Description of what you're about to read: this is a parody article where I'll be a Pangaean guy describing Western culture. Note that "western" here means Europe + the Americas + Australia + Russia + India + Muslim-Majority countries (including Indonesia), while countries like Thailand, China, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan will be considered "eastern". So, let's begin!
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February 22, 2022
After countless years spent travelling to western countries and interacting with western people, I can finally write an article about western culture. Please note that it's not my intention to offend anyone, rather I just want to describe what I experienced.
My name is ʃtɔɹn, I'm a 25 years old guy from Pangaea. As a kid, I was fascinated by western countries, so I started reading geography books about them. I was fascinated by their rules, and how different their society was from ours. As a kid, I would have never thought that western culture was so oppressive.
My first experience with western culture was in March 2014. I had just turned 18 years old back then, and I decided to celebrate by going to Los Angeles, California and have fun. Or at least, I thought I would had fun. I stayed in Los Angeles for about ten days with a few friends of mine, who are also Pangaeans. It was not too bad, the food was delicious and the culture was not too much of a shock. My first impression of western culture was quite good, I thought it was a quite decent place to live except for the homeless people, who certainly weren't living good lives. Overall it didn't feel too oppressive, except for the fact that some people certainly got offended very easily. Little did I know that people in the US would have become extremely intolerant just a few years later.
Anyway, after about ten days I went back to Pangaea, and it felt really nice. It felt like I was free again, but back then I didn't consider western culture to be oppressive.
I asked my friends if we could go to Germany in summer 2015, and they agreed.
During the following 16 months, I lived my life normally in Pangaea and I spent a lot of time on the Internet reading about western countries, and especially Germany, since I had to go there in summer 2015.
I thought Germany wouldn't be bad, but when I went there, it felt really oppressive. I could not speak German at that time, and people didn't like me, apparently because I was not "white". At that time I didn't understand what was going on, but later, in 2016, I was introduced to the concept of racism by someone from San Diego, California that I had met online.
Despite me researching extensively about western culture, I had never thought "race" would had been an important factor in people's lives in 2016. Yes, I knew about the racial segregation in the 1950's in the US and about the Apartheid in South Africa, but I thought it was over. Apparently, it was not over. And racism became worse in the following years. Much worse.
I researched more about western culture. The more I researched, the less I liked it. There were things about western culture that seemed so strange to me. I already knew that people in western countries are generally afraid of expressing their own sexuality, with a small exception of a few western countries where people accept (or pretend to accept) homosexuality. However, it is unknown whether their acceptance is genuine or politically motivated. It is probably politically motivated, though, because people only celebrate homosexuality and not heterosexuality, not fetishes, not asexuality, and certainly not the freedom to express one's sexuality without being ashamed. Also, generally Muslims condemn homosexuality very harshly. Muslims are the followers of an extreme western ideology called Islam, which is by far the most oppressive idea that westerners have ever invented, even more oppressive than Christianity (another extreme western ideology). In Islam, very few behaviors are accepted, basically the opposite of what happens in Pangaea.
I cancelled my plan to go to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) because the culture is extremely oppressive there. I had told my friends that I would have stopped travelling to western countries because I was afraid of their culture.
Westerners don't like Pangaea either. Muslims call us "infidels" because we don't agree with their rules, and the other westerners call us "morally degenerated" because we, unlike them, are open-minded towards sexuality.
Eventually, after 2016, for some reason western culture became more oppressive, especially more oppressive against sexual expression. One of the most popular websites in the west, YouTube, is very strict against expressions of nudity, fetishes and sexuality. Well, actually, most websites in the west are against sexuality, and sexuality is one of the most pleasant things in the world.
Most Pangaeans underestimate how oppressive western culture is, they tell things like "Well, even if people don't like what you do, you can still do it" and things like that. They underestimate the shame and the pressure westerners put into you. Many Muslims, for example, will go as far as wanting you dead if you disagree with their rules. I don't think our culture has anything to do with western culture.
I'm not sure if I can call our culture "better" than western culture, but certainly our culture does feel less oppressive.
Even in western countries, though, you can be happy if you enjoy the little things.
Although, maybe, I don't like western culture that much because I'm not a Westerner, and Westerners don't like Pangaean culture that much because they're not Pangaeans. After all, there is no place as good as home, most of the times.
Yes, now I understand. I should not be so critical of foreign cultures, because I'm seeing them through my own Pangaean lenses. Maybe Western culture makes complete sense for a Westerner. I will never understand Western culture, just like Westerners will never understand Pangaean culture. Maybe neither of us is objectively "better", it's just that I feel more comfortable here in Pangaea, my sweet home.
Now it's 2022, and due to the pandemic, it's been a while since I visited a western country, but I probably will not visit a western country anymore in my life. Oppression feels uncomfortable to me, so I will stay here in Pangaea for the rest of my life. It feels good to be free, to not be judged. I don't blame Westerners, though, it's okay to be intolerant if your environment influences you to be like that, but I do prefer living in Pangaea.