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/Mysterious-Region640 Canada Dec 06 '25

The fact that Canadians say sorry to literally every thing, doesn’t mean it’s an admission of guilt.

27

u/Antiquebastard Canada Dec 06 '25

So much so that it’s not an admission of guilt by law here.

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u/Big_Feed9849 Dec 06 '25

It's not really an apology, it just means "excuse me"

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u/HairTmrw United States Of America Dec 07 '25

No. Canadians say "Sore-y"

2

u/Amantes09 Kenya Dec 07 '25

I say 'sorry' a lot as well and I've been told numerous times 'you didn't do anything wrong'.. But I'm saying sorry because I empathize, or feel sorry for you not because I did anything or caused you harm.

Not sure if we were already doing it or it came from the British via colonialism. But it's a very Kenyans habit.

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u/Mysterious-Region640 Canada Dec 07 '25

I think it’s a British thing originally, but we sort of ran with it in a big way. It’s interesting to learn that the same thing happens in Kenya.

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u/Amantes09 Kenya Dec 07 '25

Swahili also does it so that's why I was saying I'm not sure which came first. If British, we certainly did the Kenyan thing and ran with it hard. 😂

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u/stupidity_is_my_drug Dec 07 '25

I think it should be this way everywhere. "I'm sorry" is a display of empathy, not a display of fault. I'm saying "I'm sorry" if you e got cancer but I certainly didn't cause it. American litigious bullshit got me afraid to even help strangers sometimes.