in joburg in particular, shopping malls are used as geographical landmarks, entertainment sources and grocery outlets. people refer to their location in relation to the nearest mall. parking isn’t free at most of them. and there are always “parking attendants” to look after your car and to help you pull out of your parking space (for a small tip usually)…
if there is a TV (in a less affluent home), it’s almost always on in the background or your hosts will turn it on because they think you want to watch it…
traffic drives on the left, and you can’t turn left on red…
vegetables are not considered part of a balanced meal…
fruits & veggies (in bulk) must be weighed & priced before leaving the produce department of a grocery store. otherwise, the cashier will either send you back or ask the bagger to do it for you. so it’s easier to take the pre-packaged ones... also, plastic grocery bags aren’t free…
“bunni chow,” a well-known south-african-indian dish, is merely a half (or a quarter) loaf of bread hollowed out for a curried stew.
some “coloureds” (mulattos) in the western cape consider it beautiful to have their two front teeth pulled…
as whites, we were often mistaken as afrikaaners, but we just smiled and shrugged our shoulders…
no alcohol is legally sold after store hours, except for at bars and restaurants. if you want to buy some as “take away” (or “to go”), you go to a “she-been” (or unlicensed bar in someone’s house)…
since the law enforcement is so corrupt, cameras have been installed along the highways to automatically issue a ticket (sent in the mail with your photo) if you exceed the speed limit. in fact, in some cases, the cameras will average your speed between more than one location, and if you speed anywhere along the way, you’ll get a ticket for arriving at your destination sooner than you should have following the speed limit…
there are no safety standards for playgrounds or for a child’s car seat…
environmental consciousness is virtually non-existent, because there is little to no infrastructure in most areas to support it (like recycling, trash disposal, public trash cans or even private ones in many places). instead, people might pile it up and burn it… along the same lines, these fires (as well as slash & burn ones) are so common that they often turn wild—forming rings that light up the mountain sides and producing huge billows of smoke that fill the sky.
... there are so many more quirks in south africa, but we've moved on to madagascar now so i'm busy taking in its culture at the moment... the bottom line about south africa is that it's very much like the US, only it's in africa.
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