#side tangent but i took a cross cultural management class last sem and it was basically entirely about different norms in different culture

[fanfictiongreenirises]

re: ur tags in that $10 food poll, why does the ethnicity of someone factor in to if you'll ask for reimbursement...???

this got really long lmao but in my defence the tl;dr version of it is literally "different cultures have different norms of how paying for food works regardless of amount" but if you're asking why ethnicity is a factor then i'd rather give more detail than leave it there

mmkay so first thing you need to know about me is im bengali, and culturally, there are many things that go into who pays when you're buying food and how reimbursement works. (second thing i'd like for you to know as a disclaimer is i'm 1.5 gen immigrant so my norms with paying might not necessarily reflect the current norms in bangladesh)

so if i'm out with another bengali or south asian person and they're younger than me, i'm paying for the food regardless of cost and absolutely not asking for reimbursement. if they're my age and we're friends and we're not paying for our own food for whatever reason, then we're going to fight about it and whoever loses will fight harder the next time we go out or reimburse in another way (e.g. buying other food, paying for smth else if we're shopping together - rly depends on the relationship, but it doesn't have to be a 1:1 reimbursement), but even if there is no next time and you both know it, there'll still be no "here have the exact amount back via cash/bank transfer" reimbursement over it bc you just wouldn't ask for the money back. if they're older than me, it'll take a pretty unique situation for me to be the one paying but depending on how much older, they'll likely repay me by buying something else, or paying next time. best example of this is my gujarati colleague who's about double my age - the first time we went to grab coffee together at work, it was spontaneous and she didn't have her wallet on her so i paid and refused to give her my bank details, and the next time we went for coffee she paid and specifically was like 'you paid last time' so i'd fight her less on it; every time after that we paid for our own even though she still tried to pay for mine (but fought significantly less, because the initial social dance was over).

however!! the norms in white australian culture (that i've experienced) are different!! if i pay and insist a little too strongly that they don't need to pay me back, then white australians get weird about it - because i'm not following the norms. (they'll either go to Lengths to pay me back, or they'll be like 'cool thx' and move on lmao there's no in between.) so i'll be like 'no you don't need to pay me back it's just $10' once (if at all) and then give in and accept monetary reimbursement. i don't believe anyone when they say i don't need to pay them back, unless i've known them for a v long time, so i'll still find a way to slip them money (or if i have friends who go to Lengths to pay me back, then i'll do the same for them, because that'll be their norm/expectation) (i've seen bengalis try to do this to other bengalis and the reaction ranges from being super offended to really confused/surprised lmaoo)

obviously, this is a super broad explanation and generalisation, and doesn't really take into consideration things like how my personal relationship with people also impacts this, or how different circles will have different norms within those circles that'd override other social and cultural cues that might exist, or how specific people will have preferences for paying you back that you'll respect and often mirror. and obligatory disclaimer: cultures aren't homogeneous and other people will have had different experiences with the ones i've mentioned that won't align with mine; and none of these norms are good/bad or right/wrong, they're just different norms and expectations and ways of doing things

#this got so long 💀 #side tangent but i took a cross cultural management class last sem and it was basically entirely about different norms in different culture #and how to become better at cross cultural communication. and for those of us there who were bipoc a lot of it was stuff we'd #had to do at some point or another but there were white aussies in the class whose first interaction with ppl from other countries was uni #and i came out of the class feeling like it should be a mandatory thing for everyone uni-wide bc most of the time the cultural #misunderstandings are bc different norms are seen as a bad/good right/wrong thing instead of: just different ways of doing smth #anyway ill stop rambling now #anonymous