Is it okay to just PICK which cultural customs I want to follow, even if they’re considered rude by the dominant culture?
Growing up in different cultures during my childhood gave me an outside perspective on my own culture. I learned not to view any one custom as the ‘right’ way to do things and all others as wrong or weird. Each culture had its own merits as well as its own stubbornly held stupidities. Eventually, I found it hard to understand how anyone could cling to every point of their culture as entirely right and normal 100% of the time, without pausing for rational thought or logic and while viewing all other customs and ideas with suspicion or outright disgust. It’s something I’m finding quite difficult about being back in mainstream North American white culture. My mom is a big believer in assimilating to whatever culture you’re in – “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, but I find completely readopting all white mainstream customs difficult, as some of them are so entirely pointless, and might I say, rather stupid upon study. I think half my problem is that I generally study the historical precedent for any given custom, regardless of culture, and so I know that many of our customs here today in mainstream North America are based on ancient situations which no longer apply today and therefore the customs have become unneeded ritual which serve no useful purpose.
For example:
In North America it is rude to wear a baseball cap or hat indoors, especially among the older generations. It is considered such a sign of disrespect that in many schools ball caps, toques, or any other form of head covering is banned in the school building. I was literally accosted by teachers in my school when I would come in from the cold and hadn’t yet removed my hat or toque on the way to my locker. They’d run up and rip it off my head, because of ’school rules’ and the perceived disrespect. The historical precedent for taking off headwear indoors originated during the days of top hats and bowler caps. Pistols and knives were often hidden in the ample space these hats provided. As a gesture of goodwill, a man would remove his hat upon entering a house to show his hosts that he harbored no weapons. Ballcaps today are skullfitting and leave no room to hide a pistol; therefore, it serves no earthly purpose to remove them upon entering a house. Yet, my school had this ridiculous and rigid policy, and my mother herself would have spaz sessions if I wore a ball cap in any indoor place including restaurants, even after I tried explaining all the above to her. “It’s still rude!” she’d exclaim. “But WHY is it rude?” I’d ask, but she could never seem to pause for rational thought and she’d become extremely upset.
Another example – handshaking. It is rude to shake with the left hand instead of the right. This originated because people traditionally wiped themselves after using the washroom with their left hand, and used their right hand for everything else, including eating. This was in the days before toilet paper, and before running water and any significant form of personal hygiene. Therefore the left hand was indeed dirty and disease ridden and it was the ultimate disgusting act to offer it for a handshake. However, in our culture now, we tend to do everything with the dominant hand – if someone is righthanded, they both eat with that hand AND wipe with that hand, the point being they use toilet paper and hopefully wash afterwards with soap and hot water. Yet the non-dominant hand, which is no longer used to wipe with, and is perfectly clean, is still abominably rude to shake with. It’s ridiculous.
And finally, the one that my question here is mainly about: eating with utensils vs eating with hands. Many of my closest friends are African, from various countries – Sudan, Ghana, etc. It is traditional to eat with one’s hands there. They have still kept this traditional here. The food is clean, their hands are washed and clean. There is no contamination happening. Many people are under the impression that the reason we eat with utensils is so that the food doesn’t get ‘dirty’ or contaminated with germs (even though their are special foods which you are SUPPOSED to eat with your hands, like pizza, corn on the cob, sandwiches, and fried chicken). This isn’t actually true. Even the English royalty ate with their hands hundreds of years ago, but then fashions changed, and they began wearing long, flowing sleeves with lace cuffs which came down over their hands. The lace was constantly getting soiled by the food as they ate with their hands, and utensils were invented to allow them to eat while keeping their lace sleeves out of the food. Thus the fork and knife. (Instead of just changing their FASHION, which would have been eminently more practical.) Most of us no longer wear flowing lace cuffed sleeves which drag into our food. Eating with ones hands is actually a faster and more efficient way to consume one’s meal in most circumstances, the only caveat being to wash your hands between servings if you intend to serve yourself from the communal pot with your hands as well (although I don’t see anyone washing their hands between taking chips out of the same bag and stuffing them in their mouths). Eating with your hands is also a more sensual and pleasurable experience. My African friends do it, and it is practical, and I don’t see any reasons why I shouldn’t mostly abandon the ridiculousness of utensils for a more practical method. My mother of course is going to have a fit, all rational arguments not withstanding. It’s “rude, wrong, impolite, unsanitary, etc, etc.”
I have no problem with conforming to customs in another person’s home or country in order to be polite. In my own home though, I don’t see the problem with picking which customs I will follow based on their practicality and not how North American they are. I don’t see any reason to follow a particular custom just because it’s customary in this country, when it serves no purpose and there are better, more practical customs I can pick from other cultures.
What are your thoughts? Why should I follow North American cultural customs that are irrational or no longer serve a purpose? Why do people cling so strongly to inane customs and get so angry when someone wants to do it a different way? And how should I deal with someone who so narrowmindedly follows the customs of the dominant mainstream culture that they throw a fit whenever I follow a different culture’s customs? Why should I completely assimilate back to this culture and start doing stupid, pointless things just for the purpose of assimilating? I don’t feel any need to have to ‘be white’ and ‘act white’, why can’t I just do the most practical and obvious, instead of basing my actions on silly ancient rituals?
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. They even put it on their sushi, haha. During Y2K the joke was that Hawaiians were dashing around stocking up on water, flashlight batteries, and Spam.
