Culture tips - Colombia Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
There are a couple things that are very distinctive with Colombians. They are very nice, they are very talkative, and they're very prideful. And these combine. For example, if you're asking for directions, you're going to get a guy that comes and says, oh yeah, you go out here to the left, and then you go straight for a couple blocks, and then go to the left and to the right, and then you get there. And that may or may not be the right direction, but then someone else comes and joins in. And whether they know the right direction or not, they're going to say the same thing as the first guy because they're nice. They can't disagree. And you'll have 10 people there telling you the wrong direction because they have to agree, and they're going to talk a lot about it, and you get to spend 15 minutes, and then you've got to go another block and ask someone else. And just go by block, because whether or not the direction is correct, they're going to give it to you, and they're going to be proud of it, and they're going to be super nice.
Video 2 Transcript
Culture tips. Really the only thing that I would say about this is that don't throw anything to anybody in Colombia. They play a lot of soccer there, but they don't play football or basketball, so if you throw something at them they don't have that hand-eye coordination and they'll kind of freak out about that. So make sure that you don't toss something across the room to something, hand it to them, and yeah, just be nice and respectful. I wouldn't say there's a huge cultural difference, but yeah, just be nice, respectful, eat the food on your plate. They'll usually try to give you more food, so you just got to be aware of that, but that's it.
Video 3 Transcript
A few minor cultural things. For example, when you're talking about how tall someone is, you don't go like this, you go like that, because this is used for animals and objects and so it's offensive to talk about people that way. It's also extremely rude to point with your finger, instead you do it with your lips. Other than that, the culture is not all that different. It's just people in relatively poor conditions trying to make a living.
Video 4 Transcript
Columbian culture is awesome. It's really open, friendly, welcoming. One tip that I would give that, so you don't make the same mistakes that I made, is always, always be overly polite, especially to people that are older than you. Always say please and thank you, ask for permission, even for the smallest things. Just be very cautiously polite and you'll make a lot of friends really fast.
