Thread: Cultural observations ... Food

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Originally Posted by scotcher

[adds VM to his "Ignore: too hysterical for any discussion" list]

[tips off the chief psychiatrist at Bedlam about Scotcher's whereabouts].

Tsk, tsk. Two grown-up men... You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Originally Posted by waxwing

It's not just about how much you drink, but the way you drink it.

I agree and that is why I think that the statistics that reflects the drinking problems should be "the number of people with drinking problems". On the other hand such statistic is harder to obtain and it will be much more approximate.

To VendingMachine:
I think that most people on this forum understand the real worth of stereotypes (I am a big stereotypes-hater myself) and not a single person here said that he believes in "Russians are drunkards" stereotype or smth like that. Please, read waxwing's posts once again and try to notice that if he said something stereotypical it was in joking mode (which is usually clear from the context) or as he says himself:

Originally Posted by waxwing

(Note I didn't turn off scotcher's blanket generalisation mode.)

And certainly neither he nor anyone here meant to offend Russian people. Almost all foreigners on this forum love Russia and Russians (Would they otherwise be here?). Of course to love doesn't mean to be free of stereotypes. If you really want to fight with stereotypes you should do it in a form of friendly discussion with analyzing, explaining, giving examples and so on (I know you do that too), personal attacks will only make the opposite effect. When you answered Roxfan (btw, AFAIK he is Russian, correct me if I'm wrong) you started with good, understandable and reasonable questions and then suddenly go with: "Stay with your preconceived ideas.", without even finding out what Roxfan meant. How can one feel after that? Of course this makes people think that you are a bully.
If the person doesn't write "IMO" in his message, it doesn't mean that he is 100% sure of what he says, usually it is clear when one speaks in "IMO mode" or not, and you can't expect everybody to write "IMO" every time he writes something subjective (personally I try to do that often, but that is my conscious choice and I don't expect everyone else to do that). Also don't forget that there is the word "observations" in the thread's title.

As for drinking stereotypes, I don't think that only foreigners are responsible for them, look at our TV, radio, internet, look at the jokes our Russian citizen make there.
I'm sorry if I sound too moralizing, no way I give myself right to judge anyone, I think I understand your feelings (about stereotypes) and I understand that sometimes it's difficult to keep back emotional outbursts I just want to say that it's really not the case one should feel offended or throw into personal attacks.
P.S. Speaking of duels, they've never been the evidence of manhood to me, I hated them since childhood and think they are cruel and stupid.

2Friendy

OK, I know that having said I was leaving I should've left, but I just couldn't help missing the opportunity to ...comment on your post, Friendy...

You see, Friendy, the thing is you're completely missing the point here. A proof of waxwing's manhood would be in his owning up to his mistakes and apologising like a man should, not in fighting a duel with me. I offered him a boxing match because I wanted to give him an alternative. You see, if his pride is stronger than him, he'll never apologise, but if he's a gentleman (and I thought at the time that he was), he'll want his name cleared by all means, and what better way to do so for a chap than to put up his dukes and knock his apponent out or get knocked out himself.
You see, fighting his own stubborn self may well prove much harder for him than fighting me, because fighting me means fighting only on the physical level, while fighting himself calls for a serious psycological battle. I did the man a favour by challanging him. If waxwing was a real gentleman, he would've either apologised or, if his pride was stronger than him, he would've accepted my challange. So far he's done neither thing. Which means he's a poof and has no honour.

My boxing offer still stands. He knows how to contact me - I gave the address in one of the posts in this thread.

Now, this time it's farewell.


2Administrator

Please delete my account. And best of luck to you, mate, you have behaved very wisely in letting us have our say in this filthy matter.

I was late to watch this thread. You guys had to continue at least via PM on the forum. I wouldn't have to edit the stuff that way.