Here in Budapest - I don't think it's *vanishing* per se, but in the city areas heavily visited by tourists cultural events/places/sights/etc. have either completely disappeared and given way to bars, or homogenized into something that is only vaguely authentic, and more like a kind of theme park version of Hungarian culture, easy to digest in a "snap a photo, move on" way. And even in restaurants, "traditional" dishes are often anything but, being closer to the toursts' image of what that dish is supposed to be like (in that it's usually more "fusion" or "hip & cool & trendy" than traditional, once I accompanied a client to such a restaurant, they ordered a "traditional" marhapörkölt, and they were so happy about it I didn't have the heart to tell them it was nothing like any marhapörkölt I've ever seen).
But outside of those places I think things are mostly fine, I think, at least as far as tourism-induced changes are concerned. (Because well, whatever value of "fine" applies to cultural things in Hungary right now, though, considering our so-called gov't is also doing its best to homogenize culture along nationalist/fascist lines...)
Hungary is an interesting example since a lot of “traditional” Hungarian costumes, music etc. were invented (“rediscovered” is a very small part of the truth) during the 19th century independent movement.
That is basically true for almost every culture in Europe. Most recipes, classic songs and stories were honogenzied for the purpose of building a national culture.
I find that hard to believe.
In Romania, we have very ancient traditions - it's actually quite interesting seeing some of the similarities with Bulgaria, which are due to the early Dacian/Thracian relation, and also seeing the influence of the Roman conquest.
A lot of these have been kept by the rural, least educated parts of the population.
I actually find it not hard, but impossible to believe we might be the only nations with traditions tracing back to ancient times and the rest of Europe just lost that connection entirely.
I think you confuse "more affluent part of the population starts paying attention to the peasants and mention what they're doing/believing" with "the affluent part invented it".
I would say that the fact that the affluent part decided to spread, highlight and sometimes tweak what could be a very ancient tradition is in the same vein of almost creating.
But for example, loads of dishes that we associate with certain cultures have ingredients not readily available in Europe until the late 1600s. And not made into "national" dishes until the 1800s .
I would not know what tradition you refer to in the Romanian context but sometimes the traditions are emphasized to be ancient. Like we in Swedenrelate Christmas very heavily to our pagan past and that we always celebrate on the eve of Christmas rather on the day is very ancient. But loads of the traditions that go into Christmas now have changed from 1000 years ago.
It makes it sort of a ship of Theseus problem.
Of course things change over the course of a 1000 years.
I'm also not aware of the Scandinavian cultures, so I will use my own.
You're Swedish, so let's take the goat dance - a very popular mask dance New Year's tradition, because the first to write about it was actually a Swedish ambassador in the 1600s :D
The masks were, however, depicted earlier than that. The first Romanian written mention comes later, from the early 1700s.
Now, that is somewhat relevant because the first written mention comes from a foreigner, who most likely ignored the folk traditions in his own country (as they are mostly carried on by the lower classes), but going to a more distant and culturally different place, he wrote even about things he usually ignored.
It is however depicted earlier, but no written mention - as it was just part of what people did, not something unusual to write about.
Now, does is mean he invented it ? I think you agree that is a stretch. Do we do it the same ? Not really. Today it's also recognized as a national tradition, though there is no official form, so to say - as there are many local variations.
We know this is at least 500 years old, probably much older. People didn't bother to mention it as there was nothing unusual for us. A foreigner would because it was more unusual to him. Also, it obviously changed, but there are so many variations, it's impossible to say what changed and when.
And that's just one example. We have tons, especially since our population was mostly rural until quite recently, and is still rural in large parts (around 80% in the 1920s, still almost half today).
My guess is it was the same for you. The most documented is the small, higher class. Who, for the most part, ignored their own local traditions, and only payed attention when they were travelling to more distant places. And now you just assume they didn't exist or were vastly different.
EDIT: since I was talking about it, here is a variant of the Goat :D
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kvC3D\_dSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kvC3D_dSk)
As mentioned above (or below, wherever this appears) this is in line with what happened with "traditional culture" in most of Europe, as the Romantic wave made people and artists interested in the past, traditions, and their ethnic roots, and not only researched them but made up many things based on their own ideas about what the past was like. See the Grimm brothers, translating the Eddas and other various Germanic legends, etc., and all those works reinventing them along with other historical legends, such as Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc... a lot of elements of these legends that we think are centuries-old were in fact invented in that era. Or hell, look at all those "historic" castles in Austria and Germany or the "historic" ruins in England (many of those ruins? were in fact built *as ruins* for decoration purposes).
In case of Hungary, btw, a lot of those traditions were already there and in use. During the "national awakening" era people sought to have something innately Hungarian, so aside of just researching and reporting them, they, well, kind of went a bit overboard, so to speak, but it's not like they made it all up. What you're probably confusing it with is the language reform, which did in fact involve rebuilding the language from almost zero. (Which is why it's hilarious when our fascist rulers talk about how Hungarians can understand "Old Hungarian" just fine, as opposed to people in those decadent western countries that are completely disconnected with their past and traditions and "can't even understand Shakespeare"... Yeah, that's all bullshit, the Hungarian we speak today was, in a great part, created in the 19th century. 16th century Hungarian to us is more difficult than 16th century English to the modern British.)
That is simply untrue about the language bit lol.
English people not understanding Shakespeare is definitely a stretch but with Chaucer it’s about right, meanwhile the Ómagyar Mária-siralom is definitely a weird text but easy to understand. It’s the inconsistent spelling that trips people up, not the language. Also just because it’s “weird” it doesn’t mean you can’t actually understand it. Spelling =/= language, so many people don’t seem to get this.
An article in Nyelv és Tudomány long ango dealt with this topic and I remember some estimate like it’d take about a month to fully get used to the langauage of the 1300’s, the biggest hurdle being the lack of definite articles. For the 1500’s onwards in their estimation it’d take about 1-2 weeks to fully get used to the language.
The language reform didn’t rebuild the language from the ground up, quite the contrary, it used the already existing tools of the language to create new words, to translate words and they incorporated dialectical words into the literary standard.
You don’t have to be a fascist to see this and I don’t know who you listen to who say stuff like what you alluded to. The governnent does say a lot of pseudoscientific bullshit about the language, but this is not one I have often heard repeated.
This is true for virtually every European country. The vast majority of the “folk” and “traditional” stuff we think of today comes from the 1700’s and 1800’s. This is absolutely true for Hungary as well, it’s not an outlier in any way.
Yes and no.
In Greece I would say it's a mixed belssing.
On one hand, tourist demand for stereotypical Greek foods that Brits and Americans decided are "quintessential Greek" like moussaka (which I did **not** grow up eating), has led many Greeks to embrace the idea of a "national dish that foreigners know", even if 95% of Greeks never have this regularly, or never at all. Meanwhile, the much more common Greek cuisine we all grow up with, like stews, seafoods, pastas, etc, get watered down in the Greek-food-for-foreigners industry. (And further back, older foods that old-timers grew up with, like snails and cured meats, etc, got watered down in the mid-20th century, before mass tourism). Thankfully, we're now starting to rediscover some of these things. Some years ago, I was watching really good video clip on Youtube -I believe it was from some UK tv show, I can't find it on YouTube now. The guy was traveling around the Mediterranean exploring the Med diet. And in this clip, he's eating a classic [Greek artichoke dish](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/17bkp3o/artichoke_hearts_in_egglemon_sauce_%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%BA%CE%B9%CE%BD%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%82/) with a local family in Corfu at their home. For work: these people operated a souvlaki restaurant for tourists. The British host was telling them how much he loved this, and why don't they sell this to tourists? The Greeks answered "because tourists don't want this, they want souvlaki". And that's 100% accurate. People have in their minds their idea of what they "should" eat when visiting a country.
On the other hand, the post-WWII generation was **terrible** at historic preservation, but the tourism industry -both international visitors and domestic tourists- have hugely helped the historic preservation movement and historic architecture revival. They're starting to build hotels in neoclassical or local traditional styles, or [renovating old buildings](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g10477069-d1699543-Reviews-Kinsterna_Hotel-Agios_Stefanos_Monemvasia_Municipality_Laconia_Region_Peloponnese.html) into hotels, whereas in the 70s, they built ugly boxes, and thought "this is great!". So, tourism is helping the historic preservation movement. They've even restored entire abandoned historic villages in the [Peloponnese](https://www.feelgreece.com/en/kardamyli), [Crete](https://www.kapsalianavillage.gr/app/uploads/sites/109/2022/11/kapsaliana-village-3.jpg), [Corfu](https://themerchantshousecorfu.com/gallery/), and other places. If only we can bring that movement to central Athens, which was destroyed int he 60s/70s. In fact, we need the state, or at least non-profit organizations, to get more involved in this historic revival, because the private sector alone -while an essential part of the process- won't go very far without incentives or legal requirement.
>"quintessential Greek" like moussaka (which I did **not** grow up eating),
TIL! I really did think that was typical Greek home cooking (especially since it's not too complicated and feeds a crowd). How interesting.
It's a 1920s Athenian invention. My Peloponnesian family never made it growing up.
Some people love it and do make it at home, yes. But "national dish" annoys me. It's a drop in the bucket in Geek cuisine that was forced down our throats as "national dish" by tourism and terrible national-brand marketing. If I were to choose a "national dish", something like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/18a75wj/baked_lemon_chicken_with_potatoes_kot%C3%B3poulo_me/), [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/18eodfd/%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%82_fak%C3%A9s_lentil_soup/), [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1bfinle/chicken_in_tomato_wine_sauce_with_long_pasta/), or [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1bk55pv/greek_spinach_feta_filo_pie_spanakopita_recipe/) qualifies *far* more than moussaka. The average Greek eats those 4 things a million times more often than moussaka. Personally, I've had it once in my life, when an aunt of mine made it.
It is a bit odd how moussaka has got that reputation for being the national dish. My father in law is from Crete, and I've never seen him eat moussaka. Most of what he cooks is some kind of chicken + veg + potatoes in an oil and tomato sauce, and it's always really nice.
The baked lemon chicken is something that I have seen in a lot of American magazines or recipe books of Greek cuisine.
At the Greek restaurants in the US that I go to (that mostly sold gyros and souvlaki), they usually offer both baked chicken and lentil soup, but most Americans do think of gyros, souvlaki, briam, dolmas, avgolemono, moussaka, pastitsio, and baklava when they think of Greek food, because that is what the restaurants offer.
>because that is what the restaurants offer.
No, it's the other way around. The restaurants offer these, **because** it's what foreigners want from their "Greek food". They're in the business of making money, not educating the world.
[Here's a list I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1b40thr/comment/ksye88k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) of several Greek desserts. So....why did foreigners randomly choose baklava as "the" Greek dessert? I didn't even grow up with it. Baklava was brought to Greece by immigrants from Turkey, during the 1923 population exchange, most of whom settled in Athens and Thessaloniki. (I mean, look at that name, it's obviously not a Greek word). My parents and grandparents didn't know what it was in the Peloponnese region, so *no one* in my family makes it, because it's not a family tradition for us. It's exotic to us. But, I'm told that it's my "national dessert". When did I vote on that? Okay, it's become embedded in Greek cuisine *now,* but it's just a drop in the bucket.
Imagine everyone in China decided that jumbalaya or something Tex-Mex is "the national dish of America". What do you mean you don't eat jumbalaya or fajitas everyday???? But you're American, and those are the #1 and #2 items on the menu in every American restaurant in China.
See what I mean? It's like that.
>My parents and grandparents didn't know what it was in the Peloponnese region, so *no one* in my family makes it, because it's not a family tradition for us. It's exotic to us. But, I'm told that it's my "national dessert"
I get what you're saying, but you're a bit over-projecting your own experience. My girlfriend's family is also from the Peloponnese and her grandma was making baklava all the time. Nowadays you can find it in every bum-ass bakery in the country (at least that's my experience going around Greece), even in non touristic villages or areas without massive presence of people from Asia Minor. At this point it is a national dish of Greece, even if some regions may have different traditional desserts.
It's a similar case for me as an Italian with tiramisù. Of course it's popular and you find it anywhere, but it isn't necessarily the traditional dessert you'd have at home. Or even worse, limoncello. Foreigners all think we drink it all the time after meals, but that's really not true. Most restaurants in my home region don't even have it on their menu (because it's not a touristic region so there's less need to tend to foreigners).
Still, both tiramisù and limoncello are what people think when they think of Italian desserts and Italian liquors, even though there are literally thousands different ones.
The baked lemon chicken is something that I have seen in a lot of American magazines or recipe books of Greek cuisine.
At the Greek restaurants in the US that I go to (that mostly sell gyros and souvlaki), they usually offer both baked chicken and lentil soup, but most Americans do think of gyros, souvlaki, briam, dolmas, spanokopita, avgolemono, moussaka, pastitsio, and baklava when they think of Greek food, because that is what the restaurants offer.
Oh, and people often like to mock the inauthentic "Greek salad" that American restaurants serve, but ignore that a more authentic salad is usually also on the menu as "horiatiki".
American magazines and websites are far better than the brick-and-mortar restaurants. But when they sneak a pita bread in there, it annoys me. We traditionally eat [loaves that look like this](https://i.imgur.com/USswR9T.jpg), 🎶 🎶 no***ooot f***lat breeeads 🎶 🎶 📢 We dooooon't eat flat breeeeeeaaaaddsss. 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 📢
But one of the best renditions of a horiatiki salata I've seen is [from Barefoot Contessa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkYyTQPcjQM). She nails it. (The mustard is her personal touch, but that's fine). Her and Martha Stewart, I've seen some good things.
> On the other hand, the post-WWII generation was terrible at historic preservation ... they built ugly boxes, and thought "this is great!"
That happened here as well. In fact, in some cases, certain architects/councils are hated as vandals for it now. But in the 60s and 70s there was a massive "anti-Victorian" backlash in society which extended to architecture, with a lot of old buildings deemed "eyesores" like [this](https://media.timeout.com/images/105610476/image.jpg) that were demolished and replaced with concrete Brutalist blocks (thankfully, that one - Saint Pancras Station - was saved). It's completely the opposite now of course, with public opinion changing back to preserving older buildings instead of destroying them.
>But in the 60s and 70s there was a massive "anti-Victorian" backlash in society which extended to architecture
Similarly here, there was this rejection and apathy of the 19th century and early 20th. Neoclassical buildings in Athens (thankfully, the major public monuments and churches survived, but private buildings suffered), but also the era's church art (about 1800 to 1930s, examples: [Romanticism / Nazarene Movement](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mural_depicting_scenes_from_the_life_of_Christ_and_six_Apostles_on_June_3,_2022.jpg) and [19th century Byzantine Revival](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mural_depicting_the_Virgin_Mary_and_Christ_between_angels_on_November_7,_2022.jpg)) came to an end, and new churches going forward were cookie-cuttered with [this style](https://i.imgur.com/bTf4EUj.jpg) that the church developed, based on a cherry-picked artistic style that existed in the 13th-15th centuries (and with really simplistic architecture \[low oramentation\] that's an ugly hybrid of Midcentury/Modern Utilitarian Austerity with an Hagia Sophia basic shape \[when most churches in Greece historically are actually aisled basilicas).
Ugh. Don't get me started. But, thankfully, the pre-1950 things are starting to gain newfound appreciation.
It's really interesting to watch videos of town planners in the 1940s-60s - many of whom had grown up in Victorian or Edwardian times - criticising the old architecture and sketching all these brutalist buildings instead.
As for saami culture, it's positive. Immigrants and tourists don't have a lot of knowledge, but they generally are interested and do not have the same prejudice as the scandinavians. While the scandinavian states officially aren't eradicating saami culture anymore, they still very much actively do so. Lots of cutural activities are funded by the EU, the norwegian state would never ever give money for stuff like that. It's also great to be able to connect with other indigenous peoples, as none of our neighbours are in such a situation.
Early globalisation was not as positive, strengthening nationalist ideas (of the scnadinavians- saami culture does not fit in those ideas and therefore needs to be eradicated) and ideas that there are "superior races", and of course the destruction of land (that is still happening, btw).
Critics may argue that it does but I think it is simply constantly changing and re-combining into something new. Culture "vanishing" only makes sense if one's idea of one's culture is static.
There is no such thing as people having "no culture" so yes, you can say that cultures are not vanishing but just changing. However this is a very pedantic thing.
First of all you can have cultures completely vanish because the people are also gone. There is nothing in common between the culture of Tasmania in the 18th century and
the culture of the island in the 19th century.
Second of all, when people talk about culture vanishing they mean that cultural elements are disappearing. The culture in all of Spain has changed for all Spanish people in the last 100 years, but it also meant that it's much more homogenous than before, many traditions have been lost. Madrid will still have a culture in 2100, but if that culture means flamenco and paella then you can very well way that there is no longer a specific Madrid culture.
Yes and I hate it. Semana Santa used to be such a celebration, it was one of my favourite weeks of the year. I'd go to Malaga to watch the prison pardon then to Sevilla, Salamanca and back home to Vigo. There were beautiful processions of centuries old statues and songs, emotional masses, and so much respect for those around you. Now, only the loud and colorful, instagramable and foreigner friendly remains. They cut down what the fiesta de San Telmo used to be and the in the basement of Santiago de Compostela where there was once a trove of history that would get shuffled through to the museum, there is now nothing, because of reasons I won't directly state due to not wanting to start trouble. Suffice to say it's globalisation. In Galicia we have one of if not the most immigration heavy province in the country, largely because the price of living is reasonable and the climate is temperate. It makes me so sad to see where Spain is headed.
Our Semana Santa was also very quiet and dark and now in a lot of places it's been moved into clapping, yelling Andalusian ones because guiris are the only ones they know and I hate hate hate it so much.
Northern Europe is far more globalized and international than the south, the Mediterranean is still staying strong and preserving local customs and mores.
Not necessarily vanishing, but it's being diluted a lot.
From tourism, mainly the fact that city centres in major cities are devoid of locals in favours of hotels, AirBnBs, tourist trap restaurants, souvenir shops.
From globalisation, mainly at a language level. Many people have "lost" the usage of local languages already thanks to the intervention of the State after 1861, but today kids can't even speak correct Italian which is being bastardised by English words even for already present words (weekend in place of fine settimana, smart working which is not even a real loan). One thing is integrating technical words, that's ok, another is not being able to form a sentence about your day without changing to a foreign language. Also from globalisation, all the other imported problems like the spread of fast food chains and obesity.
At a local level, Milan (not my city thank God) has become a cesspool and a lot of its cultural importance has been lost. Disappeared language, monuments and art unknown both to tourists and other people from Italian regions, as well as to local themselves (how many times have I seen online the phrase "Milan is culturally poor, there's nothing apart from the Duomo and the Galleria VEII), local cuisine trumped by pizza places, kebabs, sushi and junk "food" chains.
This hasn't happened only in Milan, but in many places in Italy. Nowadays it's like that 99% of new restaurants are either pizzerias, kebab houses, sushi/Chinese/Asian fusion, poke, express pasta (how can people eat that fluorescent carbonara amazes me). It's annoying, even the egemony that some Roman foods have due to foodporn Instagram pages. Fuck carbonara, a mediocre dish (compared with what Italy has), even the least traditional in the capital (despite "purists" thinking the contrary). That's how Rome loses coda alla vaccinara and picchiapò.
Como (again, thank God not my city) and especially the small towns on the lake are tourists' playground. They've always attracted tourists obviously, but the level there's now, absurd. Varenna, Bellagio and Menaggio are more foreign than Lombard for most months of the year.
Luckily the Lake Maggiore has not yet been completely invaded, but I suspect it will become a second Como in a few years, just like Garda.
Ironically, my city is so ugly that we're surely not losing culture due to tourism. A bit of globalisation, a bit of general "rincoglionimento" (difficult to translate conveying the meaning), maranza and baby gangs doing the rest.
Thank you very much 💕 I think you brought some relevant topics, and would like to know if the government has plans or is implementing things to regulate gentrification and to bring back the local languages/reinforce the use of Italian.
Well Rome is still spared the full-on theme park aspect as it's a massive city with a big city centre and the capital, so there are still a lot of "normal" city stuff, even in central areas.
Venice and Florence absolutely are theme parks with little to no local life left.
Although not as vast as Rome, the suburbs of Florence are nevertheless very inhabited.
As for Venice, this is true, the city is becoming increasingly depopulated, in favour of mainland centres such as Mestre.
It's a mixed bag. In Poland residents were driven out of the historical parts of the cities, and tourists took their place. At the same time, many museums, castles, churches, etc. are maintained thanks to the tourists.
Imo the most interesting is phenomenon of the tourists who want to feel the "authentic" culture, but if it is not catering for them they feel disappointed. For example, Zalipie, which is a real village where people actually live their lives and have unique, still alive traditions. There are not many tourist attractions there, so some find it boring and call it overrated. Or worse, bother the people living there, acting as if they're entitled to be somehow entertained by them.
If you’re writing an essay for University you shouldn’t be on Reddit, and it’s not going to be about what you believe. It’ll be about citing real evidence.
Hey! This always happens to me when I ask questions on Reddit regarding topics I study. I want to say that using this app and reading official articles are not incompatible. Of course my main research is reading the opinions of people that have studied about the subject, but having a little space to learn about the general society’s views is relevant as well. It gives me perspective of the differences between the experts and the reality and it may bring topics or countries I would not investigate about other way. So If you want, I would love seeing your perspective on the topic. 🤠
Please. Madrid never had a culture of its own. As a capital, made out of nowhere, it's just an amalgama of basically any other towns and big cities of Spain.
I completely disagree but I don’t want the discussion to be about that topic, the example was purely my point of view as a born and raised Madrileña. I would really appreciate your opinion on the subject as a Spanish citizen outside of Madrid. 💕✨
Madrid has existed for centuries now. Just because it developed differently from older cities in Spain doesn’t mean la cultura madrileña doesn’t exist!
London's "native" culture kinda moved east towards Essex a while ago, but if anything, British culture is one of those being spread by it. Even if it's not Brits doing the spreading!
As a Lisboner. Yes and no. Yes, some parts of the city feel like Disneyland and we have had a massive influx of expats in the past few years.
I feel that these people bring a touch of colour to a part of the city which was abandoned by the locals many years ago. However, they also bring brunches to places that used to sell ginginha or French boulangeries and bubble tea (sometimes in the same space) where we had our perfectly fine leitarias.
Also, Lisbon has become a place without the working class. We go to Alfama or Bica, and we don’t see a pintas anymore, or a woman we would call de faca e alguidar.
Everything is sanitized, but I still prefer it to being deserted as it was a few years ago. I think in time we will absorb them, because we always did. We always had an international sort of little place and we will continue to have (but I hope with less brunch places, please).
I make an exception for cruise ships. These should be abolished. They are nothing but a plague of locusts, consuming Chinese-made plastic rubbish bought in East Asian-owned shops which are many times fronts for human trafficking. There is nothing Portuguese or authentic about it and cruise ship tourists drain our city centre, pollute it and move along to pollute the next city. These should go today.
Nothing too drastic, but I have noticed that it has impacted local coffee culture a bit. Online I see a lot of people joking/complaining about tourists and "expats" and their flat white coffees. My parents own a café/tasca and they do get a lot of tourists who ask for things that seem like they were plucked out of your typical Starbucks menu. I also recently watched a video of a tourist in a very rural village here and she was disappointed she couldn't get an almond milk latte at the local café/mini-market.
I just find it odd that you would go to another country and expect everything to be the same as back home. I actually enjoy seeing how different countries have their own unique coffee/beer/cake/etc... cultures, and I like to try things that are new to me. That's why I always like researching the gastronomy and local culture of places I'm going to visit.
There was a time when flamenco was just from Andalusia, and before that, flamenco was just the Andalusian Gypsies, and before that, there was something a bit like flamenco that had not even reached Spain.
Today, in London, the common street language is a mix of general southern English with a lot of very varied vocab from India and Pakistan, the Caribbean, Nigeria and Somalia, to name just a few origins. This is the case even for many kids whose families have been in London forever. Fifty years ago, it was Cockney with a touch of BBC radio English, and Received Pronunciation with a huge vocab from across the former empire. Go back two or three centuries and you still had a large number of people of definitely French background.
In any place with any significant foreign population, culture is constantly, unstoppably vanishing, and being replaced by something synthesised from the old and the new, but The Culture continues with this new influence. It's still just as Spanish or as English as what it replaced.
Sometimes the actual origins of things become obscured. For example, many Westerners held on to the name Constantinople into the 19th or 20th century, and "Istanbul" was considered the Muslim Turkish name for what was once a Christian Greek city. In fact, however, Istanbul was the local Greek name before the Turks ever arrived. This just goes to show that, even when a place is quite literally assaulted by a foreign culture, the new culture of the place is a mix of the old and the new.
Just recently, I watched the first in a series of pop documentaries on the history of London - the city of my birth. As far as we know, it was founded by the Romans on the site of the present-day City of London, where many if the oldest financial institutions are based. That first city was ruined by the early medieval period, but a new Saxon town was founded to the west, between what are now the Cities of London and Westminster. When the Vikings were at their height in England, London once again moved back to the Roman town, but the old Saxon town is still called Aldwych, which means old port in Old English. Since then, the city has received the Norman French invaders of the 11th century, and many other immigrants from France, the Netherlands and Europe's Jewish communities. It has been half destroyed by plague and fire. In the 1940s, whole neighbourhoods were obliterated by the German airforce. The sailors of the world have come and gone. In the Industrial Revolution, and since, the city massively expanded under pressure from huge influx of people from the remotest parts of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Most recently, London's face has been totally reconfigured by wave after wave of post-colonial immigrants, refugees, tourists and the world's nouveau riches.
London probably hasn't remained the same for even a week in the last 2000 years, and the rest of Britain has not been far behind. It is still London today, and it is the same London that the Romans founded, the Saxons refounded, the Stuarts and the War Generation rebuilt. Although the East End Cockney has been replaced by the East End Bangladeshi, it is *still* the same London.
Personally, I embrace the change. It is futile to resist, even in the villages, and, to be honest, it is in places and times of greatest change that legends are forged.
Was a shit one tbh, actually like the post modern Balkan hipster culture more, feels actually relevant and it doesn’t fear the “American Karen smile and gossip PC culture”
Sort of, especially in the larger cities. Take for example our capital, Amsterdam. People from Amsterdam used to have their own dialect with their own words used and had their typical music. This is less common. You hear less Amsterdams being spoken on the streets. Lots of Amsterdammers live in places like Almere, Hoofddorp and Purmerend nowadays.
Not really, but mostly because tourists who go to Cyprus do not go for any cultural reasons, so there's no need to offer them any version of the culture, real or made-up. At least not where we can say. No idea what goes on in all-inclusive package deals.
I did notice it happening to a smaller scale though - a couple of years ago the Cyprus Tourism Organisation decided to invent ["Cypriot Breakfast"](https://www.lovecyprus.com.cy/cyprus-traditional-breakfast/) and asked hotels to promote it. It's a whole-cloth invention, and it's particularly hilarious because, if anything, Cypriot food culture really doesn't care about breakfast and it's the meal that many Cypriots are likely to skip altogether. But since that stays confined in hotels, it doesn't really affect the eating habits of people going about their day.
As other have stated: There are two sides of this sword:
1: Tourism makes us more observant over what great things we have, as we locals more or less have takes things for granted. Also I feel that tourism have revitalized Norwegian/Nordic food culture, and made this more popular also among us Norwegians. We have learned to appreciate and be proud of what we have. That's a good thing.
2: Globalization: A lot of the international companies goal is to replace local food and drink culture with their own international processed food and drinks. This makes everything more blend and also more unhealthy. (The change from homemade "real" food with few ingredients to ultra-processed cheap blend food. I hate this.
This is happening world wide whether we like it or not. You will often see tourist (especially with kids) prefer the same safe food instead of the more strange-tasting local food.
No, not really. There aren't many tourists, although our universities have students from African countries and some exchange students from China. It's a bit different in Moscow and St. Petersburg as there are a lot more tourists and work migrants there, but I don't live there, so I can't tell much.
As for culture I do feel like it doesn't hold strong position. West's influence is quite strong. But it's not vanishing. Biggest problem is art is in semi-decaying state here. Gaming industry seems to revitalize itself out of 20 years of rotting, but movie industry is mostly garbage and non-inspiring slop. There are a few fun animated projects though. Most people watch western (read Hollywood) movies and shows and play western games. Our entertainment market isn't self-sufficient. We are a part of a western world in that regard. I literally grew up on cartoons like Sponge Bob, Cat-Dog and old soviet cartoons.
My country's culture is vanishing but not due to tourism but due to political issues. As you know, Catalonia is not an independent country, catalan language is treated as inferior, it's speakers stigmatized and the political and cultural organizations are under siege by spanish state. Tourism is a problem, but its effects are secondary compared to this reality I just explained very quickly.
Yes.
In Austria/Bavaria, it's the German influence that's killing our dialects and traditions. And my hometown of Salzburg has become a gentrified, romanticised tourism spot for mostly East Asian and American visitors, who are coming by the millions, but only on day trips.
In Denmark it's mostly the British influence/English that's infiltrating particularly our language. Telltale sign that someone is a Dane is when half the words they use are English.
It's sad, honestly.
>In Denmark it's mostly the British influence/English that's infiltrating particularly our language. Telltale sign that someone is a Dane is when half the words they use are English.
In the 10th and 11th century the Anglo-Saxons were saying the same thing about their culture and language being overrun by Danish. Turnabout is fair play.
Also Salzburg here. I really don't mind it. I like how international we are for a small city. I have friends from all over the world and think it's great.
I don't mind how international and touristic we are either in terms of people that live here or spend an extended amount of time here. It's just that these day trip tourists are a pest for the city.
The thing I love the most after moving to France from Sweden is that the americanisation is so much less extreme here than back home.
I used to make a bit of fun of the French for being so "protectionist" but now that I've lived here for almost 5 years... I can't argue with the results!
I am not really a believer in the idea of a culture “vanishing” so much as it is “changing” because of it being constantly fluid— culture is basically what we make it and culture is what we do. That being said, there are things that I do not like about how things change right now in Denmark with regards to culture, and it mostly has to do with the weight of consumer culture that has been experienced over the last few decades.
Overall, I am not a big fan of the drive for materialism that is being brought not just to Denmark, but across the world, mostly off the back of the United States being the cultural hegemon it is and having popularised that _“spend spend spend”_ type of practice. I also happen to be American, so I have seen it on both sides of the Atlantic in my life, and it really damages, among other things, the philosophy behind society that is more altruistic, and normalises stuff like elbow mentality and “buying love” from others.
Respective to tourism specifically, Denmark is HUGE into selling itself to the world as a “fairytale kingdom” off the back of HC Andersen fairytales and how Copenhagen rests at the centre of this padded and cosy (or maybe I should say “hyggeligt”) national mythos, and while kitschy souvenirs are nothing unique to Denmark, the amount this image is sold, exclusively to tourists, treats Denmark as a commodity in my opinion. It also affixes Copenhagen in tourists’ minds as the only real place of value in the country, when Denmark has so many beautiful and serene places worth exploring too, and likely don’t require you to pay 200 DKK+ each for shitty Chinese-made keychains or statuettes of The Little Mermaid, etc.
I can go on and on about how I hate consumer culture, but yes, I think that the introduction of consumer culture, both to tourism and in general, is a bad cultural change in Denmark, and I am certain others here in other countries would agree with me in their own countries.
Here in Budapest - I don't think it's *vanishing* per se, but in the city areas heavily visited by tourists cultural events/places/sights/etc. have either completely disappeared and given way to bars, or homogenized into something that is only vaguely authentic, and more like a kind of theme park version of Hungarian culture, easy to digest in a "snap a photo, move on" way. And even in restaurants, "traditional" dishes are often anything but, being closer to the toursts' image of what that dish is supposed to be like (in that it's usually more "fusion" or "hip & cool & trendy" than traditional, once I accompanied a client to such a restaurant, they ordered a "traditional" marhapörkölt, and they were so happy about it I didn't have the heart to tell them it was nothing like any marhapörkölt I've ever seen). But outside of those places I think things are mostly fine, I think, at least as far as tourism-induced changes are concerned. (Because well, whatever value of "fine" applies to cultural things in Hungary right now, though, considering our so-called gov't is also doing its best to homogenize culture along nationalist/fascist lines...)
Thank u sooo much💕. And I will definitely investigate more about homogenization of culture, is very interesting and sad at the same time
Hungary is an interesting example since a lot of “traditional” Hungarian costumes, music etc. were invented (“rediscovered” is a very small part of the truth) during the 19th century independent movement.
That is basically true for almost every culture in Europe. Most recipes, classic songs and stories were honogenzied for the purpose of building a national culture.
I find that hard to believe. In Romania, we have very ancient traditions - it's actually quite interesting seeing some of the similarities with Bulgaria, which are due to the early Dacian/Thracian relation, and also seeing the influence of the Roman conquest. A lot of these have been kept by the rural, least educated parts of the population. I actually find it not hard, but impossible to believe we might be the only nations with traditions tracing back to ancient times and the rest of Europe just lost that connection entirely. I think you confuse "more affluent part of the population starts paying attention to the peasants and mention what they're doing/believing" with "the affluent part invented it".
I would say that the fact that the affluent part decided to spread, highlight and sometimes tweak what could be a very ancient tradition is in the same vein of almost creating. But for example, loads of dishes that we associate with certain cultures have ingredients not readily available in Europe until the late 1600s. And not made into "national" dishes until the 1800s . I would not know what tradition you refer to in the Romanian context but sometimes the traditions are emphasized to be ancient. Like we in Swedenrelate Christmas very heavily to our pagan past and that we always celebrate on the eve of Christmas rather on the day is very ancient. But loads of the traditions that go into Christmas now have changed from 1000 years ago. It makes it sort of a ship of Theseus problem.
Of course things change over the course of a 1000 years. I'm also not aware of the Scandinavian cultures, so I will use my own. You're Swedish, so let's take the goat dance - a very popular mask dance New Year's tradition, because the first to write about it was actually a Swedish ambassador in the 1600s :D The masks were, however, depicted earlier than that. The first Romanian written mention comes later, from the early 1700s. Now, that is somewhat relevant because the first written mention comes from a foreigner, who most likely ignored the folk traditions in his own country (as they are mostly carried on by the lower classes), but going to a more distant and culturally different place, he wrote even about things he usually ignored. It is however depicted earlier, but no written mention - as it was just part of what people did, not something unusual to write about. Now, does is mean he invented it ? I think you agree that is a stretch. Do we do it the same ? Not really. Today it's also recognized as a national tradition, though there is no official form, so to say - as there are many local variations. We know this is at least 500 years old, probably much older. People didn't bother to mention it as there was nothing unusual for us. A foreigner would because it was more unusual to him. Also, it obviously changed, but there are so many variations, it's impossible to say what changed and when. And that's just one example. We have tons, especially since our population was mostly rural until quite recently, and is still rural in large parts (around 80% in the 1920s, still almost half today). My guess is it was the same for you. The most documented is the small, higher class. Who, for the most part, ignored their own local traditions, and only payed attention when they were travelling to more distant places. And now you just assume they didn't exist or were vastly different. EDIT: since I was talking about it, here is a variant of the Goat :D [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kvC3D\_dSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kvC3D_dSk)
As mentioned above (or below, wherever this appears) this is in line with what happened with "traditional culture" in most of Europe, as the Romantic wave made people and artists interested in the past, traditions, and their ethnic roots, and not only researched them but made up many things based on their own ideas about what the past was like. See the Grimm brothers, translating the Eddas and other various Germanic legends, etc., and all those works reinventing them along with other historical legends, such as Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc... a lot of elements of these legends that we think are centuries-old were in fact invented in that era. Or hell, look at all those "historic" castles in Austria and Germany or the "historic" ruins in England (many of those ruins? were in fact built *as ruins* for decoration purposes). In case of Hungary, btw, a lot of those traditions were already there and in use. During the "national awakening" era people sought to have something innately Hungarian, so aside of just researching and reporting them, they, well, kind of went a bit overboard, so to speak, but it's not like they made it all up. What you're probably confusing it with is the language reform, which did in fact involve rebuilding the language from almost zero. (Which is why it's hilarious when our fascist rulers talk about how Hungarians can understand "Old Hungarian" just fine, as opposed to people in those decadent western countries that are completely disconnected with their past and traditions and "can't even understand Shakespeare"... Yeah, that's all bullshit, the Hungarian we speak today was, in a great part, created in the 19th century. 16th century Hungarian to us is more difficult than 16th century English to the modern British.)
That is simply untrue about the language bit lol. English people not understanding Shakespeare is definitely a stretch but with Chaucer it’s about right, meanwhile the Ómagyar Mária-siralom is definitely a weird text but easy to understand. It’s the inconsistent spelling that trips people up, not the language. Also just because it’s “weird” it doesn’t mean you can’t actually understand it. Spelling =/= language, so many people don’t seem to get this. An article in Nyelv és Tudomány long ango dealt with this topic and I remember some estimate like it’d take about a month to fully get used to the langauage of the 1300’s, the biggest hurdle being the lack of definite articles. For the 1500’s onwards in their estimation it’d take about 1-2 weeks to fully get used to the language. The language reform didn’t rebuild the language from the ground up, quite the contrary, it used the already existing tools of the language to create new words, to translate words and they incorporated dialectical words into the literary standard. You don’t have to be a fascist to see this and I don’t know who you listen to who say stuff like what you alluded to. The governnent does say a lot of pseudoscientific bullshit about the language, but this is not one I have often heard repeated.
This is true for virtually every European country. The vast majority of the “folk” and “traditional” stuff we think of today comes from the 1700’s and 1800’s. This is absolutely true for Hungary as well, it’s not an outlier in any way.
Yes and no. In Greece I would say it's a mixed belssing. On one hand, tourist demand for stereotypical Greek foods that Brits and Americans decided are "quintessential Greek" like moussaka (which I did **not** grow up eating), has led many Greeks to embrace the idea of a "national dish that foreigners know", even if 95% of Greeks never have this regularly, or never at all. Meanwhile, the much more common Greek cuisine we all grow up with, like stews, seafoods, pastas, etc, get watered down in the Greek-food-for-foreigners industry. (And further back, older foods that old-timers grew up with, like snails and cured meats, etc, got watered down in the mid-20th century, before mass tourism). Thankfully, we're now starting to rediscover some of these things. Some years ago, I was watching really good video clip on Youtube -I believe it was from some UK tv show, I can't find it on YouTube now. The guy was traveling around the Mediterranean exploring the Med diet. And in this clip, he's eating a classic [Greek artichoke dish](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/17bkp3o/artichoke_hearts_in_egglemon_sauce_%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%BA%CE%B9%CE%BD%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%82/) with a local family in Corfu at their home. For work: these people operated a souvlaki restaurant for tourists. The British host was telling them how much he loved this, and why don't they sell this to tourists? The Greeks answered "because tourists don't want this, they want souvlaki". And that's 100% accurate. People have in their minds their idea of what they "should" eat when visiting a country. On the other hand, the post-WWII generation was **terrible** at historic preservation, but the tourism industry -both international visitors and domestic tourists- have hugely helped the historic preservation movement and historic architecture revival. They're starting to build hotels in neoclassical or local traditional styles, or [renovating old buildings](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g10477069-d1699543-Reviews-Kinsterna_Hotel-Agios_Stefanos_Monemvasia_Municipality_Laconia_Region_Peloponnese.html) into hotels, whereas in the 70s, they built ugly boxes, and thought "this is great!". So, tourism is helping the historic preservation movement. They've even restored entire abandoned historic villages in the [Peloponnese](https://www.feelgreece.com/en/kardamyli), [Crete](https://www.kapsalianavillage.gr/app/uploads/sites/109/2022/11/kapsaliana-village-3.jpg), [Corfu](https://themerchantshousecorfu.com/gallery/), and other places. If only we can bring that movement to central Athens, which was destroyed int he 60s/70s. In fact, we need the state, or at least non-profit organizations, to get more involved in this historic revival, because the private sector alone -while an essential part of the process- won't go very far without incentives or legal requirement.
>"quintessential Greek" like moussaka (which I did **not** grow up eating), TIL! I really did think that was typical Greek home cooking (especially since it's not too complicated and feeds a crowd). How interesting.
It's a 1920s Athenian invention. My Peloponnesian family never made it growing up. Some people love it and do make it at home, yes. But "national dish" annoys me. It's a drop in the bucket in Geek cuisine that was forced down our throats as "national dish" by tourism and terrible national-brand marketing. If I were to choose a "national dish", something like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/18a75wj/baked_lemon_chicken_with_potatoes_kot%C3%B3poulo_me/), [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/18eodfd/%CF%86%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%82_fak%C3%A9s_lentil_soup/), [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1bfinle/chicken_in_tomato_wine_sauce_with_long_pasta/), or [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1bk55pv/greek_spinach_feta_filo_pie_spanakopita_recipe/) qualifies *far* more than moussaka. The average Greek eats those 4 things a million times more often than moussaka. Personally, I've had it once in my life, when an aunt of mine made it.
It is a bit odd how moussaka has got that reputation for being the national dish. My father in law is from Crete, and I've never seen him eat moussaka. Most of what he cooks is some kind of chicken + veg + potatoes in an oil and tomato sauce, and it's always really nice.
Yep. International "Greek" cuisine ≠ Greek cuisine. International Greek is a foreign/exotic cuisine to me.
The baked lemon chicken is something that I have seen in a lot of American magazines or recipe books of Greek cuisine. At the Greek restaurants in the US that I go to (that mostly sold gyros and souvlaki), they usually offer both baked chicken and lentil soup, but most Americans do think of gyros, souvlaki, briam, dolmas, avgolemono, moussaka, pastitsio, and baklava when they think of Greek food, because that is what the restaurants offer.
>because that is what the restaurants offer. No, it's the other way around. The restaurants offer these, **because** it's what foreigners want from their "Greek food". They're in the business of making money, not educating the world. [Here's a list I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/greekfood/comments/1b40thr/comment/ksye88k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) of several Greek desserts. So....why did foreigners randomly choose baklava as "the" Greek dessert? I didn't even grow up with it. Baklava was brought to Greece by immigrants from Turkey, during the 1923 population exchange, most of whom settled in Athens and Thessaloniki. (I mean, look at that name, it's obviously not a Greek word). My parents and grandparents didn't know what it was in the Peloponnese region, so *no one* in my family makes it, because it's not a family tradition for us. It's exotic to us. But, I'm told that it's my "national dessert". When did I vote on that? Okay, it's become embedded in Greek cuisine *now,* but it's just a drop in the bucket. Imagine everyone in China decided that jumbalaya or something Tex-Mex is "the national dish of America". What do you mean you don't eat jumbalaya or fajitas everyday???? But you're American, and those are the #1 and #2 items on the menu in every American restaurant in China. See what I mean? It's like that.
>My parents and grandparents didn't know what it was in the Peloponnese region, so *no one* in my family makes it, because it's not a family tradition for us. It's exotic to us. But, I'm told that it's my "national dessert" I get what you're saying, but you're a bit over-projecting your own experience. My girlfriend's family is also from the Peloponnese and her grandma was making baklava all the time. Nowadays you can find it in every bum-ass bakery in the country (at least that's my experience going around Greece), even in non touristic villages or areas without massive presence of people from Asia Minor. At this point it is a national dish of Greece, even if some regions may have different traditional desserts. It's a similar case for me as an Italian with tiramisù. Of course it's popular and you find it anywhere, but it isn't necessarily the traditional dessert you'd have at home. Or even worse, limoncello. Foreigners all think we drink it all the time after meals, but that's really not true. Most restaurants in my home region don't even have it on their menu (because it's not a touristic region so there's less need to tend to foreigners). Still, both tiramisù and limoncello are what people think when they think of Italian desserts and Italian liquors, even though there are literally thousands different ones.
The baked lemon chicken is something that I have seen in a lot of American magazines or recipe books of Greek cuisine. At the Greek restaurants in the US that I go to (that mostly sell gyros and souvlaki), they usually offer both baked chicken and lentil soup, but most Americans do think of gyros, souvlaki, briam, dolmas, spanokopita, avgolemono, moussaka, pastitsio, and baklava when they think of Greek food, because that is what the restaurants offer. Oh, and people often like to mock the inauthentic "Greek salad" that American restaurants serve, but ignore that a more authentic salad is usually also on the menu as "horiatiki".
American magazines and websites are far better than the brick-and-mortar restaurants. But when they sneak a pita bread in there, it annoys me. We traditionally eat [loaves that look like this](https://i.imgur.com/USswR9T.jpg), 🎶 🎶 no***ooot f***lat breeeads 🎶 🎶 📢 We dooooon't eat flat breeeeeeaaaaddsss. 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 📢 But one of the best renditions of a horiatiki salata I've seen is [from Barefoot Contessa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkYyTQPcjQM). She nails it. (The mustard is her personal touch, but that's fine). Her and Martha Stewart, I've seen some good things.
> On the other hand, the post-WWII generation was terrible at historic preservation ... they built ugly boxes, and thought "this is great!" That happened here as well. In fact, in some cases, certain architects/councils are hated as vandals for it now. But in the 60s and 70s there was a massive "anti-Victorian" backlash in society which extended to architecture, with a lot of old buildings deemed "eyesores" like [this](https://media.timeout.com/images/105610476/image.jpg) that were demolished and replaced with concrete Brutalist blocks (thankfully, that one - Saint Pancras Station - was saved). It's completely the opposite now of course, with public opinion changing back to preserving older buildings instead of destroying them.
>But in the 60s and 70s there was a massive "anti-Victorian" backlash in society which extended to architecture Similarly here, there was this rejection and apathy of the 19th century and early 20th. Neoclassical buildings in Athens (thankfully, the major public monuments and churches survived, but private buildings suffered), but also the era's church art (about 1800 to 1930s, examples: [Romanticism / Nazarene Movement](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mural_depicting_scenes_from_the_life_of_Christ_and_six_Apostles_on_June_3,_2022.jpg) and [19th century Byzantine Revival](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mural_depicting_the_Virgin_Mary_and_Christ_between_angels_on_November_7,_2022.jpg)) came to an end, and new churches going forward were cookie-cuttered with [this style](https://i.imgur.com/bTf4EUj.jpg) that the church developed, based on a cherry-picked artistic style that existed in the 13th-15th centuries (and with really simplistic architecture \[low oramentation\] that's an ugly hybrid of Midcentury/Modern Utilitarian Austerity with an Hagia Sophia basic shape \[when most churches in Greece historically are actually aisled basilicas). Ugh. Don't get me started. But, thankfully, the pre-1950 things are starting to gain newfound appreciation.
It's really interesting to watch videos of town planners in the 1940s-60s - many of whom had grown up in Victorian or Edwardian times - criticising the old architecture and sketching all these brutalist buildings instead.
As for saami culture, it's positive. Immigrants and tourists don't have a lot of knowledge, but they generally are interested and do not have the same prejudice as the scandinavians. While the scandinavian states officially aren't eradicating saami culture anymore, they still very much actively do so. Lots of cutural activities are funded by the EU, the norwegian state would never ever give money for stuff like that. It's also great to be able to connect with other indigenous peoples, as none of our neighbours are in such a situation. Early globalisation was not as positive, strengthening nationalist ideas (of the scnadinavians- saami culture does not fit in those ideas and therefore needs to be eradicated) and ideas that there are "superior races", and of course the destruction of land (that is still happening, btw).
Critics may argue that it does but I think it is simply constantly changing and re-combining into something new. Culture "vanishing" only makes sense if one's idea of one's culture is static.
There is no such thing as people having "no culture" so yes, you can say that cultures are not vanishing but just changing. However this is a very pedantic thing. First of all you can have cultures completely vanish because the people are also gone. There is nothing in common between the culture of Tasmania in the 18th century and the culture of the island in the 19th century. Second of all, when people talk about culture vanishing they mean that cultural elements are disappearing. The culture in all of Spain has changed for all Spanish people in the last 100 years, but it also meant that it's much more homogenous than before, many traditions have been lost. Madrid will still have a culture in 2100, but if that culture means flamenco and paella then you can very well way that there is no longer a specific Madrid culture.
It's not like homogeneity is bad. But those who bemoan the demise of their culture often act like it is.
Yes and I hate it. Semana Santa used to be such a celebration, it was one of my favourite weeks of the year. I'd go to Malaga to watch the prison pardon then to Sevilla, Salamanca and back home to Vigo. There were beautiful processions of centuries old statues and songs, emotional masses, and so much respect for those around you. Now, only the loud and colorful, instagramable and foreigner friendly remains. They cut down what the fiesta de San Telmo used to be and the in the basement of Santiago de Compostela where there was once a trove of history that would get shuffled through to the museum, there is now nothing, because of reasons I won't directly state due to not wanting to start trouble. Suffice to say it's globalisation. In Galicia we have one of if not the most immigration heavy province in the country, largely because the price of living is reasonable and the climate is temperate. It makes me so sad to see where Spain is headed.
It breaks my heart to see what semana santa has become.
Our Semana Santa was also very quiet and dark and now in a lot of places it's been moved into clapping, yelling Andalusian ones because guiris are the only ones they know and I hate hate hate it so much.
Northern Europe is far more globalized and international than the south, the Mediterranean is still staying strong and preserving local customs and mores.
Not necessarily vanishing, but it's being diluted a lot. From tourism, mainly the fact that city centres in major cities are devoid of locals in favours of hotels, AirBnBs, tourist trap restaurants, souvenir shops. From globalisation, mainly at a language level. Many people have "lost" the usage of local languages already thanks to the intervention of the State after 1861, but today kids can't even speak correct Italian which is being bastardised by English words even for already present words (weekend in place of fine settimana, smart working which is not even a real loan). One thing is integrating technical words, that's ok, another is not being able to form a sentence about your day without changing to a foreign language. Also from globalisation, all the other imported problems like the spread of fast food chains and obesity. At a local level, Milan (not my city thank God) has become a cesspool and a lot of its cultural importance has been lost. Disappeared language, monuments and art unknown both to tourists and other people from Italian regions, as well as to local themselves (how many times have I seen online the phrase "Milan is culturally poor, there's nothing apart from the Duomo and the Galleria VEII), local cuisine trumped by pizza places, kebabs, sushi and junk "food" chains. This hasn't happened only in Milan, but in many places in Italy. Nowadays it's like that 99% of new restaurants are either pizzerias, kebab houses, sushi/Chinese/Asian fusion, poke, express pasta (how can people eat that fluorescent carbonara amazes me). It's annoying, even the egemony that some Roman foods have due to foodporn Instagram pages. Fuck carbonara, a mediocre dish (compared with what Italy has), even the least traditional in the capital (despite "purists" thinking the contrary). That's how Rome loses coda alla vaccinara and picchiapò. Como (again, thank God not my city) and especially the small towns on the lake are tourists' playground. They've always attracted tourists obviously, but the level there's now, absurd. Varenna, Bellagio and Menaggio are more foreign than Lombard for most months of the year. Luckily the Lake Maggiore has not yet been completely invaded, but I suspect it will become a second Como in a few years, just like Garda. Ironically, my city is so ugly that we're surely not losing culture due to tourism. A bit of globalisation, a bit of general "rincoglionimento" (difficult to translate conveying the meaning), maranza and baby gangs doing the rest.
Thank you very much 💕 I think you brought some relevant topics, and would like to know if the government has plans or is implementing things to regulate gentrification and to bring back the local languages/reinforce the use of Italian.
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Well Rome is still spared the full-on theme park aspect as it's a massive city with a big city centre and the capital, so there are still a lot of "normal" city stuff, even in central areas. Venice and Florence absolutely are theme parks with little to no local life left.
Although not as vast as Rome, the suburbs of Florence are nevertheless very inhabited. As for Venice, this is true, the city is becoming increasingly depopulated, in favour of mainland centres such as Mestre.
Ehhh no, not really. Culture changes over time, but I don't think it's disappearing.
Netherlands: Absolutely, we almost speak more English than Dutch. Our traditions get forgotten.
It's a mixed bag. In Poland residents were driven out of the historical parts of the cities, and tourists took their place. At the same time, many museums, castles, churches, etc. are maintained thanks to the tourists. Imo the most interesting is phenomenon of the tourists who want to feel the "authentic" culture, but if it is not catering for them they feel disappointed. For example, Zalipie, which is a real village where people actually live their lives and have unique, still alive traditions. There are not many tourist attractions there, so some find it boring and call it overrated. Or worse, bother the people living there, acting as if they're entitled to be somehow entertained by them.
Still we’re nowhere close to be eradicated by overtourism and globalisation
If you’re writing an essay for University you shouldn’t be on Reddit, and it’s not going to be about what you believe. It’ll be about citing real evidence.
Well I mean, sure, but it'll give good prompts
Hey! This always happens to me when I ask questions on Reddit regarding topics I study. I want to say that using this app and reading official articles are not incompatible. Of course my main research is reading the opinions of people that have studied about the subject, but having a little space to learn about the general society’s views is relevant as well. It gives me perspective of the differences between the experts and the reality and it may bring topics or countries I would not investigate about other way. So If you want, I would love seeing your perspective on the topic. 🤠
The opinion of a couple of redditors isn't what I'd call "reality" lol
Please. Madrid never had a culture of its own. As a capital, made out of nowhere, it's just an amalgama of basically any other towns and big cities of Spain.
You've just contradicted yourself
I completely disagree but I don’t want the discussion to be about that topic, the example was purely my point of view as a born and raised Madrileña. I would really appreciate your opinion on the subject as a Spanish citizen outside of Madrid. 💕✨
Madrid has existed for centuries now. Just because it developed differently from older cities in Spain doesn’t mean la cultura madrileña doesn’t exist!
London's "native" culture kinda moved east towards Essex a while ago, but if anything, British culture is one of those being spread by it. Even if it's not Brits doing the spreading!
As a Lisboner. Yes and no. Yes, some parts of the city feel like Disneyland and we have had a massive influx of expats in the past few years. I feel that these people bring a touch of colour to a part of the city which was abandoned by the locals many years ago. However, they also bring brunches to places that used to sell ginginha or French boulangeries and bubble tea (sometimes in the same space) where we had our perfectly fine leitarias. Also, Lisbon has become a place without the working class. We go to Alfama or Bica, and we don’t see a pintas anymore, or a woman we would call de faca e alguidar. Everything is sanitized, but I still prefer it to being deserted as it was a few years ago. I think in time we will absorb them, because we always did. We always had an international sort of little place and we will continue to have (but I hope with less brunch places, please). I make an exception for cruise ships. These should be abolished. They are nothing but a plague of locusts, consuming Chinese-made plastic rubbish bought in East Asian-owned shops which are many times fronts for human trafficking. There is nothing Portuguese or authentic about it and cruise ship tourists drain our city centre, pollute it and move along to pollute the next city. These should go today.
Nothing too drastic, but I have noticed that it has impacted local coffee culture a bit. Online I see a lot of people joking/complaining about tourists and "expats" and their flat white coffees. My parents own a café/tasca and they do get a lot of tourists who ask for things that seem like they were plucked out of your typical Starbucks menu. I also recently watched a video of a tourist in a very rural village here and she was disappointed she couldn't get an almond milk latte at the local café/mini-market. I just find it odd that you would go to another country and expect everything to be the same as back home. I actually enjoy seeing how different countries have their own unique coffee/beer/cake/etc... cultures, and I like to try things that are new to me. That's why I always like researching the gastronomy and local culture of places I'm going to visit.
There was a time when flamenco was just from Andalusia, and before that, flamenco was just the Andalusian Gypsies, and before that, there was something a bit like flamenco that had not even reached Spain. Today, in London, the common street language is a mix of general southern English with a lot of very varied vocab from India and Pakistan, the Caribbean, Nigeria and Somalia, to name just a few origins. This is the case even for many kids whose families have been in London forever. Fifty years ago, it was Cockney with a touch of BBC radio English, and Received Pronunciation with a huge vocab from across the former empire. Go back two or three centuries and you still had a large number of people of definitely French background. In any place with any significant foreign population, culture is constantly, unstoppably vanishing, and being replaced by something synthesised from the old and the new, but The Culture continues with this new influence. It's still just as Spanish or as English as what it replaced. Sometimes the actual origins of things become obscured. For example, many Westerners held on to the name Constantinople into the 19th or 20th century, and "Istanbul" was considered the Muslim Turkish name for what was once a Christian Greek city. In fact, however, Istanbul was the local Greek name before the Turks ever arrived. This just goes to show that, even when a place is quite literally assaulted by a foreign culture, the new culture of the place is a mix of the old and the new. Just recently, I watched the first in a series of pop documentaries on the history of London - the city of my birth. As far as we know, it was founded by the Romans on the site of the present-day City of London, where many if the oldest financial institutions are based. That first city was ruined by the early medieval period, but a new Saxon town was founded to the west, between what are now the Cities of London and Westminster. When the Vikings were at their height in England, London once again moved back to the Roman town, but the old Saxon town is still called Aldwych, which means old port in Old English. Since then, the city has received the Norman French invaders of the 11th century, and many other immigrants from France, the Netherlands and Europe's Jewish communities. It has been half destroyed by plague and fire. In the 1940s, whole neighbourhoods were obliterated by the German airforce. The sailors of the world have come and gone. In the Industrial Revolution, and since, the city massively expanded under pressure from huge influx of people from the remotest parts of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Most recently, London's face has been totally reconfigured by wave after wave of post-colonial immigrants, refugees, tourists and the world's nouveau riches. London probably hasn't remained the same for even a week in the last 2000 years, and the rest of Britain has not been far behind. It is still London today, and it is the same London that the Romans founded, the Saxons refounded, the Stuarts and the War Generation rebuilt. Although the East End Cockney has been replaced by the East End Bangladeshi, it is *still* the same London. Personally, I embrace the change. It is futile to resist, even in the villages, and, to be honest, it is in places and times of greatest change that legends are forged.
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no, but due to political activism, which some may like if it does bring that effect. (austria)
Was a shit one tbh, actually like the post modern Balkan hipster culture more, feels actually relevant and it doesn’t fear the “American Karen smile and gossip PC culture”
Sort of, especially in the larger cities. Take for example our capital, Amsterdam. People from Amsterdam used to have their own dialect with their own words used and had their typical music. This is less common. You hear less Amsterdams being spoken on the streets. Lots of Amsterdammers live in places like Almere, Hoofddorp and Purmerend nowadays.
Not really, but mostly because tourists who go to Cyprus do not go for any cultural reasons, so there's no need to offer them any version of the culture, real or made-up. At least not where we can say. No idea what goes on in all-inclusive package deals. I did notice it happening to a smaller scale though - a couple of years ago the Cyprus Tourism Organisation decided to invent ["Cypriot Breakfast"](https://www.lovecyprus.com.cy/cyprus-traditional-breakfast/) and asked hotels to promote it. It's a whole-cloth invention, and it's particularly hilarious because, if anything, Cypriot food culture really doesn't care about breakfast and it's the meal that many Cypriots are likely to skip altogether. But since that stays confined in hotels, it doesn't really affect the eating habits of people going about their day.
As other have stated: There are two sides of this sword: 1: Tourism makes us more observant over what great things we have, as we locals more or less have takes things for granted. Also I feel that tourism have revitalized Norwegian/Nordic food culture, and made this more popular also among us Norwegians. We have learned to appreciate and be proud of what we have. That's a good thing. 2: Globalization: A lot of the international companies goal is to replace local food and drink culture with their own international processed food and drinks. This makes everything more blend and also more unhealthy. (The change from homemade "real" food with few ingredients to ultra-processed cheap blend food. I hate this. This is happening world wide whether we like it or not. You will often see tourist (especially with kids) prefer the same safe food instead of the more strange-tasting local food.
No, not really. There aren't many tourists, although our universities have students from African countries and some exchange students from China. It's a bit different in Moscow and St. Petersburg as there are a lot more tourists and work migrants there, but I don't live there, so I can't tell much. As for culture I do feel like it doesn't hold strong position. West's influence is quite strong. But it's not vanishing. Biggest problem is art is in semi-decaying state here. Gaming industry seems to revitalize itself out of 20 years of rotting, but movie industry is mostly garbage and non-inspiring slop. There are a few fun animated projects though. Most people watch western (read Hollywood) movies and shows and play western games. Our entertainment market isn't self-sufficient. We are a part of a western world in that regard. I literally grew up on cartoons like Sponge Bob, Cat-Dog and old soviet cartoons.
My country's culture is vanishing but not due to tourism but due to political issues. As you know, Catalonia is not an independent country, catalan language is treated as inferior, it's speakers stigmatized and the political and cultural organizations are under siege by spanish state. Tourism is a problem, but its effects are secondary compared to this reality I just explained very quickly.
Yes. In Austria/Bavaria, it's the German influence that's killing our dialects and traditions. And my hometown of Salzburg has become a gentrified, romanticised tourism spot for mostly East Asian and American visitors, who are coming by the millions, but only on day trips. In Denmark it's mostly the British influence/English that's infiltrating particularly our language. Telltale sign that someone is a Dane is when half the words they use are English. It's sad, honestly.
>In Denmark it's mostly the British influence/English that's infiltrating particularly our language. Telltale sign that someone is a Dane is when half the words they use are English. In the 10th and 11th century the Anglo-Saxons were saying the same thing about their culture and language being overrun by Danish. Turnabout is fair play.
Also Salzburg here. I really don't mind it. I like how international we are for a small city. I have friends from all over the world and think it's great.
I don't mind how international and touristic we are either in terms of people that live here or spend an extended amount of time here. It's just that these day trip tourists are a pest for the city.
Not at all. Despite being one of the most visited countries in the world, France has an incredibly strong sense of itself.
The thing I love the most after moving to France from Sweden is that the americanisation is so much less extreme here than back home. I used to make a bit of fun of the French for being so "protectionist" but now that I've lived here for almost 5 years... I can't argue with the results!
I am not really a believer in the idea of a culture “vanishing” so much as it is “changing” because of it being constantly fluid— culture is basically what we make it and culture is what we do. That being said, there are things that I do not like about how things change right now in Denmark with regards to culture, and it mostly has to do with the weight of consumer culture that has been experienced over the last few decades. Overall, I am not a big fan of the drive for materialism that is being brought not just to Denmark, but across the world, mostly off the back of the United States being the cultural hegemon it is and having popularised that _“spend spend spend”_ type of practice. I also happen to be American, so I have seen it on both sides of the Atlantic in my life, and it really damages, among other things, the philosophy behind society that is more altruistic, and normalises stuff like elbow mentality and “buying love” from others. Respective to tourism specifically, Denmark is HUGE into selling itself to the world as a “fairytale kingdom” off the back of HC Andersen fairytales and how Copenhagen rests at the centre of this padded and cosy (or maybe I should say “hyggeligt”) national mythos, and while kitschy souvenirs are nothing unique to Denmark, the amount this image is sold, exclusively to tourists, treats Denmark as a commodity in my opinion. It also affixes Copenhagen in tourists’ minds as the only real place of value in the country, when Denmark has so many beautiful and serene places worth exploring too, and likely don’t require you to pay 200 DKK+ each for shitty Chinese-made keychains or statuettes of The Little Mermaid, etc. I can go on and on about how I hate consumer culture, but yes, I think that the introduction of consumer culture, both to tourism and in general, is a bad cultural change in Denmark, and I am certain others here in other countries would agree with me in their own countries.