What is culture

I first wrote this as a comment in Ammani's post, but liked it so much after reading that I am posting it here also:

Culture is what is injected inside you from birth, practised for years by the community you were born into (and/or the community you grow up in, if both are different), more or less shapes your approach to everything you do(what & how) in life, without you consciously realizing it.

What you eat, how you dress, how you react to death(oppari,just crying, silence), how you greet people(folded hands, shake hands, rub noses), how you treat children/elders, how much importance you give to time, what you gift on specific occasions & how u gift it(writing in a specific color of pen is bad omen to Chinese - don't remember what), your attitude towards work, how you marry, expectations in married life, what you celebrate or don't, how you bury the dead, how you remember them... I can go on and on and on. In general, what a community considers good/bad ...

I attended a workshop on cross-cultural awareness sponsored by my company when I first traveled to US(about 4 years back). I wish I had kept the material that they distributed then. It was very interesting. The guy (actually old uncle - see I am calling him uncle it is my culture :) ) was well traveled and had lived abroad for more than 25 years. He classified world culture into 3 types: Active (american, most of european), Reactive(south east, India, few european - italy, spain) and I forgot the name of the 3rd one, that is practised in Japan and some of mid-east, it was the best. I was amazed about a lot of things he said. That Indians, Italians and Spaniards have lot in common(punctuality rather lack of it, siesta,work ethics, etc.). The importance Japanese give to elders, family, work(working 16 hrs a day is not really hardwork), country(patriotism is part of their culture), how they react to shame(suicide for this is common), meeting room etiquettes(hardly anybody speaks much in the open) etc... I forgot lot of stuff. The impression it left in my mind is :there is good and bad in every culture, Japanese(hope I remember the term, i am breaking my head) is best, no matter the culture you were born into or brought up in, it is important to know the culture of the place you are living in or traveling to, so you don't feel out of place/awkward in public situations and most importantly, DON'T INADVERTENTLY CAUSE HURT TO THEIR VALUES/SENTIMENTS.

A lot of us have adopted some good values from the active(American) culture, we are already a cross-culture breed, our children will be more, it is actually good because they are going to travel more than us.