I'm going to post this a bit before the other post pays out, as it was done on Japan time, and I'm not going to wait for that now that I'm in Europe again!

Most of us have a connection, whether it is strong or weak, with a particular country on Earth (I hope it is Earth....). Sometimes, it is a hugely patriotic or fundamental part of our identity and at other times it is nothing more than the place that we live and that issues us our passports!

Whichever camp you fall into, it is hard to deny that where you spend a significant part of your life does shape and mold your character and sense of identity. We pick up (or rebel against) the habits and cultural norms of the people around us, our languages and customs shape us and even mundane things like preferred physical proximity to others can be defined by our surroundings.

As a musician, I travel a lot, and so I'm lucky to be able to constantly see different cultures and peoples during my working life. This last week, I was in Japan where I have to say that the culture and people are vastly different to what I experience in Europe. Neither better nor worse, just different!

In our own cultures and countries, there are many things that we would be proud of, and many other things that we are less than proud of, and then many things that we would be completely blind to! What one person might be proud of, another might be not so happy with... the complexities of people... we are not hive animals at all!

My Question

My questions this week are pretty simple in comparison to other weeks!

1. What are things that you are happy or proud of about your country, that you would tell others about? It could be anything, customs, food places....
2. What are things about your country that you are not so proud of? Again, it could be anything at all!

My sample answer

Well, seeing as I'm Australian, but I live in Netherlands, I will give two parts to this answer. One for my birth country and another for my adopted country!

Australia

Unsplash

The thing I like best about Australia is the variety of cultures and backgrounds that have chosen to settle in this country. This brings a wealth of foods and customs that in general serve to enrich and bolster the fabric of society. The natural colours and vast variety of natural habitats and animals is something that is hard to describe to an outsider. The greens of the plants are completely different to the rest of the world, and the animals are plain bizarre at times!

The thing that I am less proud of, is the growing wealth inequality and growing gap in living standards. We used to be a country that prized egalitarianism, however, in the last couple of decades, we have followed the path of America and in good economic times, have been obsessed about chasing wealth, instead of preparing the future for the less good economic times.

Netherlands

Unsplash

There is no question about what I love best about Netherlands! The great infrastructure (and the lack of hills) for cycling around! Everything revolves around biking, and it is even better when the Sun is shining! You don't need bikes with gears, the kids learn to ride around with us, and we even have a bakfiets (a big bucket bike, like a truck on a tricycle!) for doing the big shopping trips! The paths and road rules are set up in a way that you never feel in danger from cars, and you don't have to wear a helmet!

The Netherlands isn't really well known for it's culinary prowess, and as such, it can be quite difficult to get good food (either at restaurants or just to cook with!). Supermarkets tend not to stock very good cuts of meat or vegetables, which means that you need to go to specialists or wholesalers to get decent food. However, that said, things have improved quite a lot in the time that I have been here!

Rules

1. Upvote if you want, it increases the payout and then I can hopefully sponsor more people.
2. Resteem is NOT neccessary, but the more people see this, the more the people will be likely to be sponsored.
3. In the comments, answer as best as you can the questions that are posed in the "My Questions"!
4. I have added a small Steem-Bounty to the post, so that everyone who replies with a valid entry will get something back. If I give your post a small upvote, it is valid (also, subscribe to @dustsweeper for maximum benefit!).
5. I will be sponsoring as many people as this post pays out in liquid SBD/STEEM. Also I will kick in at least the required amount to round up to the full number. Winner is by random generator after a shortlisting of quality comments!

Steem Basic Income

One of the first communities that I came in contact with at the beginning of my time at Steemit was @steembasicincome. As a author starting out on your fresh new Steemit account, Steemit can be a daunting and lonely place to be. OFten, it can feel like you are posting into an abyss with no one listening and with no ability to grow out of the situation. A share of Steem Basic Income gives you a guaranteed vote on one post a day, thus giving you a small but over time cumulative support to your account to help grow you out of your initial wilderness!

With this post, I want to help sponsor people who might not even have the spare 1 STEEM that is required for registration. So, when this post pays out, I will sponsor people depending on the payout of this post. Basically, I will round up the SBD payout from this post and then that will be the number of people I will sponsor. (So, if the payout is 2.3 SBD, I will sponsor 3 people). OF course, this is not simply an altruistic move, as the sponsor of a Steem Basic Income share also gets a share, so it is a great way to help others whilst helping yourself!

Last week's winners

The last post is going to pay out around 3.8 STEEM (before curation) in liquid earnings. So, that would make 3 shares to be safe! I will do the extra one tomorrow, if it ends up over 3 after curation.

The winners by random draw are:

@niallon11

@theironfelix

@a0i