Controversial title I know, but stay with me on this one.
I am totally fed up with people who talk in cinemas, theatres, lectures, concerts etc, and who not only do not turn off their phones, but actually answer them when they ring. Why spend several hundred pesos on a ticket, then talk through the event, spoiling it for you and the people around?
I am also fed up with people just dropping litter everywhere, and not doing it in a sly subtle way, but so brazenly that it seems they think there is an invisible litter bin just below their hand.
Don't even get me started on the queue etiquete, or lack of...
It just seems that Dominicans have no consideration for the feelings of those around.
Now, at the same time I acknowledge that I can't walk along a road in the campo without every passing vehicle offering me a bola, nor can I pass my neighbours' front doors in the campo without being offered a coffee or a meal. I frequently find people going miles out of their way to help me in minor and inconsiderate things. They are also very open to tell me about themselves.
So there appears to be a contradiction: are people here just inconsiderate to people they don't know, or are they inconsiderate yet generous, or is it a rural/urban divide? How can one make sense of Dominican etiquete, and is it justified to confiscate someone's phone if it rings in the cinema?
Calling all anthropologists out there.
I am totally fed up with people who talk in cinemas, theatres, lectures, concerts etc, and who not only do not turn off their phones, but actually answer them when they ring. Why spend several hundred pesos on a ticket, then talk through the event, spoiling it for you and the people around?
I am also fed up with people just dropping litter everywhere, and not doing it in a sly subtle way, but so brazenly that it seems they think there is an invisible litter bin just below their hand.
Don't even get me started on the queue etiquete, or lack of...
It just seems that Dominicans have no consideration for the feelings of those around.
Now, at the same time I acknowledge that I can't walk along a road in the campo without every passing vehicle offering me a bola, nor can I pass my neighbours' front doors in the campo without being offered a coffee or a meal. I frequently find people going miles out of their way to help me in minor and inconsiderate things. They are also very open to tell me about themselves.
So there appears to be a contradiction: are people here just inconsiderate to people they don't know, or are they inconsiderate yet generous, or is it a rural/urban divide? How can one make sense of Dominican etiquete, and is it justified to confiscate someone's phone if it rings in the cinema?
Calling all anthropologists out there.