nytraveler

More and more I am seeing posts from people planning a trip who say they want to immerse in the cultures of the countries they are visiting - but then say they don't want to visit museums or major tourist sights.

Granted there are many other things that make up culture - family structure, education and healthcare systems, workplace habits and regulations, mores and habits, food and dining customs - and the arts: theater, music, ballet, galleries etc. But many of these are discoverable only by spending significant time in any place.

I'm at a loss as to how these people are defining culture. Do they mean trying to live like a local (difficult when you're in a new city/country every other day)? Are they talking just about cafes and pubs? Or?????

elberko

I don't think it's just museums at all:
http://m.livescience.com/21478-what-...f-culture.html

That said, I getting pretty cynical about some of the requests for trip help for Europe. The "experience the culture" & aggressive itinerary are sounding awfully similar.

Iahawk

To me, culture is the art, music, cathedrals/temples/churches, food, markets, shops, sidewalk cafe's etc. i remember a line (paraphrased from Monument's Men) "You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they'll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, their art, their music, you destroy their achievements and it's as if they never existed" We try to wander neighborhoods when travelling as well as seeing the major and some minor attractions. Isera, Italy; Anzio, Italy; Zahara, Spain, etc are some examples. that's one reason I could never do a packaged tour!

Pegontheroad

Gosh, I hope culture isn't museums. I've been traveling since 1963, and I feel like I've visited too many museums. I do like museums that show me how people lived or that relate to the history of a people, but I don't care if I ever look at another painting in my life.

I like lahawk's definition of culture. I like architecture, sidewalk cafes, streets, shop windows, on-the-street fashions and the like. The museums that stand out for me are places like the Wohnhaus Lindwurm in Stein-am-Rhein, Switzerland, which shows how people lived in the 19th century or Den Gammle By in Arhus, Denmark.

I loved the Roman theater in Mérida, Spain, and the geology around Cuenca and Ronda. We even enjoyed seeing the various colors of the fields and hills in Andalucia and pondering what grows in different fields.

I certainly don't want to live like a local. If I wanted to do that, I'd stay home.

330east

An important part of "culture" is eating where the locals eat.

thursdaysd

Maybe we need to distinguish museums from art galleries? I am very interested in history museums and arts and crafts museums (e.g. the V&A in London), but I have given up on modern art and quite a lot of older art, too.

november_moon

Culture is a beer garden in Munich on a Sunday in the summertime

IMDonehere

I am always leery of people who want to immerse themselves in another's culture and allot two weeks or less.

We are inveterate museum goers, but most museums have works from other regions and countries and, of course, near and distant times. So how much does each contribute and needless to say their contributions are not equal.

There is the daily culture, people's vocations and avocations, the haute culture, the culture that is based in history, economics, sociology, religion, among other things and broken into low and middle brow cultures. And if depicted by Venn Diagram would vary substantially from area and era.

There is much more to culture than fine art, there is the writing, dance, music, theater and cuisine those often have many variations on a theme. What is the tradition? Is it alive? Is it dying?

Anyone who wants to "immerse" themselves in a culture, should start by reading about that country's history, literature, and contributions to the world community. And then hope in two weeks to learn a little more.

Blueeyedcod

I think the word 'culture' should be substituted for 'everyday life'. They want to eat where the locals eat, go grocery shopping if they've rented an apartment, travel on the metro, sit in a plaza, piazza or square - that sort of thing. In other words - not be in a generic hotel in the outer burbs, hopping on and off a Trafalgar Tours bus and seeing Europe out of a window.

IMDonehere

Which "every day life" do they chose? The wealthy person or the bum? The full time worker with three kids or the retiree? Just think of the different stages of your life and they differ from other generations.

People often say that want to speak to locals. Well what will they offer in return? How honest do you think someone will be with a stranger? Who are you speaking with and do they have an agenda? And even then, how much is limited anecdotal information worth?

We have made friends with people in many countries and have stayed in their homes and them in ours and we are still loathe to make generalizations unless we know or see a pattern and custom.

IMDonehere

BTW, most foreigners think Americans know very little about their country. So before you visit a country read about the history, read the serious literature, learn some basic words and phrases, read about the current political and social situations, and learn as much as possible as to what is important to the people in that country. And then do not make statements about other people's country, ask questions.

This goes a long way in having others have a discussion.

sparkchaser

<i>An important part of "culture" is eating where the locals eat.</i>

So, McDonalds and that new Thai place that just opened.

sparkchaser

Relevant anecdote:

About once every 4-6 weeks me and a handful of coworkers go out after work for dinner. We have been doing this for about four years so now it's not just coworkers that come but "former" coworkers and it's a great way to keep in touch with everyone. Anyhoo, yesterday evening I was sitting in a popular local Biergarten (but located off the normal "tourist trail") with this group enjoying a beer and some Obatzter on a piece of Bauernbrot while we chatted and joked as a guitarist and accordion player played cover songs (Beatles mainly). I don't know why it did but at that moment I became aware that I was truly "experiencing the culture". No way somebody popping by for two days can experience that.

Tulips

I used to work for a relocation company in London, showing people around flats and houses. Particularly Americans always wanted something with caracter, old, English. Until they realised it came with English plumbing. Charming local culture, without power showers, with a tiny fridge in the kitchen and damp walls, is not so charming apparently.

flanneruk

It's a perfectly reasonable use of English to talk about "culture" and exclude opera, art galleries, serious theatre and archaeology. If your culture at home doesn't involve that, why waste your life getting involved with it on holiday?

Most of us don't bother with this stuff at home, or when we holiday in the US. And no-one berates us if we pass on American provincial symphony orchestras, grisly New York subscription theatres or Native American craft shops.

Obviously it's easy to access real culture in English-speaking Europe. Pubs, football (or cricket) matches, horseraces, tabloid newspapers, Radio 4, TV, quiz nights, stand-up comedy venues, clubbing, village fairs, gardens, the summer cycle of music festivals : what's not culture in all that? And what's wrong with going on holiday and being keener on that than the Raphaels - or yet another soporific travelling Impressionist exhibition you're not going to bother with when it comes to Washington either?

It's understandable that some struggle to find the Italian or German equivalent: helping people looking for it is precisely what God put sites like this on earth for.

What's less understandable is why the question's being asked by some troll in a New Jersey garret who pretends she visits Europe (indeed Britain) frequently.

She either really is a fraud. Or - like David Axelrod and Walmart - simply incapable of appreciating how foreign countries work.

sparkchaser

<i>What's less understandable is why the question's being asked by some troll in a New Jersey garret who pretends she visits Europe (indeed Britain) frequently.</i>

Are you referring to the op?

bilboburgler

culture for me is talking to the people, chatting on trains, visiting sporting avents, singing in bars, ordering a coffee from a busy bar at 8am, sitting next to a truck driver with a his pet sparrow on his shoulder, talking to another bike rider on a little ferry on the Elbe, getting shouted at by little old ladies for cycling on a zebra crossing, watching the rubbish being collected in Venice etc

Museums are lovely but full of stuff made by dead people, as they say "the past is another country"

traveller1959

"Culture" can have many meanings:

- Socalled "high" culture, which means art, literature, opera, museums etc.

- Socalled "popular" culture with pop music, comedy shows, tv and radio etc.

- Socalled "daily life culture", which means eating habits, fashion, sports, socializing etc.

- Socalled "counter culture", which encompasses all efforts to be different from the mainstream of society like like listening to punk music, extravagant hairdos and outfits, extreme behaviour etc.

- Then we have "folklore", which has mostly been crowded out by the international pop culture but may be conserved for tourists (like Flamenco shows in Barcelona which is especially ironic since Flamenco is not native to Catalonia).

Of course, these categories are overlapping and often, there are debates about what is considered "high" culture or "daily life culture" (since Marchel Duchamp, many artists turn objects of daily life into art objects).

Then there is debate about national, regional and transnational culture.

The nation-state emerged not before the 19th century, and when nation-states were formed in Europe, nationalism arose, including concepts of "national culture".

Today, the concept of national cultures becomes increasingly obsolete, since people all over the world listen to the same pop songs (mostly produced in USA and UK), eat the same kind of food (from McDonald's to sushi), watch the same movies (mostly Hollywood-produced), wearing the same fashion (mostly designed in France and Italy).

Some researches call this "trans-culture". This is an old phenomenon: Culture has been transnational already in the ancient world. Styles like gothic and renaissance have been used all over Europe, and classical music was played in Vienna, London, Paris and Sankt Petersburg all the same.

Another challenge to national cultures comes from the regions. The nation-states often suppressed the regional cultures in territories they had conquered. Especially France tried hard to eliminate regional cultures and languages in Brittany and Alsace. In the last decades, however, we observed a rising awareness to save these regional cultures from extinction. We will see how successful these efforts will be (I am afraid that in Alsace, the Alsatian language is already at the verge of extinction when the older generation will be gone).

So, what does the tourist want?

Does he/she really want to immerse into local everyday culture? I read so many trip reports from Americans complaining about what is different from home in Europe: like soft drinks from the fridge but without ice, being served a Martini wine (made by Martini & Rossi) after having ordered a "martini" (cocktail) etc.

Total immersion into local culture would mean doing things like going to a football game. I don't know if most American tourists would stand that. (On the other hand, the most boring travel experience that I ever had in my life was going to a baseball match in California.)

So what tourist industry does is creating events which look like folklore and meet the tourists' expectations. Like Flamenco shows in Barcelona. Or pizza in Venice (to Venice, pizza is as foreign as to Kansas City).

Blueeyedcod

<<Which "every day life" do they chose? The wealthy person or the bum?>>

Oh my goodness - really? Okay I will spell it out. The 'everyday life' tourists I speak of - and meet - are middle-class people who have homes, jobs, cars, maybe some children, affluent enough to travel but not afford a Leading Hotel of the World. They are curious about local *culture* and define it as being interested in how people similar to them eat, live, shop and entertain.

I think Bilboburgler defined it well. For me, an example of immersion in Neapolitan culture is watching calcio (football) at a bar in the historic centre and whooping it up when Napoli score a goal, buying some fish at the Porta Nolana markets and cooking it in my apartment, bearing witness to the liquefying of San Gennaro's blood in the Naples Duomo every September 19. To me that is experiencing 'culture'.

colduphere

Culture is having some old duffer yell at us on a Scottish golf course because he thought we were standing on the wrong tee. We only found out later why he was yelling because we couldn't understand what he was saying.

Well he was wrong, so he bought us a pint afterwards and told us the history of the golf club. Though we missed most of that too. At least there were old photos to look at.

To us that was experiencing the culture.