detail from: KRK Art dizajn

WORLD CULTURES and FOLK CUSTOMS

SIMO JELACA, Ph.D.

FOREWORD

This book summarizes information about culture and customs of different nations. Noticeable differences in customs are among Christian, Islamic and Buddhist’s nations, although in all prevails intention for nice and greatest.  

It will be too much to include every country, as there are similarities among many nations of the same or close nationalities. Characteristic are Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, or as well as Germany and Austria. The similar conclusion values for Latin nations, among themselves too.

Readers will find basic information about each country, such as its location and size, population and Ethnic Make-up, Religion, Climate, Language, Etiquettes and others. 

This book can equally be used for travelers, either as tourists or business people, therefore everyone will find necessary information about Etiquette of people at their homes as well as at the business.

My intention was to find as much good information as possible. How much I have succeeded readers will judge it. 

          Author

SPAIN
        CULTURE AND FOLK CUSTOMS

Facts and Statistics

Location: Spain borders the Bay of Biscay, France and Andorra on the North; by the Mediterranean Sea on the East and South; by Gibraltar on the South; by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean on the West.

Size: 504.782 square km.

Population: About 40 million

Capital:Madrid, population 3.3 million

Climate: Continental climate, one of the best in the world.Temperatures in January normally average 10 to 13 C, in July and August average 22 to 27 C.

Identification

The name España is of uncertain origin; from it derived the Hispania of the Roman Empire. Important regions within the modern nation are the Basque Country (País Vasco), the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic area, and Galicia—each of which has its own language and a strong regional identity. Others are Andalucía and the Canary Islands; Aragón; Asturias; Castile; Extremadura; León; Murcia; and Navarra, whose regional identities are strong but whose language, if in some places dialectic, is mutually intelligible with the official Castilian Spanish. The national territory is divided into fifty provinces, which date from 1833 and are grouped into seventeen autonomous regions.

Location and Geography 

Spain occupies about 85 percent of the Iberian Peninsula. Other entities in Iberia are the Principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees and Gibraltar, which is under British sovereignty and is located on the south coast. The Pyrenees range separates Spain from France. The Atlantic Ocean washes Spain's north coast, and the far southwestern zone between the Portuguese border and the Strait of Gibraltar. Spain is separated from North Africa on the south by the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea. The Balearic Islands lie in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic.

Madrid, already at the time an ancient Castilian town, was selected as Spain's capital in 1561.

Demography 

Spain's population of about 40 million represented a slight decline.

Linguistic Affiliation 

Spain's national language is Spanish, or Castilian Spanish, a Romance language derived from the Latin implanted in Iberia following the conquest by Rome at the end of the third century B.C.E. Two of the minority languages of the nation—Gallego and Catalan—are also Romance languages, derived from Latin in their respective regions just as Castilian Spanish.

National Identity 

Spanish national sentiment and a sense of unity rest on shared experience and institutions and have been strengthened by Spain's relative separation from the rest of Europe by the forbidding barrier of the Pyrenees range. Processes promoting unification were begun under Rome and the Visigoths, and the Christianization of the populace was particularly important. Christian identity was strengthened in the centuries of confrontation with Islam and again with the Spaniards' establishment of Christianity in the New World, the events of 1492.

Ethnic Relations

One legacy of Spain's medieval conveniencia (living together) of Christians, Jews, and Muslims is a universal consciousness of that history and the presence in folklore, language, and popular thought of images of Jews and "Moors' '. The notion of cultural difference or ethnicity is often submerged by facts of religious difference (except in the case of Spanish Gypsies, who are Catholics). Through most of the twentieth century, Spanish society was not ethnically diverse, except for the presence of Gypsies, who arrived in Spain in the fifteenth century.

Food in Daily Life 

The traditional Spanish diet is rooted in the products of an agrarian, pastoral, and horticultural society. Principal staples are bread (wheat is preferred); legumes (chickpeas, Old and New World beans, lentils); rice; garden vegetables; cured pork products; lamb and veal (and beef, in many regions only recently sought after); eggs; barnyard animals (chickens, rabbits, squabs); locally available wild herbs, game, fish, and shellfish; salt fish; olives and olive oil; orchard fruits and nuts; grapes and wine made from grapes; milk of cows, sheep, and/or goats and cured milk products and dishes (cured cheeses and fresh curd); honey and Spanish-grown condiments (parsley, thyme, oregano, paprika, saffron, onions, garlic). Home production of honey is today mostly eclipsed by use of sugarcane and sugar-beet products, which have been commercialized in a few areas. Most important among the garden vegetables are potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, cabbages and chard, green peas, asparagus, artichokes and vegetable thistle, zucchini squash, and eggplant. The Spanish midday stew, of which every region has at least one version, is a broth dish of legumes with potatoes, condimental with cured pork products and fresh meat(s) in small quantities, and with greens in season at the side or in the stew.

The midday meal (comida) around 2:00 P.M. is the day's principal meal, usually taken by families together at home. This follows a small breakfast (desayuno) of coffee or chocolate and bread or other dough products—purchased breakfast cakes, packaged cookies, or dough fritters (churros). Family members may breakfast at different times. A mid-morning snack (almuerzo)—which is a heavy one for farmers in the fields or physical laborers—may also be taken more individually. In the late afternoon, between 6:00 and 8:00 P.M., people may eat a substantial snack (merienda) at or away from home—or snack on tapas (appetizers) with a drink at a bar; for some families the merienda replaces the later supper. When taken, the supper (cena) is a light meal—often of soup, eggs, fish, or cold meats—and is eaten by families together around 10:00 P.M. This meal pattern is national except that in the Catalan area main meal hours are earlier, somewhat as in France (1:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M.). The family meals, comida and cena, are important gathering times.

Restaurant dining has become common in the urban middle, professional, and upper classes, where restaurants have made a few inroads on the home meals of some families; in general, however, family comida and cena hours are crucial aspects of family life throughout the nation. 

Basic Economy 

Spain has been a heavily agrarian, pastoral, and mercantile nation. As of the middle of the twentieth century the nation was principally rural. Today, industry is more highly developed, and Spain is a member of the European Economic Community and participates substantially in the global economy. The Spanish countryside as a whole has been largely self-sufficient. 

Commercial Activities

Among Spain's traditional export products are olive oil, canned artichokes and asparagus, conserved fish (sardines, anchovies, tuna, salt cod), oranges (including the bitter or "Seville" oranges used in marmalade), wines (including sherry), paprika made from peppers in various regions, almonds, saffron, and cured pork products. Cured ham and the paprika-and-garlic sausage called chorizo have particular renown in Europe. 

Leather and leather goods have long standing and continuing importance, as do furniture and paper manufacture. Several different regions supply both utilitarian and decorative ceramics and ceramic tiles, along with art ceramics; others supply traditional cloth handiwork, both lace and embroidery, while others are known for specific metal crafts—such as the knife manufacture associated with Albacete and the decorative damascene work on metal for which Toledo is famed.

Major Industries 

Spain's heavy industry has developed since the end of the Civil War, with investments by Germany and Italy. The basis for these developments is old, however: iron mining and arms and munitions manufacture have been important for centuries. Spain's arms and munitions production is still important today, along with the manufacture of agricultural machinery, automobiles, and other kinds of equipment. Most industry is concentrated around major cities in the north and east—Bilbao, Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, and Zaragoza.

Trade 

Spain is a member of the European Economic Community  and has its heaviest trading relationship there, Japan and the American nations with which Spain also has deep historical ties and some trade relationships which date from the period of her New World empire. Among Spain's major exports are leather and textile goods; the commercialized foodstuffs named earlier; items of stone, ceramic, and tile; metals; and various kinds of manufactured equipment. Probably Spain's most significant dependence on outside sources is for crude oil, and energy costs are high for Spanish consumers.

Classes and Castes 

The apex of Spain's social pyramid is occupied by the royal family, followed by the titled nobility and aristocratic families. Wealth, including new wealth, and family connections to contemporary forms of power count for a great deal, but so do older concepts of family eminence. Entrepreneurial and professional success are admired, as are new and old money, rags-to-riches success, and descent from and connection to eminent families.

Government 

Spain is a parliamentary monarchy with a bicameral legislature. The current king, Juan Carlos I (the grandson of Alfonso XIII, who was displaced by the Second Republic) is the first monarch to reign following the Franco period. Juan Carlos ascended to the throne in 1975. In 1981 the king helped to maintain the constitution in force in the face of an attempted right-wing coup; this promoted the continuance of orderly governance under the constitution despite other kinds of disruptions—separatist terrorism in the Basque and Catalan areas and a variety of political scandals involving government corruption. Spain has repeatedly seen orderly elections and changes of government and ruling party. The head of state, the prime minister, is a member of the majority party in a multiparty system.

Social Welfare 

Most of Spain's programs of social welfare, service, and development are in the hands of the state—including agencies of the regional governments—and of the Roman Catholic Church. Church and state are separate today, but Catholicism is the religion of the great majority. The Church itself—and Catholic agencies—have a weighty presence in organizing social welfare and in sponsoring hospitals, schools, and aid projects of all sorts. In rural areas with a plow culture, men do most of the agricultural tasks, and women garden and house.

Spanish women under Castilian law inherit property equally with their brothers. Royal and noble women succeed to family titles if they have no brothers. Women were traditionally homemakers. Today they are found throughout the business, professional, and political worlds.

Marriage 

Spaniards today marry for mutual attraction and shun the idea of arranged marriages. Class consciousness and material self-interest, however, lead people to socialize and marry largely within their own social classes or to aim for a match with a spouse who is better off. Traditionally, access to property was an important concern for farmers, with well-being often counting for more than love. Most Spaniards live in nuclear-family households of parents and unmarried children, and this is widely held as ideal.

Family (familia) and relatives (parientes) are defined broadly (without genealogical limits) and inclusive (embracing in-laws as well as blood relatives) to create a large pool of relations beyond the limits of any single household or locality.

 The birth of children is seen as the chief purpose of marriage. Children of both sexes are valued and raised with affection, even adoration, by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and older siblings.

Higher Educationfor most Spaniards, vocational and academic secondary schooling is crucial, but they also hope to send their children to college if not for higher degrees as well. The professions are much admired, as is knowledge in general. Most of Spain's university system is public and governed in accord with nationwide regulations; it is heavily enrolled and was vastly expanded in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Etiquette 

Table etiquette for most occasions is informal by many European standards. People who eat together do so with relative intimacy. Even in many restaurants, but especially at home, diners share certain kinds of dishes from a common platter: certain appetizers, salads, and traditionally paella.

Religious Beliefs 

Spain has been a profoundly Catholic country for centuries, and Catholicism was the official religion for most of recent history. Church and state were separated briefly under both the First and Second Republics, but their lasting separation did not begin until the 1978 constitution took effect. There are also nonbelievers. Spanish pueblos, from hamlets to large cities, and many neighborhoods within population centers, all have patron saints each of whose days occasions a public festival, or fiesta.

Medicine and Health Care 

Spaniards are covered by a national health care system which today serves virtually the entire population. The use of herbal remedies and knowledgeable but medically untrained midwives or bonesetters may persist, but only alongside the widespread patronage of pharmacies and medical practitioners.

The Arts 

There is enormous public interest in works of art and architecture in Spain's art museums, as well as in its architectural monuments of various periods and in its important archeological sites. Madrid and Barcelona both count among Europe's stellar museum cities. The arts receive both government and private support; major artists are treated as celebrities, and the humanities and fine arts are all firmly instituted in universities and professional academies, along with a multitude of local, regional, and national museums.

Spanish writers from the Middle Ages to the present have contributed to the inventory of literary masterpieces of the West. Cervantes's (1547–1616) Don Quixote; the works of Lope de Vega Carpio (1562–1635) and Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681); the poetry and plays of Federico García Lorca (1898–1936); and the works of five Nobel laureates in literature are but a few from different periods.

The flamenco idiom of song, dance, and musical accompaniment is generally seen as uniquely Spanish.

The physical sciences, along with the engineering sciences, have all long been instituted in the Spanish educational system. Social-cultural anthropology is one of these, dating from the 1960s, although ethnography, folklore, archaeology, philology, and physical anthropology are older, and there are national, regional, and local museums dedicated to these topics as well.

Doing business in Spain

Greetings
While many Spaniards of the opposite sex will greet each other with a kiss on both cheeks, this is not as common in business relationships unless you know the other party well. It is wisest to offer a handshake, and if a kiss is appropriate, the Spanish party will initiate it. 

Addressing a person 

Spanish people have two first names and two surnames, composed of their father's first surname and their mother's first surname. Use Señor (Sr.) or Señora (Sra.) as you would Mr. or Mrs. 

Business meetings 

In the first meeting, Spaniards will want to become acquainted with you before proceeding with business, so you should be accommodating and answer any questions about your background and family life. Spaniards will really check to see if you are honest and reliable, to know they can place their trust in your products or business before starting a relationship. 

Negotiations in Spain tend to be quite open with one party taking the lead, but agreements can be flexible and you will probably need to persevere in order to ensure that commitments are put into effect. 

Business meals 

If you want to discuss business at lunch, you should mention this in advance so the Spanish counterpart is ready to discuss the issues with you. Meal times in Spain are generally considered the time to relax and enjoy oneself rather than to close deals. More typically, the deals are done at the office, and then after the successful negotiations, you all go to celebrate at a restaurant. If the Spanish party wants to be nice with you, they will most likely invite you for a meal. Bills are rarely split in Spain, regardless of the circumstance. If you have been invited out, you should reciprocate at a later date. 

Conversation 

The Spanish are great conversationalists. This is how they spend their free time. Ask them about their children or family. The Spanish are proud of their food and wine. Don't be surprised if an evening out lasts until the late hours. Spanish presentations can tend to be long-winded. If you're female, don't be surprised if they compliment you and tell you look good. You can compliment them back if you feel like it or just say thanks. If you don't want to annoy people, don't bring up the stereotypes: siesta/fiesta, bullfighting, flamenco dancing. 

Spaniards do not, on average, speak English as well as a Northern European. Many companies in Spain have staff with good English language skills, but an initial approach in Spanish is more effective, if your plan is to sell to the Spanish, try to speak Spanish.

Lunch is between 2 pm and 4 pm. It is common to go to a restaurant. Dinner is generally a lighter meal; 10pm is the normal time at restaurants. At restaurants, bars, and taxis, it is typical to leave small change, though you won't get dirty looks if you don't.  There is now a regulation against smoking in public places, though as with many regulations. 

At Christmas, many companies give their employees a basket of fancy foods and drink (cestas de Navidad). It is also common to celebrate a fiesta de Navidad with lunch in a fancy restaurant. Companies often send bottles of cava, champagne, or wine at Christmas to their best clients. 

 In Spain the look of the person one is doing business with is important. Dior, Chanel or Louis Vuitton are very appreciated, also Hugo Boss, Armani or Ermenegildo Zegna, Men are best off in dark subdued colors: preferably tailor-made woolen or linen suits, and white cotton shirts with silk ties. Women should wear well-cut suits of high-quality fabric. Designer clothes and brand names will be noted with approval. Business casual means a clean and fashionable designer cotton shirt and good pants, no tie. 

If an invitation to a party says formal, it means real formal: a black tuxedo for men and a cocktail dress for women, always in conservative colors. For these events, women wear more make-up, and have their hair done professionally. 

It will be continued

SHARE THIS PAGE ON: