consensus of some North American comedians who recently appeared in Jordan. Interestingly, stand-up comedy is not common to all cultures. How can it be, when such comedy often involves insulting groups of people, and in particular governments and politicians? Such freedom of speech is just not as common or as accepted as it is in most Western democracies. Which makes the experience of the comedians in Jordan all the more intriguing.

Amman, which has a reputation as the sleepiest capital city in the Middle East, has decided it wants to be the center of stand-up comedy in a region not exactly known for freedom of speech or self-deprecating humor. Stand-up generally requires a political atmosphere that tolerates the challenging of taboos and the mocking of conventions.

That is not the case here, or around the region. In Egypt, insulting the president can lead to a jail term, and officials even grew furious last year when a comedian poked fun at the national airline, EgyptAir. In Lebanon, Mr. Obeidallah said, “We were told, ‘Make fun of whoever you want, but if you make fun of Hezbollah, you are on your own.’ ”

In Dubai, all scripts must be approved in advance by the official censor. In Jordan, where insulting the ruler can lead to prison, as in Egypt, social codes and religious values emphasize conformity, tradition and respect. So it was a risk when the mayor of Amman, Omar Maani, decided he would try to find a way to bring some levity to a city mired in crisis, with Iraq on one border and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on another.

The experiment started in 2007 when an American comedy group, Axis of Evil — comics of Iranian, Egyptian and Palestinian ancestry — came to Amman. “I was nervous it would not take off,” Mr. Omani said.

But it did, in a big way. The next year, Mr. Omani invited them back, and this year his city organized the festival. He said he hoped to make it even bigger next year. But there are rules. No cursing. No making fun of religion. No making fun of the king (or his family). No sex jokes. No drug jokes. And, of course, no alcohol allowed.

See the entire NY Times story for a run-down of some of the jokes and a description of more cultural misunderstandings.

Much has been written about the differences between the cultures of the United States and China, but what in practical terms do these differences mean? Hannah Seligson just wrote a business article for the NY Times about the growing trend of young Americans taking jobs in China, and about the cultural challenges that arise when people from two very different cultures try to work together. It’s a brief but insightful overview of the American and Chinese cultures and business styles. Here is an excerpt that deals with some of the cultural differences in the workplace:

It is imperative for Americans working in China to adjust, said Mr. Norman, who works on management and work force issues for multinational companies operating in Asia. “In the West, there is such a premium on getting things done quickly, but when you come to work in China, you need to work on listening and being more patient and understanding of local ways of doing business,” he said.

Ming Alterman, 25, a senior account executive at Razorfish, a Shanghai-based digital media firm, is the only American among 40 employees. He says Americans need to understand the importance of building so-called guanxi (pronounced GWAN-she). The word means relationships, but has implications beyond the obligatory happy hour, occasional lunches with the boss or networking. “In China, it’s really expected that you become friends with your boss and you go out and socialize in a way that doesn’t happen in the U.S.,” Mr. Alterman said.

The Chinese now rising in the work force were raised and educated in a system that tended to prize obedience and rote learning. Their American counterparts may have had more leeway to question authority and speak their minds. This can affect workplace communication.

When Corinne Dillon, 25, was working at a multinational company in Beijing, she noticed that her Chinese colleagues were sometimes hesitant about expressing their opinions, which she thought was rooted in views about hierarchy.

“Because foreigners are often in higher positions in companies, or even when they are not, there is sometimes an implicit respect given to them that makes Chinese people not want to directly disagree with them for fear of being perceived as impolite,” said Ms. Dillon, who is now director of sales and marketing at That’s Mandarin, a language school based in Beijing.

The difference cuts both ways. Ms. Zhao, of Blue Oak Capital, recalled her first experience working for an American at an American-run agency in Beijing. What her American boss perceived as directness left her feeling humiliated, she said. “I remember I was so embarrassed when my American boss told me he didn’t like something I was doing, right in front of me,” she said. “The Chinese way would have been much more indirect.”

Communication styles, Professor Taras said, can create workplace challenges. “Americans often perceive the Chinese as indecisive, less confident and not tough enough, whereas the Chinese may see Americans as rude or inconsiderate.” This, he said, “can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings, but also affect promotion and task assignment choice, and ultimately performance.”

There are numerous articles and books that explore some of these cultural differences. To learn more, one book you might check out is Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans by Hu Wenzhong and Cornelius Grove.

India has made tremendous economic strides in recent years on the strength of its outsourcing businesses, but many Indians fret that the nation will not be able to take the next step forward until the culture develops a more innovative nature. The NY Times just ran an interesting business feature on this topic.

Even as the rest of the world has come to admire, envy and fear India’s outsourcing business and its technological prowess, many Indians are disappointed that the country has not quickly moved up to more ambitious and lucrative work from answering phones or writing software. Why, they worry, hasn’t India produced a Google or an Apple?

Innovation is hard to measure, but academics who study it say India has the potential to create trend-setting products but is not yet doing so. Indians are granted about half as many American patents for inventions as people and firms in Israel and China. The country’s corporate and government spending on research and development significantly lags behind that of other nations. And venture capitalists finance far fewer companies here than they do elsewhere.

Why the disconnect between a culture that can be business oriented, but perhaps not very innovation oriented? Many observers, including Indians themselves, believe it is a matter of culture.

“The same idea, if it’s born in Silicon Valley it goes the distance,” said Nadathur S. Raghavan, a investor in start-ups and a founder of Infosys, one of India’s most successful technology companies. “If it’s born in India it does not go the distance.”

Mr. Raghavan and others say India is held back by a financial system that is reluctant to invest in unproven ideas, an education system that emphasizes rote learning over problem solving, and a culture that looks down on failure and unconventional career choices.

And the challenges come not only from a culture that is not accustomed to risk-taking, but also from a culture that is traditionally and heavily based on relationships.

In the United States, Israel and elsewhere, the initial, or seed, capital for many start-ups comes from rich individuals known as angel investors. But most rich Indians prefer to invest with family members or close friends because its considered safer and provides assurance that the lender will be able to borrow from relatives in the future.

If you’re interested in understanding more about these cultural differences there are a few good books out there, including Speaking of India by Craig Storti.

National culture changes very slowly, but there is no doubt that it is something that constantly evolves. Sometimes in small ways over centuries, and sometimes in bigger ways over shorter periods of time. One example of this is the role of women in the Middle East, and particularly in the conservative nation of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women have few rights when compared to their Western counterparts, as they still aren’t allowed to drive or to participate in many things outside the home without permission from a male family member. But there are glimmers of hope and pockets of openness, as shown in this recent story in Time magazine, which looked at the small steps toward freedom that have been achieved by some women in Saudi society.

Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn’t in New York or London; it’s in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.

There’s another reason many Saudis would find Rotana shocking: men and women working side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job that human-resources manager Sultana al-Rowaili has developed a trick to see if a male applicant can handle working in a mixed-gender office. She arranges for a female colleague to interrupt the initial interview, and watches to see if the man loses concentration or stares too much. Sometimes even that isn’t necessary. Many men are undone by the very idea of being interviewed by a woman. “They are in a state of shock to see a woman in a position of authority and to have to ask her for a job,” al-Rowaili says.

Saudi men may have to start getting used to such situations. True, Rotana remains an anomaly protected by the position and progressive ideals of its owner  — global investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. And Saudi women still can’t drive and legally can’t even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family member’s permission. Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal family — in particular the current King, Abdullah — the kingdom is slowly changing. Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks and good hospitals, where female doctors are not unusual. “People used to say, ‘Why is she working? Why does she need the money?’ Now they say, ‘It takes a woman to solve a problem,’” says Norah al-Malhooq, an administrator at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh.

The government is expanding educational opportunities for women by building women’s universities (as opposed to segregated campuses at male-dominated universities); last month it even launched the kingdom’s first coeducational university. The state is trying to encourage women’s entry into the workforce, and is sponsoring initiatives to protect women and children from domestic abuse. And it is pushing Saudis to discuss the notion of empowerment, formerly such a taboo subject that even the word was off-limits in newspapers. “The message is that women are coming,” says Dr. Maha Almuneef, one of six women named earlier this year to the Shura council, a 156-person advisory body appointed by the King. “It’s a good first step. The King and the political system are saying that the time has come. There are small steps now. There are giant steps coming. But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You can’t just change the social order all at once.”

Check out the entire article. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a relatively closed society, and an intriguing look at the cultural tensions that often arise between tradition and modernity.

You’ve likely heard of the book “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World,” by Eric Weiner. And you may have heard about the Himalayan country of Bhutan and its goal of measuring and improving something called Gross National Happiness. What do these things have in common? Well, apart from the fact that Weiner visited and wrote about Bhutan in his book (which is a fun read, by the way), the author just penned an article for World Hum discussing the spread of the Gross National Happiness concept to larger and more developed countries.

People travel. We know that. Stuff travels, too, of course. So do germs. Less obvious is the fact that ideas also travel. They don’t always travel well, and their on-time performance is no better than your average U.S. airline. But, still, travel they do—and often in expected ways.

Take French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recently proposed “happiness index.” The traditional measure of a nation’s wealth, Gross Domestic Product, is woefully inadequate, Sarkozy declared, and promptly ordered French bureaucrats to take into account factors such as quality of life, the environment and (gasp!) vacation time. What the world needs, Sarkozy said in so many words, is not Gross National Product but Gross National Happiness.

Hmmm, this sounds familiar. As you may know, Bhutan, a geopolitical speck tucked away in the Himalayas, adopted exactly that policy—Gross National Happiness—back in the 1970s…

Call it the trickle-up theory of ideas. Big ideas often start in small nations. For instance,  the wildly successful practice of micro-lending was born not in London or Tokyo but rural Bangladesh. Why? Necessity, yes. But another reason, I think, is that small, off-the-map countries have less to lose. If Bhutan proposes something like Gross National Happiness people might snicker but they’re not likely to think of any less of Bhutan. Partly, this is because they had never thought of Bhutan at all. And partly it’s because we expect global outliers to come up with wacky ideas.

So I’m glad that Bhutanese happiness has traveled to France. Let’s hope the journey doesn’t end there.

In his article, Weiner makes a good case for the relevance of happiness as a measuring stick for policymakers, and he traces its spread from the Himalayas to the West. It may be quite a while before an idea like this catches on in the U.S., but it’s an intriguing concept and, in any case, Weiner is an engaging writer when discussing the world we live in.

Perhaps it’s the interest sparked by the ongoing debate in Washington, but I’ve been stumbling across a number of health care-related articles these days and several of them delve into the intersection of policy and national culture. There was a recent story in the NY Times about T.R. Reid’s new book, The Healing of America, in which this foreign correspondent went to doctors in 10 countries with a chronic shoulder problem and then wrote about the results of these health care travels. His book reports both on the different treatment options offered to him and the different systems of health insurance that he encounters:

When Mr. Reid presents his shoulder to his own orthopedist in Colorado, the doctor is quick to recommend a shoulder replacement. It will cost his insurer tens of thousands of dollars (assuming it agrees to pay), with unknown co-payments for him. Risks include all those of major surgery; benefits include a restored golf swing.

The same shoulder gets substantially different reactions elsewhere in the world.

In France, a general practitioner sends him to an orthopedist (out-of-pocket consultation fee: $10) who recommends physical therapy, suggests an easily available second opinion if Mr. Reid really wants that surgery, and notes that the cost of the operation will be entirely covered by insurance (waiting time about a month).

In Germany, the operation is his for the asking the following week, for an out-of-pocket cost of about $30.

In London, a cheerful general practitioner tells Mr. Reid to learn to live with his shoulder. No joint replacement is done in Britain without disability far more serious than his to justify the expense and the risks, and if his golf game is that important, he can go private and foot the bill himself.

In Japan, the foremost orthopedist in the country (waiting time for an appointment, less than a day) offers a range of possible treatments, from steroid injections to surgery, all covered by insurance. (“Think about it, and call me.”)

In an Ayurvedic hospital in India, a regimen of meditation, rice, lentils and massage paid for entirely out of pocket, $42.85 per night, led to “obvious improvement in my frozen joint,” Mr. Reid writes, adding, “To this day, I don’t know why it happened.”

But the comparative merits of different orthopedic philosophies are secondary here: Mr. Reid’s attention is focused on a meticulous deconstruction of the history and philosophy of the policy decisions behind them.

From a shoulder replacement to toughing it out to meditation and massage. Different cultures, different treatments. What do you think, do these different health care philosophies have some connection with what you know about the different cultures that the author encounters?

It’s no secret that culture plays a role in health care, from our systems of medicine to our personal decisions. When a person receives health care in his or her home country, there are unlikely to be many clashes over culture because it’s a medical system that he or she knows and understand well. The United States is not a homogeneous culture, though, but rather one that attracts a regular influx of immigrants from around the world. Health care misunderstandings are more likely to occur when individuals or families from other cultures, particularly non-Western cultures, meet American medicine. So I read with interest this recent story about a California hospital that makes allowances for Hmong immigrants from Laos to receive treatment from a shaman as well as from a physician.

The patient in Room 328 had diabetes and hypertension. But when Va Meng Lee, a Hmong shaman, began the healing process by looping a coiled thread around the patient’s wrist, Mr. Lee’s chief concern was summoning the ailing man’s runaway soul.

“Doctors are good at disease,” Mr. Lee said as he encircled the patient, Chang Teng Thao, a widower from Laos, in an invisible “protective shield” traced in the air with his finger. “The soul is the shaman’s responsibility.”

At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, where roughly four patients a day are Hmong from northern Laos, healing includes more than IV drips, syringes and blood glucose monitors. Because many Hmong rely on their spiritual beliefs to get them through illnesses, the hospital’s new Hmong shaman policy, the country’s first, formally recognizes the cultural role of traditional healers like Mr. Lee, inviting them to perform nine approved ceremonies in the hospital, including “soul calling” and chanting in a soft voice.

The policy and a novel training program to introduce shamans to the principles of Western medicine are part of a national movement to consider patients’ cultural beliefs and values when deciding their medical treatment. The approach is being adopted by dozens of medical institutions and clinics across the country that cater to immigrant, refugee and ethnic-minority populations…

A recent survey of 60 hospitals in the United States by the Joint Commission, the country’s largest hospital accrediting group, found that the hospitals were increasingly embracing cultural beliefs, driven sometimes by marketing, whether by adding calcium- and iron-rich Korean seaweed soup to the maternity ward menu at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, on the edge of Koreatown, or providing birthing doulas for Somali women in Minneapolis.

By the way, if the story of Hmong immigrants dealing with American doctors sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it was also the subject of an excellent book about 10 years ago, called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. If you’re at all interested in cross-cultural topics, especially as they involve health care, you should check out the book.

I came across an interesting recent article in the NY Times about the growing number of immigrants from Bhutan who have recently settled in New York City. It’s not the most common of countries from which to draw an immigrant population, and indeed the numbers are still relatively small. But what caught my eye was a section of the story that showed how the immigrants have maintained some semblance of their Bhutanese culture even amidst the chaos of New York. Most interesting, I think, is that they continue to live somewhat communally, having transported a sense of community from a mountain village in the Himalayas to an apartment building in the Bronx.

Inside the 60-unit building, where they are a distinct minority, they share meals and information about job leads and educational opportunities, and simply hang out in one another’s apartments to pass the time. The refugees say the flow resembles the comfortable circulation of neighbors and relatives from hut to hut in the Nepalese camps…

The seven-member Gurung family, who arrived in four groups during the winter and spring, invited the Tamangs for a traditional Bhutanese meal at their apartment on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. Though the Gurungs had been in the country less than a year — “we’re just-born,” said Gyan Gurung, 33 — they were relative veterans.

The two families sat on the floor of the tidy apartment to eat. The walls were decorated with a New York subway map and a Buddhist bead necklace.

“The sweetest matter is that all Bhutanese have a universal brotherhood,” said Mr. Siwakoti.

Language is a great way into the mind of a culture. But if you don’t speak another language, you can at least understand some of how another culture thinks by looking at some its favorite expressions. There was recently an article published on Matador Abroad that took a look at 10 expressions that define cultures. Here are two of them:

Shoganai, Japan - “It can’t be helped.” Japan is for the most part a very non-confrontational culture. Shoganai epitomizes this tendency because by encouraging people not to complain or try to “fight the power.” Circumstances can’t be changed, so why get angry or try to avoid the unavoidable? It’s too hot and you have walk 10 km to the nearest train station? Your boss asks you to work an extra four hours that evening? Just accept it and move on: shoganai.

Mai pen rai, Thailand - Whereas in Japan this “never mind” idea encourages one to endure hardships, in Thailand, it implies that life should be lived at a relaxed pace. This could not be more evident in the idea of “Thai time”: several days late for a gathering of friends? Mai pen rai; it’s no big deal, we can always put things off for another day, a week, a month.

Check out the other eight expressions, from countries such as Brazil, Australia and Mozambique.

It’s a way of life in many parts of the world: sharing food and conversation around the dinner table. In a place like Greece, these meals might consist of various smaller dishes, called meze, similar to the Spanish tapas that have become popular in some U.S. restaurants. Joanna Kakissis has a great story up on NPR’s Kitchen Window, in which she reminisces about the meze gatherings of her childhood and talks of how she has tried to re-create these occasions in her own homes and with new friends. The story will surely make you want to invite some people over for dinner this week, or at the very least go out for Greek tonight.

My parents moved from their native Greece to the American Dakotas in 1974, but never got used to the big, stick-to-your-ribs Lutheran dinners in the Midwest. Back in the Mediterranean, evening meals were a collection of small, flavorful dishes called meze, spiced with tiny sips of ouzo or the homemade firewater called tsikoudia, courtesy of my mother’s Cretan family. And the food was always shared with friends or relatives who would stay to talk late into the night…

In summer, the evening meze crowd would gather on the tiny balcony in our tiny house in suburban Athens, savoring cheese and spinach phyllo triangles, minty and garlicky yogurt dips, crispy oregano-dusted fried potatoes, the spicy little meatballs called keftedes, grilled octopus, marinated anchovies and, of course, lots of fresh tomatoes, olives and pita bread. My earliest memories include those deeply comforting scents of meze and the openhearted laughter of people bonded to cuisine, culture and each other.

The meze nights got a lot quieter when we moved to the Dakotas, but they didn’t die. Sometimes it was just the four of us — my parents, sister and I sharing keftedesand a giant tomato, feta and mint salad — but sometimes my parents’ friends would join us and add their own flavors…As I grew up and moved around as a journalist, I grounded myself in each new locale by hosting meze nights for new friends.

If you check out the entire story, you’ll also be rewarded with some nice recipes for such dishes as ouzo-spiked pork and beef keftedes, or mint yogurt with carrots and garlic.

We’re currently in the midst of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month in which Muslims are expected to fast each day between dawn and sunset. This practice is supposed to increase spiritual self-discipline and help one to focus on non-worldly activities. Although people understandably get hungry during the day, the fast is practiced by most Muslims. There are exceptions for some individuals who may be harmed by a fast, but George Vecsey recently wrote an interesting article for the NY Times about some Muslims who face a difficult choice during Ramadan between their faith and their livelihood: athletes.

Indeed, an athlete who needs nourishment in order to perform at a high level during a sporting event would face a tough decision over fasting. Vecsey profiled a Muslim tennis player from Pakistan, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, who said that he fasts if he is at home and not competing, but that he doesn’t fast if he is involved in a tournament.

The public-address announcer was advising everybody to drink a lot of fluids (presumably those sold on the grounds) to avoid dehydration. On a warm, mostly sunny day, that seemed like a good idea. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan had a few bottles of water arrayed below his chair on Court 10, although it is the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims abstain from food or liquid from sunrise to sundown…

Qureshi, who is 29 years old and from the grass-court hub of Lahore, is one of a few Muslim players on the tour. He speaks with high respect of Ramadan, which this year lasts from Aug. 22 (a day earlier elsewhere in the world) through Sept. 19. There can be exemptions from fasting for pregnant women, soldiers, the mentally ill, children and people with a strenuous livelihood. Qureshi puts himself in that category.

Other Muslim athletes have worked out their response to their sport and to Ramadan, which ranges around the calendar from winter to summer. In these still long days of early September in the Northern Hemisphere, European soccer players and American football players are making their own decision as to how to observe the holy month.

I think the story is worth reading and is an interesting example of a clash not just between religion and sports, but between culture and a globalized world.

There are so many interesting cultures around the world, with their own traditions and ways of life, but never before have I come across an article on running cultures. Yes, a culture in which long distance running is a way of life, as much a part of the people’s heritage as their food and their music. But Turner Wright wrote an interesting feature for Vagabondish on just that topic, focusing on four truly unique cultures from around the world.

… with many nations (even third-world countries) becoming modernized as the world gets smaller, there are few remaining places on Earth where running is still a way of life, essential to survival, not thought of as fitness or a way to relieve stress after a day of TPS reports. Cultures in which running is life, deeply ingrained in the minds and hearts of natives and impossible to imagine what it would be like otherwise. But where can we find such “running cultures”?

He profiles the marathon monks of Mt. Hiei, Japan; the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico; the Kenyans of East Africa, and the Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa. Here is some of what he writes about the marathon monks of Japan:

The marathon monks, who live in the Enryaku Temple atop Mount Hiei, are quite possibly the greatest anomaly in Japanese society, if not the world. Few choose to live their lives according to such strict guidelines, especially when it comes to feats of physical prowess…

Wearing only straw sandals (replaced often), white robes, a staff, and hat, each marathon monk begins walking or running approximately 50 km around the mountain to return in time for meditation and the meal. This is done over 100, 700, or 1000 days, depending on how far along the initiated is in his monastic training…

In reality, meditation is nothing more than training oneself to focus entirely on the present: the breath going in and out of the lungs, the wind caressing your face, the birds chirping from a nearby tree … Running meditation is only natural, by focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and communing with nature one step at a time.

See the entire piece for more about these running cultures.

There are obviously many cultural differences between the United States and China, which stem largely from the fundamental fact that one country has an individualistic view of the world and the other is a more group-oriented society. In the U.S., individual rights and self-realization are highly valued, while in China considerable importance is placed on hierarchy and respect for societal norms. It’s not a surprise that these differences even show up in the educational system, a forum where cultural values are both reflected and molded.

I recently came across two news stories that emphasized the differences between the U.S. and Chinese styles of learning. The first was a New York Times article that discussed the increasing prevalence of young Americans who are finding jobs in China after college. Within the article, there was a quote from a Chinese executive on some of the business strengths that Americans bring to the job, based at least in part on their educational backgrounds.

Willy Tsao, the artistic director of BeijingDance/LDTX, said he had hired Ms. Berman because of her ability to make connections beyond China…Another dynamic in the hiring process, Mr. Tsao says, is that Westerners can often bring skills that are harder to find among the Chinese.

“Sarabeth is always taking initiative and thinking what we can do,” he said, “while I think the more standard Chinese approach is to take orders.” He says the difference is rooted in the educational system. “In Chinese schools students are encouraged to be quiet and less outspoken; it fosters a culture of listening more than initiating.”

The second article was a profile of some Chinese students who are now enrolled at the University of Arizona. The students are part of a cultural exchange program that allowed them to take classes in China from adjunct professors prior to transferring to the United States, thus getting an upfront taste of the educational differences.

The students took classes from UA adjunct professors while completing their senior year at the prestigious high school. The professors taught English, writing, American government and geography, and taught in a highly interactive way that encouraged group work and discussion.

In China, most classes emphasize a learning style of lecture, reading and memorization, said Scott Bird, associate program director with Yangtze International Study Abroad, which organized the group. ”Unlike many of the international students coming here, they have an advantage in that they’ve had a little taste of it already,” he said.

If you’re interested in learning more about Chinese and American cultural differences, check out the book Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans by Hu Wenzhong and Cornelius Grove.

One of the big debates going on in Washington and around the U.S. these days, of course, revolves around the nation’s health care programs. I’m no policy wonk, so I’m not going to wade into a debate about issues here, but rather point out that even health care is related to national culture and values. Jacob Weisberg described this connection in a recent issue of Newsweek. A good chunk of his column is devoted to exploring the pros and cons of our current system, but he also does a nice job of showing how culture and health care are related.

In his new book The Healing of America, the journalist T. R. Reid employs a clever device for surveying the world’s health systems: he takes an old shoulder injury to various countries. In the United States, a top orthopedist recommends joint-replacement surgery, costing tens of thousands of dollars. In France and Germany, doctors steer him instead toward a regime of physical therapy. In Britain, they tell him to go home. In India, he is treated, quite effectively, with herbs, massage, and meditation…

He’s right that we can learn much from practices elsewhere. But the lesson I took away from his book was somewhat different: health-care systems are not just policy choices, but expressions of national character and values. The alternatives he describes work not just because they’re well designed but because they reflect the expectations and traditions of their societies.

All advanced, wealthy countries have health systems that are more egalitarian and cost-effective than ours. Each also has its quirks, which reinforce familiar stereotypes. Britain, land of the stiff upper lip, provides what to us seems shockingly minimalist treatment…The Japanese, on the other hand, love doctors and visit them, on average, 14.5 times per year, three times the U.S. rate. They do this in an orderly, ritualized way, usually bringing a bottle of sake or cash in an envelope as a gratuity.

Interesting stuff. And if you want to know more details about culture and health care in the U.S., check out his piece.

As someone who has survived taxi rides in Cairo, I found this recent Matador Travel article by Nick Rowlands to be hilariously accurate.

Taking a taxi in Cairo is the Egyptian equivalent of Russian Roulette. You’re going to need nerves of steel, plus a little bit of luck, if you want to arrive at your destination with life, limb and wallet all intact…

To survive the journey with only minimal psychological damage, you will need both the patience and the fatalism of a saint.

You’ll spend most of the ride spluttering and wheezing your way through the inevitably gridlocked Cairo traffic, but when a gap does open up, you’ll career through it like a kamikaze rally driver on crank. Lane markings and traffic lights are treated as irrelevant urban art installations, and rules of the road as nothing more than a quaint rumour. Most drivers think indicating direction is a sign of weakness, and only use their brakes as a last resort. They use their horns, however, with passion and commitment: like a cacophony of bats that avoid bumping into things by constantly squeaking.

Your driver will smoke, and he will talk on his mobile phone. He’ll lean out of the car to abuse other drivers, yet he’ll manage to look you in the eye whilst asking the most intrusive personal questions. He’ll also thoroughly examine you using his multiple interior mirrors. Ladies, watch your angles!

To cope with all this, you need to adopt the insha’Allah (“God willing”) approach to life. The insha’Allah world view says that everything that happens on Earth is God’s will. Even if you are hurtling the wrong way down a one way street, while your taxi driver simultaneously texts his wife and grills you about yours, there is nothing you can do about it. Your story has already been written, so just relax.

Check out the rest of Nick’s humorous story about Cairo taxi rides.

Wow. Just last Friday, I had a post about the role that the Internet and social media were playing in the Iranian election. Little did anyone know how this would truly explode in the days after the apparently fraudulent results of Iran’s voting were announced. Tens of thousands of Iranians have been protesting in the streets daily and they’ve been using social media to both coordinate their efforts and to distribute information and photographs to the rest of the world.

Although the Iranian government did successfully shut down text messaging services, they’ve been far less successful in doing anything about Twitter, which people can post to from a variety of devices and computers. It’s become so important as a communications tool, in fact, that Twitter delayed a scheduled maintenance shutdown until it was the middle of the night in Iran. The NY Times, meanwhile, has published a story for two consecutive days about the post-election impact of social media in Iran.

Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s story:

As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions.

Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.

On Twitter, reports and links to photos from a peaceful mass march through Tehran on Monday, along with accounts of street fighting and casualties around the country, have become the most popular topic on the service worldwide, according to Twitter’s published statistics…

Twitter users are posting messages, known as tweets, with the term #IranElection, which allows users to search for all tweets on the subject. On Monday evening, Twitter was registering about 30 new posts a minute with that tag.

And from this morning’s report:

…Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.

The request, made to a Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is yet another new-media milestone: the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.

If you’re interested in following along yourself on Twitter, one of the more popular posters from inside Iran is persiankiwi. Or, you can also follow the popular Atlantic writer and blogger, Andrew Sullivan, who tweets as dailydish and has been prolific in keeping up with events.