For humans, any little thing can signal foreignness, as I have experienced many times. Mortified souls looked on in India when I picked up my food with the incorrect hand. In Iran I tried to nod yes when to the locals a nod meant no. Sitting on moss in the New Guinea highlands, I watched The Muppet Show with an entire village on an ancient television run off a car battery. Knowing I came from America, and that The Muppet Show was American, every man and woman looked at me quizzically when a pig, a species they revere, waltzed on the screen in a dress and high heels.

Mark W. Moffett, The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall (2019)