There are lots of interesting customs and traditions of the world different nations which we are going to speak about.

We eat with the spoon and fork, people of East Asia usually use chopsticks for it, Eskimos prefer knife, that’s why Central Asian dish ‘besh-barmack’ is called like that because it is eaten by ‘besh’ – five, ‘barmack’ – fingers.

Entering the Christian church in a head-dress means to commit sacrilege. Blaspheming are also those who entering synagogue or mosque with the head undressed.

Somewhere in the East women still hide their face and body under the odd formless clothes. Most of Afro-Americans think so far that short apron is the limit they can allow to wear to the prejudice of old traditions which claim complete nudity.

In order to rest in the middle of the day, we sit down on the chair. Tadzhik or Uzbek prefer sit on the carpet, making their legs crossed. Zulus would think that European and Central Asian friends just don’t know how to rest and have no fantasy. There is a great number of ways of sitting! Besides Zulus men and women have their own, specific ones. And representatives of one of the North Australian tribes most of all like to rest in a very uncomfortable pose as we think. They stand, setting the feet of one leg against the knee of another.

While greeting, European extend the hand, Japanese squat down, and kamba in Kenya spit in the person as a sign of respect. Man from the Masaya tribe meeting somebody spit out gorgeously, then moisten one’s hand with saliva and only after that allow to shake his hand other person. Mangbettu in the North Knogo greeting like Europeans with the hand, but at the same time they politely crackle their middle fingers joints.

If you are not tired yet from enumeration, we can continue. Tumbve in Tanganyika while greeting stand on one knee, take the hand of earth and strew it criss-cross on the chest and hands. At the same circumstances in Zambezi people clap hands and make a curtsey, and it is considered to be necessary to shuffle the feet meeting the white: is it not the European 18 century?

Greeting the friend, Chinese asks: ‘Did you eat?’. Iranien wishes: ‘Be cheerful!’, Zulus says: ‘I see you’…

It turns out that kisses are not so widespread as it can be considered by a person who knows that wild chimpanzees can kiss perfectly.  Thus, from of old Chinese rubbed noses instead of kiss, so did Eskimos. Ancient Egyptians kissed since the dawn of times, while in ancient Greece, as the Gerodot stated, such thing appeared relatively late.

Zulus had the strict regulation for kisses. Children have no right to kiss father and mother.

Father doesn’t kiss children. Only mother is free to express her feelings, but she kisses children differently depend on the age, mother kisses hands of married daughter and adult son. Why so strange!

So, it seems to be that customs of all people is different?

But… why Italians have old proverb: ‘The whole world is one country’? Why nations from different ends of the world have similar customs? For instance, habitants of Fire Earth and New Zealand, Swiss and India, Central Africa and any other corner of the Earth think that it is essential to say something benevolent to a person who sneezed in their presence. It doesn’t matter that every nation has own words to say in this case. Greetings while meeting are also different, but such greetings are obligatory in every nation. No matter how wonder we are at the differences between people, there are a lot more similarities.  

I’m for the Italian proverb about the traditions of world nations, though with some exclusions. And the main is that, the world is one country in different time. Modern Englishman is more likely to find common language with the present-time Frenchman, than with one’s ancestor colored with blue pain who lived 2000 years ago. The same Englishman will hardly like the Middle Age knight, about the deeds of which he can know with amusement from stylish historic roman. Their lifestyle and many modern rules will not coincide, after all these people are separated not by thousand miles, but by hundred years.

We are all offspring of one’s time, that’s why we feel pleasant and comfortable only in it. Great travelers, scientists and artists, who were investigating strange shores, - in the geographical past – do not disprove this statement. Their time stayed inside them. Mikluho Maklay, Stevenson and Gogen, who liked Oceania, were there the representatives of the present in the past.