How weather affects culture
Over the past few years, I've done a fair amount of traveling. I've gone to almost 30 countries and created a hypothesis on how weather affects culture.
My simple hypothesis is that people from warmer weather cultures are naturally more social, outgoing, and friendly. In contrast, people from colder weather cultures tend to be more closed off and less outwardly friendly to new people.
When I was in southern Europe (Croatia, Spain, Italy) people I met did not hesitate to throw their arm around me at a bar and take a shot together. Different groups at bars and restaurants would co-mingle and quickly become friendly with each other. It was much more enjoyable.
I also spent time in Copenhagen, Denmark. And of course, it was the opposite. People were closed off at bars. They'd only interact with the social group they came with and were less outwardly friendly. I would also ask people about this and they all said the same.
And my hypothesis was further proven correct when I met Australians throughout my travels. They are the most friendly social people I've ever met. They just want to have fun!
And right now I'm writing this from South America where I've spent the past few weeks in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. I'm once again proven right!
But this all kind of makes sense. People who live in the cold are always inside. They likely spend more time at home. And so that permeates through the culture and leads to this. And people from warm weather cultures are outside in the world being social.
It's an interesting cultural phenomenon. I hope I'll discover more of these as I continue to explore the world.