One way or another, all people are carriers of the culture of a country. However, not everyone understands the importance of this phenomenon, perceiving themselves, their upbringing and worldview separately from their country and society, which is fundamentally wrong.
The concept of local color
This expression originally came to us in the vocabulary as a literary term, which means a stylistic device used to describe the life and customs of any locality. However, now the phrase "local flavor" is often used as a kind of metaphor not only in literary works, but also in everyday speech.
In tourism
To date, the concept of "local flavor" in the minds of most people is associated with tourist activity. Thus, they often try to describe the individual characteristics of each country or region, to tell what distinguishes some area, what are its characteristic features. For tourists, the local flavor is the features inherent in the area, the features of architectural structures, national life, everyday life of the population, the characteristic cultural features. All this helps to feel as much as possible the atmosphere of the country, to better understand its people.
National character
Often speaking about what the local flavor means, people turn to national characteristics. In fact, the words "local" and "national" now appear to be a kind of synonyms. And indeed, coming to any country, a person is faced with a truly exciting variety of local color.
So, in Germany we can see interesting houses, beautiful national costumes, hear music and songs that are characteristic only for this country. With the mention of France, many people have associations with national dishes, such as croissants and julienne, French fashion, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, French kings and other features that characterize the national flavor of this country. Italy is famous for its music, everyone knows the cities of Milan and Venice, whose architecture is an incredibly valuable component of world cultural heritage. Speaking of Great Britain, one cannot but mention William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, the English monarchy, the famous Big Ben. All these are important parts of the culture of these countries, which represent their local flavor.
Bit of exotic
With the development of the tourism industry, more and more people are paying attention to exotic countries. And this is a completely justified interest, because the culture, for example, of African countries is very different from ours, Eurasian. For example, the local flavor of Cambodia can be of great interest to lovers of extreme tourism and exotic in general. Here is one of the wonders of the world - the ancient city of Angkor with truly incredible temple complexes that are more than one thousand years old, as well as other beautiful architectural structures that amaze with their antiquity.
The nature of exotic countries is also an integral part of their local flavor. Ancient crystal clear lakes, impenetrable rainforests, rare animals and plants of various colors and shades - all this appears to the tourist in all its splendor, leaving an indelible mark on his memory.
The color of Russia
But for us, the Russians, our homeland is sweetest. Our country is a repository of all kinds of cultures. The multinationality of the country makes it unique in terms of the variety of monuments of literature, architecture and cuisine. Tourists coming to Russia are amazed at the huge number of magnificent churches in its European part, the vast forests of Siberia, the beauty of the mountain landscape. However, it is worth looking to the south, and we can already see completely different manifestations of local flavor: mosques, villages and much more.
The life of the Chukchi, Caucasians and Slavs is so different that it is simply impossible to describe all the differences. The local flavor of our country is captured in the works of Russian authors such as Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Bulat Okudzhava. In their writings, they described the diversity of Russian nature, life of different nations, up to the peculiarities of the worldview of their representatives, religious features. Being at the junction of Eurasian and European cultures, Russia can surprise even an experienced tourist who has seen more than a dozen countries with its national color.
The Importance of Globalization
With the development of mutual integration of countries there is a noticeable smoothing of the characteristics of different countries. Now an increasing number of cultures are mixed with each other, as a result of which there is a loss of local flavor.
Some countries are trying to deal with this phenomenon. Thus, Japan, having long been a closed country, conducts a rigorous selection of applicants for a residence permit. So the country's authorities are trying to maintain their national features. Japan is an incredibly distinctive country, starting with cuisine (sushi, teriyaki and ramen - world famous dishes) and ending with literature (hoku - a kind of Japanese poetry). This is bearing fruit: even the modern architectural style of Japan is significantly different from other countries.
But many states, on the contrary, follow the policy of globalization, encouraging the cultural integration of other peoples in their culture. An excellent example of this is European integration. Residents of the European Union can move freely within Europe, which inevitably leads to a mixture of their national color.
So what does local flavor mean ? This is a combination of features and characteristics of the life and culture of the country. And in modern society, the most important task is to preserve this color, because now the diversity of the entire cultural layer is under threat, as never before.