Exploring culture in a solo trip to Australia

By Marie-Teresa Hanna

We all have a dream destination to visit which lends itself to appeal through the culture and customs held by that country or city, people, or even the landscape or food. For me, this country was on the other side of the world – Australia. Spring of 2017, I packed up my bags and left for my first ever solo trip, hoping the advantage of speaking English would help me navigate across the country. With just over a month to spare, I travelled across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne with brief stops at Byron Bay, Great Ocean Road and the Blue Mountains. I wanted to soak in as much culture, fresh air and sun as possible and although the entire trip was an unforgettable journey, there are few highlights which are truly worth sharing for others to experience.

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Bhutan is fast becoming a popular destination for travelers and tourists – and it is our newest published title in our ever growing Culture Smart! series. To celebrate its release, here are a few snippets of cultural facts on Bhutan, straight from the book.

Happy weekend reading!

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Why Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on the 7^th January instead of the 25^th December.

Written by: Marie-Teresa Hanna

The 7^th of January is usually the time where everything Christmas related is taken away from shop floors, and Christmas trees are put out to be discarded. So why is it that the Eastern Orthodox community celebrates Christmas after New Year instead of the other way round?

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Culture Smart! Chile: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture.

Chile is a land of contrast and surprise, flanked by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Andes to the east, the forbidding salt basins of the Atacama Desert to the north—with a verdant Central Valley and Cape Horn at its southern extremity. The Chilean people, too, are surprising: on one hand reserved, family-oriented, Catholic, and conservative; and on the other fun-loving, entrepreneurial, neoliberal, and modern. Their geographical isolation from the rest of the world, their colonial past, and the near 20 years of repression under the military dictatorship of General Pinochet have had a profound influence on their character.

Today, traditional Chilean values are being questioned by the younger generation. In fact, the country’s position as the Latin American stronghold of Catholicism is being challenged by Chileans of all generations, and pressure has led to unprecedented changes in family and censorship law. Chile is also one of the fastest-growing economies in South America, and thanks to ambitious structural reforms, has sharply reduced its poverty rate in the past few years. Culture Smart! Chile provides vital information on what to expect and how to behave in this complex and dynamic society.

Author Bio:

Caterina Perrone has worked in the media and information sectors across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Culture Smart! Chile: The essential guide to customs & culture.

ISBN 978-1-857-33873-7
TRADE PAPER, (UK) £7.99; (US/CA) $11.99/$15.99
ALSO AVAILABLE IN E-BOOK
PUBLICATION DATE: JANUARY 2018
PUBLISHED BY KUPERARD

‘Street Art in Bogotá’ by Erin Murgatoyd

As Colombia’s capital, Bogotá is representative of the ‘forgotten history’ that plagues the country today.  Memory has been repressed as a method of coping with the difficult past that citizens often feel they need to account for.  It is for this reason that when I asked what was being celebrated on a Colombian bank holiday, I was greeted with a series of blank faces – people no longer remembered because history had not been transferred between generations.  This forgotten past stems partly from repression by government figures, but it’s also common for it to be imposed by individuals themselves.  Occasionally fragments of the forgotten world can be found, and it is Bogotá’s street art which is perhaps the greatest remnant of all.

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North America – Looking for your next destination? What are the idiosyncrasies of North American countries? Check out these 10 values and attitudes straight from our guides.

1. Guatemala is home to the largest group of indigenous peoples within North America. Areas such as Alta Verapaz are almost 100% Maya and work to preserve their identity and culture, setting up cultural activist groups.

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