There are still some things I am coming across that I have to stop and pinch myself just to make sure I am really awake. I had one example recently. Cauliflower is a pretty standard vegetable right? Wrong.
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Whilst on the subject of fruit and veg, my daughter often shops at a place called the Green Dragon. This is a large and predominantly open air market. However what makes it different is that many of the stalls are run by Armish. This is the religious group that was perhaps made famous by the Harrison Ford movie “Witness”. I do not know a great deal about them other than they do not use many modern appliances and live a ‘simpler’ life, perhaps described as less consumer orientated, with I gather few modern day devices. The often have their horse drawn buggies at this particular market and the men all seem to have beards and wear grey suites whilst the women wear little white cap like hats on the back of their hair and wear long dresses. I also heard a lot of German spoken, which I gather is where this group originated. Those I have met at the market have all been extremely polite and friendly and their produce is fantastic, and I might add, not expensive. It is extremely tasty and of high quality. I can only imagine that they must use more traditional methods of farming.
As an aside, my son in laws’ mother (not quite sure what that makes her to me, will have to ponder that one) mentioned to me previously that some people employ Armish if they are building an extension to their house. She says it will take longer as they tend to use more traditional tools, but it will be done extremely well.
At another market I noticed people who seemed to be similarly dressed but not quite not rigid in their dress code. I was told by my son in law that there were probably Mennonite who have a similar but less rigid persuasion. They I gather will use motor vehicles, unlike the Armish. Once again, their produce was really good.
I have to admit that this type of stuff is quite surprising. It really is amazing what you discover!
Returning to things that I find a little hard to understand at the moment. I have seen lots of motorcycle riders here, most of whom do not wear a helmet! I even saw one, in a T shirt, (i.e. no protective gear in case he came off), and no helmet, texting on a mobile phone, whilst driving his bike down a major road. I won’t comment further other than to say Duh!
As readers will be aware, guns are part of the culture here. It certainly takes some getting used to. I got taken to a sports store and one section was for guns. I stood staring at a whole wall full of guns and rifles whilst the counter had large numbers of pistols of all sizes. As I looked at the rifles on the wall I couldn’t help thinking, why would someone need a semi automatic assault rifle for home protection? We moved over to another section and I saw a wall full of bows, as in bow and arrow but trust me, these were NOT toys. There was also a selection of very powerful looking cross bows, plus a huge range of arrows. I then saw what looked like life sized models of deer, but with targets on them. I gather they were for practice, to make sure you could hit the kill spot….
Finally, we do not tend to watch very much television but I have noticed something very different. They advertise prescription drugs here. They explain why it is good to ask your doctor for them (and they are often talking about some heavy duty illnesses) and then seem to spend as long again adding caveats about potential side effects, e.g. taking this drug can lead to side effects such as heart palpitations, dizziness, or even death, but it can go on for what seems like more than half of the total time for the advertisement.
All very strange to me.
1 comment:
What freaked me out there was how white the eggs are in the supermarkets. They bleach the shells I think. You won't find a brown egg there. The butter also is white and not yellow like real butter.
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