Cultural Superstitions

Superstitions: Ecuador

When I was in college, I did a summer study in Ecuador and Peru. In Ecuador (Quito), I lived with a host family. A husband and wife owned the house. They had grown children and grandchildren who visited frequently. This was a well-educated family, probably upper-middle class. The husband was a doctor.

I went to the ocean one weekend and found some seashells. Oh, they were gorgeous! I placed them on the dresser in my room so I could admire them daily. Until the lady of the house noticed them there and freaked! Bad luck to have sea shells in the house! Find a new place for them immediately!

So I took them outside and placed them on a ledge or something, only to discover the next day that the grandkids had found them and after playing with them, had scattered them all over the tiny yard.

New plan: I stashed them on top of the carport roof where they were both out of sight and out of reach of the grandkids.

Next day: The man of the house backed his car out of the carport, out the driveway, into the street, and BAM! was struck by an oncoming vehicle.

Day after: I found a new place for those seashells.

Awassa, Ethiopia

Superstitions: Georgia (republic of)

Walking barefoot on the floor will freeze women's ovaries.

Drinking cold water or eating ice cream may cause sore throats.

Most illnesses are from a "change in the weather."

American superstitions

Salt kills.

Bottled water is better than tap water.

It's important to take vitamin supplements.

Coffee dehydrates you.

Your body needs 8-10 glasses of water per day.

Rootless Relocation, Part 5: The Crime Factor

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

When I was doing research for where in New Mexico I want to live, opinion-holders in various venues spoke of New Mexico's high crime rate. Normally, the crime rate of a destination doesn't figure in to my calculations, but I saw so many references to it, I thought I'd check it out.

My observation is that sometimes folks make pronouncements on crime rates based on perception rather than reality. For example, for awhile there a year or so ago, people were rabid about how illegal immigrants are a major source of crime, which belied the fact that illegal immigrants are more law-abiding as a group than legal U.S. residents. Arizona, a flashpoint on illegal immigrants, has a lower crime rate than Missouri, which has significantly fewer illegal immigrants.

Years ago, I had a Spanish professor from Chile. He grew up in Chile during tumultuous years of military rule and the overthrow of the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. But when he traveled from Chile to New York City, his mother feared for his life because it was so dangerous in America!  

Anyhoo, let's take a look at how New Mexico crime figures compare with Missouri and the U.S. as a whole, using different angles.

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Prison Jesus, Art in the Park, 2008

The Institute of Economics and Peace

From its website: The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is a non-profit research organization dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.

It achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measurement; uncovering the relationship between peace, business and prosperity, and by promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that drive peacefulness.

To evaluate each state's level of peacefulness, IEP looks at five measures:

1. Number of homicides per 100,00 people (from FBI)
2. Number of violent crimes per 100,000 people (from FBI) 
3. Incarceration rate per 100,000 people (from U.S. Bureau of Justice)
4. Number of police employees per 100,000 people (from FBI)
5. Availability of small arms (extrapolated from CDC, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and Fatal Injury Reports)

IEP doesn't weight the above equally. Number of homicides and violent crime are each weighted as the most important indicators at 4. Incarceration and police employees are each weighted at 3. Access to small arms is weighted the lowest of indicators at 1.

According to the 2012 United States Peace Index Report: 

• New Mexico is the 34th most peaceful state
• Missouri is the 45th most peaceful state

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

FBI statistics

FBI stats here
U.S. totals are in Table 1 on right sidebar.
State-by-state totals in Table 5 on right sidebar.

Violent crimes per 100,000 people (includes murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery)

• New Mexico: 588.9
• Missouri: 455
• U.S. total: 403.6

Property crime per 100,000 people (includes burglary, larceny/theft, auto theft)

• New Mexico: 3435.4
• Missouri: 3346.4
• U.S. total: 2941.9

So looking at the above two indicators alone, New Mexico has significantly more violent crime (mostly due to its higher numbers of aggravated assault and rape) and 2% more property crime than Missouri.

Both New Mexico and Missouri's rates exceed the U.S. total rates.

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

Travel Blasphemy #4: "American" is OK

One of the first questions people ask a foreigner:

Where are you from? 

You'd think that'd be an easy thing to answer.




Am I from the US, the USA, or America? 


I used to answer carefully that I was from the U.S. because, in order to be accurate and respectful, I must recognize that two continents share the name American. To say I was from America would be at best, gauche, and at worst, imperialistic. I didn't want that. 

Now I use "the U.S." or "America" interchangeably, depending on whichever option my brain pushes forward first. The reason why is in the section below.


Am I American or USian?


Fake question. Because in truth, USian was never an option for me. USian is just stupid, though if you want to call yourself that, go right ahead. I think we have the right to call ourselves whatever we want.

I used to feel awkward self-identifying as American (see first section for why), so I generally reframed my answer as "I'm from the U.S." 


But over time, I noticed something interesting. Almost everyone outside of the U.S. refers to people from the U.S. as Americans. And almost as often, they use America following "going to," "visiting," or "living in."

In other words, they don't trip over what is, in my current view, an artificial issue. By artificial I mean that we North and South Americans don't talk about being American (with a larger capital A than is already there) unless we're talking in the context of North America or South America. In other words, the distinction doesn't usually come up in casual conversation. Which is what the question "where are you from"? is -- casual conversation. 


I noticed something else here in Georgia. Sakartvelians don't complain about being called Georgian even though they refer to their country as Sakartvelo. (They do get a mite annoyed about being called Russian.) 

Speaking of Georgians, they don't shy away from calling themselves Caucasian simply because billions of people outside of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia might also self-identify as Caucasian.



So anyway, I'm American.

But what if this offends people in North or South America? 

Bottom line: All of us have the right to self-identify as we wish.