Indian Adventure

for almost 3 weeks now, I've had a string of visitors from India. The Visitors where our clients, in short they pay the bills. They came here for a series of meetings and trainings...yes we were training them. Although they were soooo technologically advanced, when it comes to stuff that cant be taught at school, that is were we kick ass. Anyway I learned a lot from their visits and also from my visits to bangalore as well. Hopefully if you do get indian visitors these tips could help you with the "Peculiarities" in their culture.

Food
- In india people are divided to the veg ("Vej") and non-veg. or non vegetarians. Now dont mistake the indian vegetarians to the salad eating western vegetarian. The Indian Vegetarian is a whole different category on its own and they DO NOT like the same food as the western vegetarian. For them , I would guess a trip to the salad bar for lunch is eating food whose chef was too lazy too cook. Kumbaga sa pork, wala man lang kahit anong timpla basta pinakuluan lang , not very delectable.
- I also noticed that their is a bit of a superiority complex of the non-vegetarians with the vegetarians. Ang feeling ko , the vegetarians are what we can consider "Old School" Indians, mostly those who hasnt travelled outside india, the conformist... and the vegetarians are the guys willing tro try new stuff. First I thought..ang babaw, its just eating meat, whats the big deal...then I tried putting myself into their shoes and being thought and exposed to an environment your whole life to the same type of food and being restricted to it ..then It is a big thing to try something new.
- Although none vegetarians, they do not eat pork and beef. Beef for religious reasons, and Pork because the general notion they have is that it is dirty meat. I just learned this pork thing last week.
- Normal meat is chicken, duck and lamb. But even the way the meat is cooked is slightly peculiar. A few years ago we had some indian guests and I ordered some veggies, and Lechon manok for the other guests. The Indian guys only ate the veggies, but when I went to India they where eating Chicken Tandori which is lechon manok cooked in a clay oven and jacked up with tons of spices. That was the differentiator, the spices and the cooking time of the chicken. It appeared to the Indian guys that the chicken wasnt cooked so they didnt try it.

Dating
- A lot of the Indian guests I have are a bit on the conservative side, nung sinama namin sa club, it was like their first experience to see a naked woman aside from their wives. Walang ganon sa India...or siguro meron pero sa mga metropolitan areas or sa capital, kahit yung mga naka T back na girls super bihira.
- I was in TGIFridays in the City Center in Bangalore on a friday night. medyo marami tao, but I noticed most of the groups sitting on the sits where either all boys or all girls. Out of 20 tables, 2 lang ang mixed ang girls and boys. So I asked why....my friend their gave me a very good answer. Out of the 10 friends he has, only 2 married out of love, the other 8 where fixed marriages, and this was very very normal and something even the children accept and assume . A lot dont worry about finding a girl.. they assume the parents would take care of that. Hindi dahil bawal, kundi talagang ganon lang.
- Marriage ceremonies have an average of 1000-2000 guests. Thats a medium size wedding, and lasts for 2 days.

Culture
- I saw on a newspaper an article about one of the pioneer actresses who was the first actress which came from a rich family.Before her, this was unseen. The actress only started some 5-8years ago. Sa atin parang wala lang panay mga rich girls ang nagaartista naman.
- Medyo conservative(bordering on Lame) ang mga pasttime, trip, gimix nitong mga nakikilala kong indians. Kaya siguro magaling sila sa IT..medyo naturally geeky.
- Sa india, bihira ang nakaturban. In bangalore anyway.
- OO maraming naka scooter or "2 wheeler" they call it.
- Medyo abrasive sila sa work pero sanayan lang. And ganon sila too any nationality even amongst themselves.
- Men have their bestfriends picture in their wallet and they hold hands...not in a brokeback way..talagang ganon lang sila. Bonding between friends their is very strong kasi nga they rarely mix with other genders until marriage, so mula pagkabata mga barkada mo kasama mo.
- I found that witty remarks are a hit , maybe because of the british culture.
- They love to sing and also movies always have a song number and they last for 3 hours at least.
- There are hundreds of languages per state and not all people speak hindi.
- They are very particular of their rank.
- Hindi lahat mabaho, and specially nung nandon ako ang mababaho lang eh yung working class na construction, janitors etc. Its probably our weather thats flushing the spices into their armpits.

Pero syempre, they are as different to us as we are to them. All a matter of understanding and accepting/respecting the differences.