At a symposium about cultural diversity and design that I visited a while ago I heard the following description of culture, which I think is pretty accurate:

Culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning (Boden, 2006).

More simply put (and shorter) culture is 'how we do things here.' Being somewhat artifact-obsessed, I especially like the fact that in this definition artifacts are considered a part of culture. In addition, the definition states that that culture is something that is transmitted through learning, which came to mind when I ran into the blue fire extinguisher on the right in the picture overhead. In 'the west' we've come to associate red with danger. Emergency stop buttons are red, traffic lights signaling you to stop are red, fire extinguishers are red. The latter does not go for fire extinguishers in Asia though: they're blue.

The explanation I was offered is that in much of Asia (particularly in China) the color red is omnipresent, because it is associated with for example prosper, or - in the case of China - it's the national color. That makes red a pretty useless color if you want to make fire extinguisher easily noticed. Whatever the cause, the blue fire extinguisher at the Dragon-Inn in Borneo made me stop in my tracks. To my Dutch-culture-biased eyes it looked strange, which made me notice it. Though I probably would not have looked for something blue had there really been a fire.