Etiquettes


To prepare myself for this trip to South Africa, I took it upon myself to read a little about the South African etiquettes, so that I would not make a fool of myself. I learned that the worst thing you could ever call a South African was “rude”. And it turned out to be quite true. Everybody here is very polite and kind and I feel so welcomed even by people I just pass in the street.

 

One thing I found particularly different from Sweden was that when you go home to people, you should always greet the parents with the name of their oldest child, and add ma or ra to the end. That will translate into mother or father of… I did not know this before I came here so that was something my host family taught me before we went to visit some of their friends. They pointed out for me that it was very important to greet the parents right because, if you do not, it will seem very rude.

 

This still is quite strange to me since in Sweden, you only call people by their first names, otherwise you will seem very old fashioned. But now that I have come to think of it, Sweden separates from the rest of the world on this matter, since we never use sir, mr, ms, or mrs, even if we want to be formal. Another thing that is different here is that people actually talk to people they do not know. And I really think that this is something note worthy to us Swedes (since it is quite well known that we seldom talk to strangers). I think that talking to your fellow man will be good for the country’s  unity.

 

That’s all folks!

 

Emma

 


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