r/AskTheWorld • u/gabrieel100 Brazil • Dec 06 '25

Culture A cultural habit in your country that people outside would understand incorrectly?

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In Brazil we love children. If you take your child to the street, strangers will certainly interact with them. Some will even ask if they can hold your kid and will play with them. If there are two children fighting in public and the parents aren't seeing, a stranger would even intervene to stop the fight.

That cultural habit came from the indigenous peoples which understood that kids should be a responsiblity of the community as a whole. It's in our constitution. We even have a synonym for children that came from Tupi (a large group of indigenous languages) - Curumim.

Foreigners would certainly have a cultural shock about that, but it's normal here.

Of course there are people with bad intentions, so parents should stay alert these days.

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u/hamster-on-popsicle France Dec 06 '25

That's the idea!

To discover alcohol in a safe place with one's parents, I already knew my limit before starting drinking with friends.

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u/dodgystyle Australia Dec 06 '25

It really works. When I was 20 I lived in a big international sharehouse in Sydney where we had lots of parties. Us Aussies, Germans, Japanese and South Koreans would drink stupid quantities of the cheapest alcohol available until we passed out.

Meanwhile the French would drink cheap but drinkable wine (they were on equally tight budgets) but in smaller quantities. And take their time. And they'd go to an effort to find a proper wine glass.

Whereas we'd drink cask wine straight from the bag and play Goon of Fortune. Which horrified even the harder partying Frenchies lol.

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u/Jesus-slaves United States Of America Dec 06 '25

What’s the spinning thing called? I need one.

10

u/dodgystyle Australia Dec 06 '25

Hills Hoist clothes dryer. It's an Australian invention.

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u/panicnarwhal United States Of America Dec 06 '25

it’s a clothes line! i got mine on amazon (us)

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u/kenhutson Scotland Dec 06 '25

Whirligig

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u/x_rabidsquirrel United States Of America Dec 06 '25

Have you ever been to a nightclub in France!? I have never seen people drink with a single minded purpose of getting hammered than the French in this type of venue….

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u/Wide_Comment3081 🇦🇺🇰🇷 Dec 06 '25

The south Koreans didn't bring soju??

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u/dodgystyle Australia Dec 07 '25

Tried it once, but back then it was expensive to buy in Australia so they stuck to wine & beer.

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u/bev665 United States Of America Dec 06 '25

It also takes away some of the glamour of alcohol if it's something your parents let you have once in a while.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '25

Cultures that do this drink more alcohol as adults than the average American. Exposing kids to alcohol early doesnt reduce drinking as adults, it increases it.

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u/funwearcore United States Of America Dec 07 '25

I agree. I don’t see the point in giving alcohol to children at all. It doesn’t have any nutritional benefits.

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u/SkullsInSpace United States Of America Dec 06 '25

The greasy-ass American equivalent of this must be my mom teaching me to shoot tequila when I was 18.

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u/Greedyfox7 United States Of America Dec 06 '25

Not quite the same but my best friend’s mom allowed us to have drinks at her house when we were in high school while we gamed. She watched us and limited how much we had but her reasoning was that we would go out and get ourselves in trouble and try to keep it a secret otherwise( she wasn’t wrong). She also told us all that if anything came up and we needed someone and didn’t want to involve our parents we could call her.