Oops, Your Culture's Showing!
Dean Foster, Tom Peterson, and Torin Peterson
Episodes
July 24, 2025
Listen to this juicy rumor: In this episode, would you believe that Dean and Tom ‘spill the tea’ on the value and function of gossip and secrecy across cultures? From investigating the use of tsismis in Manila, to eyeing gossip’s impact on decision-making in sub-Saharan Africa - plus secrecy’s impact on drapery in Brussels - they manage to make a splash at proverbial water coolers in both the Global North and Global South in just t...
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June 26, 2025 • 41 mins
While we're sorry to possibly offend, we're not at all sorry about reissuing our apologies-across-cultures episode, "Sorry?", from June 2019. We hope that you enjoy it, and if you don't, what else can we say but...sorry?
We’re very (not) sorry to say that Dean and Tom are talking apologies across cultures, particularly in the U.K. and East Asia, in this episode. Also, Producer Torin brings in a recent New York Times article about ...
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May 22, 2025 • 48 mins
Last month, Dean entered a ryokan in Japan, so this month he - and we - are re-entering the Japanese bathroom in the FIRST-EVER episode of the "Oops, Your Culture's Showing!" podcast. Enjoy this special reissue of our March 23rd 2018 premiere episode, titled "Shaving & Japanese Toilets"!
World cultures expert Dean Foster and longtime friend Tom Peterson dive into bathroom habits around the world in this episode, with the act of sh...
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April 24, 2025 • 29 mins
Happy spring! With cherry blossoms blooming all around, Dean and Tom float into an exploration of ikigai, a concept for finding happiness and purpose in everyday life, in Japanese culture. Along the road of their discussion, they also stay at a ryokan and relish wabi-sabi - all while occasionally being interrupted by the Licensing department. Whether you’re subtly finding beauty in the imperfection of this episode (there’s plenty h...
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March 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Clink clink! Dean and Tom would just like to take a moment (actually, several moments across this episode) to toast toasting and public speaking across cultures. After toasting all night long with a tamada in Georgia, they toast Dean’s May 2024 article for Toastmasters - Speaking Across Cultures: Top 10 rules for communicating around the world - and Tom tries to guess some of the top 10 rules before Dean reveals them. If you can gu...
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February 27, 2025
O Canada! With all the recent talk of Canada being the 51st U.S. state - it’s not, and won’t be! - Dean and Tom venture into the vast expanse of cultural differences between Canadians and U.S. Americans in this episode. Meanwhile, Dean encounters polar bears on the Canadian Shield, Tom’s Canadian relatives enter the melting pot, and Torin searches underground for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche (White Night). To learn if they all survive t...
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January 23, 2025 • 61 mins
Hoping a magic carpet ride whisks you away to a magical "far far away" place this week? Well, you're in *luck*, because we're reissuing our August 2019 episode, "Do You Believe In Magic?", for that very reason. Enjoy being transported to Dean and Tom's realm of magic and wonder, and we'll see you on the other side!
In this episode, Dean and Tom explore magical thinking across cultures, conjuring up the origins of good luck charms ...
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December 26, 2024 • 40 mins
It’s a holiday-filled time of year and a heavy travel time across cultures, dear listeners; as such, we’ve been receiving your questions about how not to be the “ugly American (or fill in your country of choice) tourist” while traveling abroad. On this Boxing Day, Dean and Tom pause their gifting to unpack fears about this, and then to wrap up practical advice about it into a festive 40-minute episode! Plus: A holiday-themed Wordpl...
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November 28, 2024 • 43 mins
Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. listeners! In this episode, Dean and Tom thank local caregivers for helping Dean survive sudden maladies across three different continents. They also explore culture’s impact on the care he received, as well as lessons learned (and salt balls rolled…by butterflies?). Plus, the exciting premiere of not one but TWO spinoff segments (and soon-to-be fan favorites!): “Bad Wordplay” & “Grammar Time with Met...
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October 24, 2024 • 44 mins
Are Burma and Myanmar the same place? How long does a zat pwe last? Why are only foreigners allowed into a certain garage in Mandalay? In this episode, Dean and Tom travel along Myanmar’s central river, the Irrawaddy, to answer these very questions, all the while observing Buddhist temples and pagodas, holding hands with new friends, and donning a mustachioed purple t-shirt. They also seek to build bridges across a river of differe...
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September 26, 2024 • 55 mins
Hungry for more food talk after last month’s "Somebody Feed Dean" episode? We’re serving it up to you on a silver platter with this special reissue of our July 2018 episode, “Fish Cheeks & Dining Myth Explosions”. Bon appétit!
This episode, Dean and Tom remain hungry for traditional foods across cultures: fish cheeks in China, black pudding and haggis in the U.K., guinea pigs in the Andes, and many more (1:45)! Next, Dean answers a...
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August 22, 2024 • 36 mins
It’s a food travel show for your ears! Dean ventures to his favorite worldwide hole-in-the-wall restaurants, street stands, and more in this episode, experiencing the best meals of his life from Sri Lanka to Shanghai and everywhere in between. Meanwhile, Tom risks losing his head in his search for the most spectacular chocolate mousse in and around Paris. We hope that you’ll take the calculated risk to both venture out to that bus ...
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July 25, 2024 • 32 mins
We’re popping open a bottle of Mirto from Sardinia in celebration of our 50TH EPISODE! First, Dean caps off our prior episode about music and dance with the happiest song he’s ever heard, Jambo Bwana, from East Africa, and with an Italian version of the card game Spoons in which the losing player sings an aria. From there, Dean and Tom explore divisions between the north and south of Italy, the cultural prominence of “la bella figu...
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June 27, 2024 • 33 mins
We’re groovin’ to the tunes in this episode! Join Dean and Tom as they explore varying expressions, along with common purposes, of music and dance across cultures: from an indoor wedding in Cairo and music bar in Dublin, to an outdoor opera in Rome and the salsa-filled streets of Havana. Everybody gather 'round now. Let your body feel the heat. Don't you worry if you can't dance. Let the music move your feet! (Well said, Gloria Est...
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May 23, 2024 • 46 mins
If you’ve paid attention to U.S. national news recently *ahem Kristi Noem ahem*, you’ve surely been reminded that many U.S. Americans love love love dogs and have them as pets. Therefore, we thought it would be the perfect time for a special reissue of our May 2021 episode, “Pets Around The World! Meow.” Enjoy!
While remembering pets both old and new, Dean and Tom take the op-purr-tunity to discuss which animals do and don’t consti...
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April 25, 2024 • 31 mins
Earth Day 2024 was this past Monday April 22nd! In honor of our one and only Earth, Dean brings Tom (and us) along with him on his recent excursion to Antarctica in this episode, where he walked among thousands of non-tap-dancing penguins and giant calving glaciers on the warmest day ever recorded there to-date. Specifically, Dean details his conversations on his Antarctic journey with global climate leader Christiana Figueres on h...
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March 28, 2024 • 35 mins
Dean and Tom have truly “fallen down the rabbit hole” in this episode as they explore different idioms across cultures, offering context as well as advice on what to do when faced with unknown idioms on your travels. (A preview: An idiom in another country may feel like it “comes out of left field,” but give yourself some grace - you’re not an ‘idiom idiot’!) We know that you’ll enjoy listening to this idiotic idiomatic episode “as...
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February 22, 2024 • 34 mins
Introducing…Dean’s new “Culture’s Consequences” Substack column, in which he reveals the hidden cultural reasons behind the daily headlines! In this episode, Dean and Tom bite into Dean’s February 2024 “Culture’s Consequences” article about Dong Phuong Bakery’s luscious King Cake, available only during New Orleans’ Mardi Gras season, and how it represents a melding of New Orleans, Creole, French, and Vietnamese cultures. Plus, they...
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January 25, 2024 • 36 mins
With next month marking 10 years since Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, and 2 years since the start of the current war there, we will continue to keep Ukraine & Ukrainians in our ears, hearts, and minds with this special reissue of our “For Ukrainians, the sunflower is an incredibly powerful symbol” episode from April 2022. 🇺🇦 Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 Stay well & stay strong, dear listeners - and stay tuned for ne...
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December 28, 2023 • 52 mins
Happy holidays, dear listeners! Welcome back for the thrilling conclusion of our Cornucopia series, in which Tom and Torin now face off in the final two of six of Dean’s CultureQuizzes: that is, brief quizzes about fundamental culture concepts in different regions of the world. They’re playing for the prize of, well, it’s unclear, as the culture-curious fellows are now into their third successive episode of imbibing frivolity. As t...
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