If the World was a Village of 100 people

Many AIESECers would have seen powerpoints and cool vids depicting global demographic data framed under the concept of if the world was a village of 100 people, what would it look like. Toby Ng Design has taken these statistics and converted them to really interesting, simple but beautifully designed pictures. Check these out, and if you haven’t seem them before, they do make you think.

It’s interesting to see that Christians are still the dominant religion, I would’ve thought Islam would probably be more dominant by now but I guess if you lump together Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, etc then you’d have a sizeable amount. What I find misleading is the Atheists/Others category, I mean that includes Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha’is, Jains, Sikhs and many other fairly prominent religions, so how many atheists are there really in the world?

 

 

This is another interesting one. 6% of the world’s population apparently control 59% of the world’s wealth and they’re all from the States? Again considering how many billionaires there are in non-US countries these days, that is somewhat surprising (Carlos Slim anyone?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also I find the language one interesting, unsurprisingly Chinese rules the roost but by that much? Damn. And Hindi second at 8%? Russian scored pretty highly up there as well. I would’ve guessed differently but I guess demographic statistics for this kind of thing are pretty hard to agree upon.

 

I’m not sure what the source for the stats are but I’ve definitely seen them before, either way I think the design is really cool and check his website for more of it.

Bahraini Cultural Observations 1

It’s interesting to reflect on how I change when I’m in Bahrain, as opposed to when I’m in Melbourne.

Today I saw a girl and a guy having a coffee and a chat at Baretto and it didn’t occur to me until about 10 minutes later that they could be dating. It’s really not something that goes through my mind when I see a girl & a guy having coffee. In Bahrain however, if I see a guy & a girl having coffee in a cafe I immediately assume that they are carrying on a clandestine relationship and notice all of the little awkward oddities about their interaction.

Also in Melbourne I think nothing of scantily clad girls or girls that smoke. It’s summer, it’s hot, why not wear hot pants or a mini-skirt? Why not have a fag ouside with your coffee? In Bahrain, however, if you see a (Bahraini/Arab) girl with shoulders exposed, anything resembling slight cleavage, wearing anything above the knee and/or smoking then you immediately assume at the back of your mind that she’s probably of loose morals and probably comes from one of those expat schools. Not very fair but I just can’t help these things going through the back of my mind.

Americans can be funny

So I’m in the De Markten cafe, one of my favourite cafes in Brussels which I frequent very often and this place gets quite a few foreigners.

In fact I myself have travelled a fair bit and seen my fair share of tourists/travellers/foreigners from various nations, and overall, Americans definitely stand out for the most foot-in-mouth moments or general faux pas.

For instance right here next to me in, two young (late 20s) male seppos just sat down so I knew I’d be good for about an hour of entertainment. First little tidbit:

Yank 1: i’ll have a Stella Art-wah (in a very pronounced chic French accent, hey buddy we just call em Stella)
Yank 2: i’ll have one of those Hyundais [sic]
Waiter: a what?
Yank 2: it’s there at the top of the drinks list
Waiter: Oh… Bionade

Tidbit 2
Yank 2: Hey what’s that croh-kay (sic)? It looks really big!
Waiter: Yeah that’s the croque madame
Yank 2: OK, I’ll have a croh-kay mah-daaaaaaaaam (sic)

Well at least you gotta hand it to ’em for trying.