Unexpected Cultural Differences: Animals

Recently through my language class, I have come across a couple of interesting facts about the culture of the Asian country I live in. The first was the fact that different languages and cultures perceive (or at least imitate) the sounds that animals make differently. For example, in the States when we make a sound like a dog, it is something like "Woof woof" or "Ruff ruff." Here where I live, they say, "Wong wong." Seriously. As David and I explored with our teacher the sounds various different animals made, we found that almost all of them were totally different from the sounds we would have attributed to that animal. I will ask my teacher again today, and follow this up with more Asian animal noises.

The second interesting cultural difference I came upon recently was a difference in what insects people find scary or intimidating. I was studying a passage in our text book recently, when I came upon this sentence (my translation): "While the countryside has many attractions that cannot be found in the city, you may also encounter some very frightening things, such as spiders and catepillars." Catepillars? I asked my teacher and, sure enough, she said she was terrified of catepillars. The main thing seemed to be the hairiness (the literal translation of the word for catepillar is "hairy hairy worm"). I told her that, generally, people in the West thought catepillars were cute and kind of charming. She was appalled.

She assured me that certainly not all people in the West could like catepillars (that's fair), and in her opinion it must be a personality thing. She said people with more easy-going personalities were probably afraid of spiders (referencing me), while people with more "sensitive" personalities were afraid of catepillars. She said we should test this theory by asking my friend Erin-Ashley (whom my teacher knows and has deemed as having a "sensitive" personality) what she thinks of catepillars. EA, if you read this, throw in a comment. My teacher said she was "absolutely sure" Erin-Ashley is afraid of catepillars. :)