Culture Clash

I was down in Richmond to golf for a few days with a bunch of my Uncles and cousins from New Jersey.


Besides the usual things like broken clubs, temper tantrums, and drunken brawls that you'd expect from such an outting, I was suprised by the mix of cultures when you take 8 guys from Jersey and toss them into the middle of southern hospitality.

First thing was ordering food. Guys from jersey mean to say, " Can I have a burger ?", but it comes out, " Gimme a burger !" Apparently southerns react to perceived rudeness by just walking away. New Jerseyians hate to be ignored. If we had stayed one more day I thing I would have just given up eating all together.

The other thing was the friendliness. Everywhere you walked, people would look you in the eye and say hello. Guys from Jersey assume that a hearty hello is likely to be followed by a shiv to the gut. So as we walked from the putting green to the clubhouse or from the car to the restaurant locals would look up at us and say, " Howdy, how y'all doin ?" and half the guys would immediately check their wallets in their back pockets and the other half would say something along the lines of, " No thanks, we don't want any." or " sorry, I don't have any change."