It's always astonishing when you realise something you'd taken for granted as being the way the world works is actually a cultually-biased assumption.

Take for instance this blog post, which I just read:

Oh my gawd...I just found out how easy it is for people to track you down here in Australia. Call came in from TNT Singapore. Parcel to be delivered to me (from whom I do not know), but apparently sender did not leave any of my contact details. So TNT Australia got their counterparts in Singapore to get hold of me. And how do they do that? WHITE PAGES!!!! This is damn freaky! Your surname, initial, phone number and address' all listed there. FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. Where the hell's my privacy??

Umm. Really? My mind still goes into shock every time I try to understand how anyone could consider the white pages to be a violation of privacy. Obviously this is because it's something I've grown up with..

Wow.