And my reverse culture shock

President Trump copped a bit of flack for wearing a blue suit to Pope Francis’ funeral. This reminded me of some reverse culture shock I experienced at my own father’s funeral.

At my father’s funeral, I was very surprised when basically only myself and my wife were wearing black. It seems we were following Japanese custom, while everyone else was following what I suspect is NZ’s new progressive custom: wearing a whole lot of colour.

Which is great!

My judgement could be wrong here, but I felt that the onus was on celebrating the person’s life, not being saddened by the end of it.

However, since Trump is the president of the United States, he has some rules to follow when it comes to appropriate attire. You could argue that Trump too was trying to celebrate Pope Francis’ life rather than be saddened by his death, but who really knows with President Trump?