Who are the Ozians? A guide on the people and places before taking a journey to the O Straitby Dr. Percival Moominorith, Gaeanist Studies Thanelen University, 1979This paper is part of the required reading list for Thanelen University Students before they leave for an exchange or study abroad trip to Ozia. Students have been mugged, injured, arrested, and/or killed on trips to Ozia due to ignorance of Ozian customs and culture. The Ozian EthnicityWhenever I travel with Myrorian students on exchanges to Ozia, it always comes up. Unless you meet an Ozian who is part of a direship, I learned that it’s extremely rude to make any mention of genealogy, ethnicity, or family. Why is this so? It’s complicated. Not the explanation about culture I could give you, but any Ozian’s explanation would be too complicated. Several have no idea who their father is, mothers who can’t remember who the father was, and several relatives who just don’t know a whole half of their genealogy. Several exchange students from Ozia even have problems hearing about our ancestry. We love to prat about being half Letonese or a quarter Eirish and tell a tale about as many grandparents as we were told about. I myself have a great great great Uncle who once saved a fishing boat during a storm, and the village decided to make a statue in his honor. But what did these Ozians think of all these stories? They hate them, they think they’re boring, and they think we have nothing better to do with our time. The word for ethnicity in the Ozian language is even just the Inglish word, transliterated into O script, but it’s the exact same pronunciation. Ozian in general has only a few Inglish borrowed words, suggesting these Ozians hate the word ethnicity so much that they’ve even disconnected the word from their own language.
So asking the question,
Who are the Ozians?, is actually a very daunting task. We only have our generalizations from experience to make a rough guess. In fact you can change into an Ozian whenever you want, just live in the country for eight years, convert to Gaeanism, and take a test in Ozian language proficiency. Women have an alternative route too to become Ozian, they simply give birth to a child in Ozia, said baby and the mother will both receive Ozian citizenship immediately. As far as racial demographics and a census, they’re non-existent in Ozia. Instead when they’re getting an ID, license, or passport, Ozian bureaucrats will submit what colored skin category the person has much like we list peoples eye color. Which is no easy thing to understand either. Most Myrorians would be labeled
pink rather than brown here, and the majority of Ozians are labeled as “Olive Light Brown”, but there are a possible thirty colors of skin an ID can have. Some humorous examples are
ghastly or very pale,
transparent or the palest, and
unnatural or a spray-on/golf tan.
These findings are unsurprising if you know Ozian history well. Before the advent of steam engines, Ozia was in its golden age of wind. Attributed to the luck of their location and wind patterns, the other powers of the Cefnor Sea and abroad found the quickest route was always through Ozia. Years of this movement of people through their home have rendered the idea of the Ozian ethnicity empty. Before their golden age they were a defined mix of desert nomads and ancient imperials, but now they’re a diverse group of people that can have any color of skin from the darkest black to
transparent, eyes with every shade of the rainbow, and different facial characteristics that came from every part of Taijitu.
However, there are peculiarities in this diverse mix that make Ozians Ozians. Shades of eyes are always a direct giveaway, the most popular being unheard of in the Northern world. The most common eye colors in Ozia are the dark red and dark blue shades, with a dark purple being third most common. The Purple eye, a growing genetic trait amongst Ozians, is the most fascinating aspect of Ozian culture. Through eye color rather than skin color, Ozians have found discrimination. The Divine Listener always has purple eyes, and Gaean leadership mostly only have purple eyes. The next giveaway is the height differences of males and females in Ozia. Ozian women are on average, four inches taller than the men. A trait unseen in any other culture. Anthropologists wonder if this is a result of ancient Ozian history, when Dunedain nobles enslaved most of the Ozian male population as soldiers, servants, and farmers. Also it’s theorized that mothers would discard stronger and heavier male babies to decrease their value amongst slavers when they came of age. These are however, all speculative and a matter of great debate amongst biologists and anthropologists.
The Ozian CultureOzian society is deeply rooted in Gaeanism, and anything from drinking a cup of coffee to smoking zuavka requires ritual. Books often are dedicated to Gaea for giving them the inspiration and dedication to write it. Temples, soothsayers, and shops claiming spiritual enhancement are on every busy street. The most religious people have rituals before cooking, sex, exercising, painting, writing, studying, or even just slipping off their shoes at home. Before entering an Ozian’s house you might be asked to pray at an urn at the front of the house full of ancestor’s ashes. There in Inglish or Ozian you must thank them for shelter and protection from harm. There’s a few household prayers you can memorize to get by acceptably with this. If you are in trouble with the law, your punishment might be hours of meditation at a temple. Once I had a student arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior have to sit and meditate for twelve hours with a priestess. The symbol of Gaea which is seen on the flag of Ozia, is everywhere. Keeping up with all the holidays and rituals will be your greatest challenge. Everything might be normal one day, and then one morning or night you suddenly hear all the streets erupting with singing and fireworks.
The Day of Fire is definitely the one you should be most prepared for, though festivities last a week depending on where you are. Describing the whole holiday would take another day, but the day is most known for its copious amount of drinking, kissing, orgies, fireworks, and public chaos. What they’re celebrating might be unclear during the whole thing, but it’s a festival dedicated to the first Listener when she broke the Dunedain Siege of Ozi’pol.
As for mannerisms, Ozians have always been by far the rudest people I’ve ever met. Why are Ozians so rude? I’ve been told it’s simple, because random kindness is viewed as patronizing (though for Ozia, perhaps we should say matronizing). Opening a door for an Ozian was the first mistake I’ve ever made in the country. The woman grabbed me by the neck and yelled at me with words I didn’t quite understand yet in Ozian. While most Ozians understand Inglish because of their rigorous school system, our shyer Myrorian students are given the cold shoulder if they try speaking any Inglish to them. Once an Ozian slum kid nipped my wallet, and a police officer was nearby watching the entire thing. I gave him a look and asked him if he was going to do anything, but the officer pointed to his watch and told me he was on break. Walking is even a shock to several of my students. In Myroria we enjoy great wide streets and hallways where we enjoy hanging out with friends in great wide lines and spaces. In Ozia this is impossible, because streets are designed for motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians. Taking up too much space in Ozia isn’t illegal, but the locals will definitely shove you back into an acceptable space. Personal space is a foreign concept amongst Ozians. They don’t feel shame for touching anywhere, and I receive complaints from women in the exchange group talking about a cop that patted them down or an Ozian shoving them away at any part of the body. Ozian men and women only feel public shame for nudity below the waist, it’s common place during the hottest days to see several Ozians going shirtless, including the women. This is certainly the one thing many of our male students gawk at and pressure our female students into joining in on. I encourage the men to remain calm though, as they have ended up in the hospital for taking too many pictures of this occurrence.
The ideas of matriarchy are still alive and strong in Ozian culture, but the most annoying thing about it is the spitting. Spitting in Ozian culture is seen as a sign of endearment, sexual endearment. Walking on the street I’ve received many spits, and when I stop by the nearest restroom to clean up, another woman will spit in my face. Speaking of restrooms, all public toilets are unisex, and so I’ve been spat on there while cleaning myself off. Telling a police officer that you’re being harassed by the spitting will likely get you spat on by the officer with a dismissive, “Aren’t you a cutie?” Other examples are in Ozian law, which state men are
speculative witnesses to crime. The word of a woman is often considered more than two men making the same witness statement. Ozian dinner parties have a peculiar event called the
pre-dinner, where men must seat their partners or other women at the dinner table and bring out drinks for them. During this hour or two hour process the men are not allowed to sit at the table, but must begin preparing and plating food for everyone. They also bring out appetizers for these women. Every now and then a woman will call out for more drinks, and they are not expected to get up during this time. My wife tells me whenever we attend these that the women always talk about sports, politics, and sex. Speaking over women is an undesirable thing to do, especially heads of households, combat veterans, and doctorates. Often these days you find a combination of all three. I don’t even dare to speak to these women unless spoken to, and I always call them the equivalent of ma’am in Ozian. Disrespecting them is a good way to lose friendships.
Picture of a lightly skinned Ozian woman
continued on next post