#esp. since she grew up in Mongolia | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yves-and-scessernee · 8 months ago

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I understand that many people have had to deal with U.S. Americans asking things like "Wait, there's Starbucks in Africa?" and I agree that we rightfully deserve to get dunked on for that

but as someone involved in religious and interfaith life, it's not unheard of for me to run into the opposite situation. this post goes out to a conversation I had recently with a friend, a truly lovely person, which began with "Oh! Before I forget, here's a book I picked up from the monastery my grandfather took me to a while back," and snowballed into "Wait, there are monasteries in America?"

#I know these aren't equivalent sentiments #and that there's a huge power imbalance between empires relative to other parts of the world #that enables the ignorance of the people living in them for the rest of the world #but yeah there are monasteries!#and convents and cathedrals #and lots of other religious institutions outside of my own Christian and Christopagan and and UU and Pagan bubble #but I think it's that monasteries in particular are so heavily associated with medieval life in Europe that threw my friend off #esp. since she grew up in Mongolia

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