How much would you say climate contributes to how stagnant or fast-paced/dynamic a society/culture is? How much do you think your culture is adapted to your climate and what are some visible ways it manifests itself?

[u/DerpAnarchist]

Human cultures often associate the cold with slowness, while the opposite is true for heat. High temperature results from particles accelerating faster, while during cold they remain stagnant.

We see this all across nature, when humans exert themselves blood pressure/heart rate increases, breathing fastens, the body emits more heat, sweats and is engaged in more energy-intensive chemical/biological activities, while during cold you're generally more relaxed.

In Scandinavia, Northern Russia, Korea and Iceland for example, winter season was (and is) slow season. You hoard a bunch of food during autumn, often fermented stuff, dig a hole in the ground and put it in there until you need it. Their culture, especially their cuisine is reflective of that, where there's a lot of gatherable greens involved, alongside canned/potted/dried vegetables, general lack of concrete ingredient requirements and poor people cuisine being largely the same as that of the rich (staples + sides).

Their societies are homogenous because of the lack of migration, stemming from the fact that often only certain types of people remain and the land being not that amazing for crop growth. Most people there tend to be introverts, preferring company alone or in small groups rather than mass events with many people.

Those countries are also historically politically very stable, where there's no regime change for hundreds of years, hence why they're quite isolated from foreign invasions. Contrary to popular expectation, in those countries winter is considered a good time for military endeavours. Of course not during the worst conditions, but at the time when those conditions battered your opponent, while you yourself hunkered down in castles around the country.

Traditionally they're also quite poor, which reflects itself in their artistic preferences for austere and "boring" designs

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u/DerpAnarchist's post title:

"How much would you say climate contributes to how stagnant or fast-paced/dynamic a society/culture is? How much do you think your culture is adapted to your climate and what are some visible ways it manifests itself?"

u/DerpAnarchist's post body:

Human cultures often associate the cold with slowness, while the opposite is true for heat. High temperature results from particles accelerating faster, while during cold they remain stagnant.

We see this all across nature, when humans exert themselves blood pressure/heart rate increases, breathing fastens, the body emits more heat, sweats and is engaged in more energy-intensive chemical/biological activities, while during cold you're generally more relaxed.

In Scandinavia, Northern Russia, Korea and Iceland for example, winter season was (and is) slow season. You hoard a bunch of food during autumn, often fermented stuff, dig a hole in the ground and put it in there until you need it. Their culture, especially their cuisine is reflective of that, where there's a lot of gatherable greens involved, alongside canned/potted/dried vegetables, general lack of concrete ingredient requirements and poor people cuisine being largely the same as that of the rich (staples + sides).

Their societies are homogenous because of the lack of migration, stemming from the fact that often only certain types of people remain and the land being not that amazing for crop growth. Most people there tend to be introverts, preferring company alone or in small groups rather than mass events with many people.

Those countries are also historically politically very stable, where there's no regime change for hundreds of years, hence why they're quite isolated from foreign invasions. Contrary to popular expectation, in those countries winter is considered a good time for military endeavours. Of course not during the worst conditions, but at the time when those conditions battered your opponent, while you yourself hunkered down in castles around the country.

Traditionally they're also quite poor, which reflects itself in their artistic preferences for austere and "boring" designs

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[u/Fun_Technology_204]

Pakistan is a mixed place. We are squished between India and the Middle East, so we're generally a very hot country. However, we also have snowy places, mountainous places (the second highest mountain of the world is in Pakistan!) and massive ice glaciers .

In the hot areas of Pakistan (which is the majority), no one goes out after 11am - 1pm or 3pm because it's hot..so people usually sleep during those hours or take an afternoon nap (gharma). Shops are closed and that's when the sun is at its peak. That's why roads are empty are people scare kids that that's when kidnappings are high . We also wake up before sunrise to offer morning prayers and then get ready for school / work , so that combined with the fact that it's hot in the afternoons , makes afternoon naps part of the culture.

People also sleep early because you can't sleep long throughout the day (have to wake up for prayers, 5x a day) so after the night prayer, a lot of people sleep till morning.

This makes life relatively "fast". At least here in KPK which takes religion seriously.

I don't know much about the Punjab province, but generally they aren't that religious so they're mainly just stuck at home during the summer days and start living their actual life after evenings.... Go out at night and eat out / go to the malls. So their life is more active at night. We call them nocturnals lol.

I think that's how the temperature affects our lifestyle. Our house structures are also open (veranda, yards etc) , not closed where you can have a centralized cooling system like American apartments. That's why for those who can afford, buys an AC and installs it in a single room where all the family sleeps together.

In the KPK villages and certain cities, there are doors between neighbors and houses so that we don't need to go outside and women can easily visit one another without having to go out in the heat and wear a whole attire for it.

Idk, it really depends on which part of Pakistan, province, the climate over there. Also a mix of social and family factors . However I'm only focusing on climate as that's what you asked for.

Karachi is gonna be different because as far as I've heard, it's always spring over there since it's near the Arabian sea.

Oh and winters are known as wedding seasons in Pakistan. That's why a lot of our fancy dresses are heavy and warm because no one arranges their weddings during the summer heat. lol.

Houses are built in a way so that it faces away from the sun. The materials are usually linter and double bricks are used when constructing houses to make it more cool.

[u/[deleted]]

Most everything grinds to halt during the summer months. Sure there is work going on, but people most of the time leave the country to vacation somewhere cooler, like Europe.

[u/ModernirsmEnjoyer]

I wouldn't call Russian or even Korean culture boring or austere in design, and there is definitely plenty of colour in Russian traditional culture. Koreans, like other East Asians, display higher preference for colourful designs, especially in official settings (compare the homepage of Rodong Sinmun with BBC or Ria Novosti).

[u/DerpAnarchist → u/ModernirsmEnjoyer]

Why do Chinese/Japanese make fun of Koreans for using only white and black then lol

Until around 60 years ago everyone wore white exclusive Hanbok. Japanese had different associations with white and black preferences and preferred colourfulness, as wirh Chinese, so they believed that it was due to Koreans being "sad" and "melancholic" for some reason. Yanagi Soetsu wrote this:

While China and especially Japan are using so many different colors in their dresses, there is no such trend in the neighboring country, Joseon. They wear no color but white. Even when they use a color, it's an almost colorless jade. What makes everyone, regardless of gender or age, wear white? There are many countries and nations in the world, but none are like Joseon.

Joseon era artistic styles are usually characterized by being typically very focused on the base aspects of nature, or realistic, rustic folk like paintings such as these. The colours are restricted to the base ones, and are either a unmixed shade of it or at most shaded as a gradient along edges to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

[u/ModernirsmEnjoyer → u/DerpAnarchist]

Well, I Googled the topic, and there are different explanations, with the one I like the most being influence of the Three teachings and their sacrificial ideology. Other more probable explanations might exist, but I would have to make a deeper study.

And even if the "White colour ethnicity" was such because of the environment, why did the same could not be said about ethnicities who lived in comparable or harsher climates did not use only white or other colours?

It's said that South Korea has adopted colourful clothes due to American influence, but North Korea also has colorful clothes despite being influenced culturally by Russia and having weaker industrial base and trade access. In fact, Soviet film crew really emphasised how colourful facilities and theatre were, and North Koreans also add colour to instances where Russians or Chinese would avoid (like how colourful front pages of Rodong Sinmun can be, for being an organ of the Central Committee of the WPK, which makes it the most authoritative voice in the country, and yet, they sometimes add whimsical colours and illustrations to glorify authority, while Pravda and People's Daily have always been more conservative)

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[u/found_goose]

while during cold you're generally more relaxed

Maybe this explains why us Tamils are stereotyped as stubborn + aggressive lol. The closest we have to a "slow season" is probably during the rainy period when roads become miserable + disease risk is highest. Otherwise, our culture is pretty dynamic and the opposite of boring (which is sometimes strongly desired).