It’s pretty bonkers how far out of their way humans will go to make things more difficult.
Like it can’t just be drinking tea, it has to have vast sweeping sociological implications. Human beings are so very very extra.
Like it can’t just be drinking tea, it has to have vast sweeping sociological implications. Human beings are so very very extra.
- if you don't offer someone tea when they come to visit, you are rude. if they refuse, and you accept their first offer without insisting, that's also rude. you have to persist a bit. this was parodied in the TV show "Father Ted" but it has some truth to it
- additionally, if someone says yes to a cup and you don't offer a second cup a while later, probably rude
- if you don't have biscuits, you need to apologise and explain why.
- if you drink green tea or anything other than black "breakfast" tea, you're "fancy"
- Households are either "Barrys Tea" or "Lyons Tea" and people are expected to have a loyal devotion to one and hatred of the other. Other brands (non-irish) are ridiculed, although we all drink all kinds. (Note - this rivalry also extends to 'crisps' or potato snacks - you're either Tayto or Kings)
- some people prefer coffee which is fine, but if you don't like either you're considered odd
The English always think the Germans terribly rude. In turn, Germans find these English (also Irish, I guess) conventions of running around things fifteen times for ritual terribly exhausting, a complete waste of time and honestly, just an outright lie.
Take email rules. Germans ridicule this "Hi, how are you, how's the family?" loop before the email (or phone call, or meeting) comes to "I need this from you." A German mail is "Hi, I need this. Thanks." That is not rude at all; the contrary, you did not force your family on me and didn't pretend to care about things that you do NOT care about, and you didn't impose on me with private things from strangers that I do not care about. (in the English mail, signified by the fact that there are no actual answers. "Fine!" .... Great, that was useless and just signaled openly that we really do not care and the question was, in fact, a lie.)
This isn't just different between cultures, it's different between status positions, scenes, relationship levels. If someone I'm just getting to know asks me for lunch and I don't feel like it, I'll say "I'd love to, I can't" if I do want to keep making a relationship with that person. If someone's an old friend, I'll say, "I don't want to", knowing that our friendship won't be hurt by that.
It's basically just giving some room for that social interaction, which may or may not be used.
Thus, there are deeper contextual frames you need to understand in order to know if that "how are you" actually means "please, open up" or it it only means "I'm just checkmarking politeness in this convo before I tell you to stay 3 hours longer today".
For a really good look at tea drinking read Strumpet City, apart from it being an amazing novel, has the many ways they brewed and drank tea at the turn of the century.
Irish Black tea tends to be different than English Black tea, apart from being superior of course, we source the leaves from different locations, something something due to rationing during WWII...
So if you offer Barry's to a guest who is in the Lyons, are you being rude?
And if someone needs an emergency cup of tea they won't mind.
It's fun when you are a visitor and you can view it from a distance, but when it's the local unaware social OS, it's got a far different effect.
The food thing, specifically (probably a slavic thing) I find really fucking tedious. There is no "I'm not hungry but thank you" or "sorry I don't eat meat". Refusing food on a visit is basically equivalent to taking out a gun and shooting the family dog. You're likely to never be invited over again, and people will think you are a complete asshole. Because of this social overhead, visiting friends and family is a huge ordeal as everyone is expected to roll out the carpet and play host. No one wants to burden others, and no one wants to be burdened, so visits are fairly uncommon unless it's a bigger occasion like a birthday or holiday. There's absolutely no "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop in and see what you're up to".
As a Czech (and a very picky eater who refuses a lot of food offered) I can't really confirm most of what you wrote. Paying for other people's lunch is not really a thing, other than perhaps in the context of a date (where the man is expected to pay).
Food is important mainly in the very old, wartime generation and even there it's mostly in the context of a family.
> Refusing food on a visit is basically equivalent to taking out a gun and shooting the family dog. You're likely to never be invited over again, and people will think you are a complete asshole.
It kind of looks like you've been having a bad time in Czechia, but this is very far from representative.
> There's absolutely no "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd pop in and see what you're up to".
This part is true, but it's IMHO a "global-north-wide" change in the past few decades. It used to be quite normal 30 years ago.
I read long time ago a study of families who eat together and those who dont.
Families who share meals have higher cohesion and better relations.
Its important to consider where those traditions came from and maybe why they came about.
Uh, you're probably overracting. Unless you said something akin to "fuck your food I don't want it"
we used the side door for informal visits
the front door was only for parties
Someone comes to you and forces some random food or beverage upon you, then act annoyed if you refuse. And that kind of behaviour is not only normalized but expected based on some dumb societial traditions.
Do you also think women being married off to candidate picked by parents "fascinating" and not abhorrent ?
When that would not be annoying
On top of that overeating, overdrinking etc are simply very bad habits that your closest ones drill into you. But once you succeed, world becomes a bit better place for you.
... excluding Japan, China, Russia, all of Central Asia (where I am from), and probably many other countries. So typical for HN.
If we're going to talk about cultures which have a close relationship with tea then the Turks beat out everyone else by a wide margin.
Maybe per volume might be best option, but that might be very hard to track.
That seems to be a cultural constant. In East Frisia it's Bünting or Thiele.
It's important to note whether the milk goes in the tea first or the tea first and then the milk. When the host is serving the tea, if the milk goes in first, then the host is admitting that they have inferior (non-china) cups, since china cups are more robust and can withstand the sudden heat shock. However, I have never had tea from a china cup so I can't possibly say.
When making hay in the summer time, the tea served to the workers should have equal parts tea, water, sugar and milk. Well, that's how it tasted to me back in the day!
More research is needed.
This makes sense, given some slightly more recent research into the "denatured proteins" hypothesis - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/25/science.higheredu...
Orwell was not right in everything, it seems.
In Ireland at least, it's not talking down, but rather making the assumption that the other person is refusing only out of politeness, so as not to inconvenience you, but actually would love a cup of tea, because, well, who wouldn't?
If someone refuses tea with a good reason, like they don't drink tea, or they are had too much caffeine already today, or it's too hot, we don't argue with them