■South African Society and Culture
◆ The Rainbow Nation
South Africa is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. In urban areas the population is made up of many different ethnic groups. Besides the native black peoples of South Africa colonialism and immigration have brought in white Europeans, Indians, Indo-Malays, Chinese and many more.
As such it is difficult to generalize at all on South African etiquette and culture due to the diversity.
◆ The Family in South Africa
◇The family is the basic unit of South African society, which compromises the nuclear family and the extended family or tribe.
◇In traditional African society, the tribe is the most important community as it is just equal to a nation. The tribe supplies both emotional and financial security just as the nuclear family does to white or colored South Africans.
◇The colored and more traditional Afrikaans cultures regard their extended family almost as important as their nuclear family, while the English-speaking white community attaches more importance to the nuclear family.
◇The nuclear family is the most basic unit of the tribe. The tribal and family units are being disturbed by changes in the economic shake-up of the country.
◇As more people rush into the urban areas, they try to protect familial ties, which includes providing financial support to family members who have stayed in the village.
◆ The Rural/Urban Dichotomy
◇There are a lot of differences between the values of the rural and urban residents.
◇Most whites living in rural areas are Afrikaner farmers who originated from the Calvinists. Their outlooks on the world are sometimes narrow. At the same time they place more emphases on human decency than materialism.
◇City residents live fast-paced life, which influences their outlook.
◇People from Johannesburg can quite often be viewed as having materialistic values, and being more concerned with what you own rather than who you are. They prefer to view themselves as graceful and their country cousins as unsophisticated.