10 Creative Hobbies To Learn From Other Cultures
Hobbies are important. They help us discover, express ourselves, and more to support creative living. Here are 10 creative hobbies to learn from other cultures.
In a world full of different cultures and lifestyles, there are endless ways to express oneself. When you travel, you open yourself to different perspectives of seeing the world. When you try creative hobbies from around the world, you open yourself to new ways of expressing yourself or discovering something you didn’t know about yourself.
How hobbies boost creativity
- Self-Discovery – Creative hobbies allow you to explore yourself and your talents
- Health & Well-being – Hobbies can relieve stress and improve physical health
- Challenges & Experiences – Hobbies help you get out of your comfort zone and foster a beginner’s mindset
- New Skills & Income – Hobbies can help improve your career
Kintsugi
Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it is similar to wabi-sabi. Kintsugi regards something broken and its repair as part of the history of an object. Rather than throwing away something that is broken, it highlights the event.
How often have you messed up a creative project and walked away distraught? Instead of letting stress and agitation rise, change your perspective. Accept the reality of the mistake and turn it into new opportunities for beauty and expression.
Kintsugi is also a powerful symbol of a creative person. When life gives you lemons, do you stop everything and give up? No. Take those lemons and make lemonade. The past is used in the process to inspire the creation of something new and beautiful. There’s always a silver lining and opportunities to overcome challenges with creativity.
Creative Lessons
- Value flaws
- Embrace imperfection
- Reframe hardship into opportunity
- See the value of flaws
- Accept history as part of the creative process
Tips
- Learn more creative lessons from Japanese culture
Making Hot Sauce
When it comes to creative hobbies, everyone should learn how to cook. Not only does cooking support a healthier lifestyle, but it also includes many elements that boost creativity. With so many different dishes to cook from around the world, this hobby keeps on giving.
One way to mix up your cooking hobby is with hot sauce. Nearly every culture has its own twist on hot sauce, and cooking hot sauce has many benefits for the creative mind. Just like the act of creativity, making hot sauce is about experimentation and play. With seemingly endless possibilities, you can create hot sauces from around the world.
Even if you don’t have a high tolerance for spicy food, one benefit of learning to make your own hot sauce is that you control the heat levels. You can experiment with hot sauces that are sweet, like a mango or peach hot sauce. Just like cooking, there are many options to make this creative hobby your own and connect with cultures around the world.
Creative Lessons
- Eating hot sauce releases endorphins, which can reduce stress and make you happier.
- Cooking is a great way to collaborate with others and inspire daily play.
- Hot sauce and cooking are both great ways to get healthy.
Tips
- Challenge yourself like the Hot Ones challenge
- How to Make Hot Sauce – Chili Pepper Madness Ultimate Guide.
- Pair your hot sauce hobby with creative travel, trying different ingredients and styles.
- Try growing your own peppers and ingredients with gardening for more creative and healthy benefits.
Salsa Dancing
Cuba has inspired many great creative minds like Ernest Hemingway. This colorful city is full of unique travel experiences for creatives. Even sitting at a cafe can inspire greatness like it has for many creative minds. One way to mix things up on your visit and unite the mind and body is to learn the beautiful art of salsa dancing. Unique hobbies like dancing is a great way to learn from other cultures and connect with people, especially loved ones.
Dancing is a great way to express yourself and connect the mind and body in the present moment. It’s also a great way to improve health and mood. Salsa is a mixture of Cuban dances such as mambo, pachanga, rumba, American swing, and tap. If you’re looking for a dancing hobby, salsa dancing is full of passion and a great hobby to do with someone you love. If you’re taking salsa dancing with others, you learn how to work together and how people learn in different ways. Dancing with others creates many opportunities for connection and empathy. Not only are you learning how to express yourself, but how also how to understand and connect with others.
If you’re taking up this creative hobby, consider how you can go deeper with it and the many connections it has to creative and healthy living.
Creative Lessons
- Dancing releases endorphins that are conducive to learning, improving well-being, and reducing stress.
- Dancing incorporates several brain functions and a mind-body connection that can boost memory.
- Dancing improves balance, strength, and cardiovascular health.
Tips
- Record yourself to improve your form and learn from your mistakes.
- Break down the process to focus on each part before putting them together, i.e., learn how to listen to salsa music before adding movement.
- Learn to laugh at yourself. You’re going to be awkward at first. Embrace it.
- Practice by yourself to internalize what you’ve learned and train visualization.
Martial Arts
Bruce Lee describes martial arts as the art of expressing the human body. Martial art styles can be found all around the world and date back to ancient times, but as technology has evolved, these fighting arts have become less about fighting others and more about fighting bad habits and self-development.
There are many benefits to learning martial arts from, physical to psychological, and for the creative mind, these benefits echo out like ripples. By training the mind/body through martial arts, one can enter flow states easier, combat creative blocks, unlock truths about oneself for better expression, and more. Creative living also shares many values with martial arts and provides exercises for training these values.
If you’re looking for a hobby to learn from other cultures and stack many habits that benefit creative and healthy living, martial arts might be the answer for you.
Creative Lessons
- Beginner’s Mind – This trains the mind to rediscover the joy of curiosity and openness to experience.
- Flow – Strengthens the mind/body connection for better concentration and flow.
- Self-Discovery/Development – Martial arts push the body and mind to unlock insights into personal growth for better creative expression.
Tips
- There’s no best style – Find a martial art style that works best for you.
- Don’t focus on the results – Small improvements are the key to long-term results.
- Respect the limits of your body – Martial arts helps you push yourself, but it’s also about becoming more aware of your mind/body connection.
Calligraphy
Calligraphy can be found in nearly all cultures. It’s especially widely practiced and respected in China and East Asia. Chinese calligraphy (书法, Shūfǎ) is considered one of the four most-sought skills and creative hobbies of ancient Chinese literati, the prestigious scholars in Chinese society. It is a known art for the cultivation of the mind.
The philosophy and goal of Chinese calligraphy are to express one’s innermost beauty and truth by connecting the mind and body through creativity. There isn’t one way to draw and write out a word, character, or picture calligraphy can represent and reveal one’s character. By practicing this creative hobby, one can improve their well-being and find balance.
Creative Lessons
- Connects mind and body in the present moment
- Trigger flow state
- Practice patience
- Reveals truths through expression
Tips
- Turn calligraphy into a meditation, like Enso Drawing.
- Practice letting go with water calligraphy.
- Pair with learning another language to add more creative benefits.
- Meditate on your calligraphy to learn more about yourself.
Soap and Fruit Carving
Soap Carving is a traditional art form in Thailand dating as far back as the 13th century. Originally, people sculpted fruits and vegetables, but later, the art form would evolve into beautiful soap carvings that could keep their smell for a long time.
This creative hobby started in the ancient Thai capital of Sukothai during a major Thai festival called Loi Kratong. A servant of the king, Nang Noppamart, wanted to improve her Kratong, a small floating container fashioned of leaves that are made to hold small goods like Thai dishes and desserts. Hoping to please her royal majesty, she chose to carve one of her favorite flowers and birds in the fruits and vegetables.
Creative Lessons
- Smells can trigger happy memories.
- Learn the value of combination.
- Sculpting is a great way to practice visualization.
Tips
- Soap Carving Tutorial Video
- Carve/eat foods that boost creativity
- Add creativity to your Thai vacation by learning soap carving from locals
Origami
Origami (折り紙), meaning folding paper, is an art form from Japanese culture. However, now it’s used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin.
The goal of this creative hobby is to fold a flat square sheet of paper into a sculpture of some sort, usually without cuts, glue, or markings. There is a style called kirigami which involves cutting the paper.
This ancient art of paper folding isn’t just a fun way to pass the time. This creative hobby has many applications for training and developing the creative mind. Many modern-day classrooms use Origami to teach geometry, science, thinking skills, problem-solving, visualization, and more.
Creative Lessons
- Problem-Solving – Origami is a great way for all ages to practice problem-solving and befriend failure. Because failure is bound to happen, you can practice and cultivate a Beginner’s Mind, which further supports creative living.
- Visualization – Origami started as someone visualizing sculptures using flat pieces of paper. There are plenty of instructions on how to create different origami sculptures, but as you learn the basics, you can later create your own.
- Hand-eye coordination – Origami is a great hobby for connecting the body and body in a single action that can also inspire flow. The more you practice, the more the hobby can become a meditation.
Tips
- Slow down and be precise – there’s no rush with this hobby
- Wabi-sabi (Save your mistakes) – They show the journey and may even lead to new creative ideas
- Learn from creative Youtube Channels:
Kubb - Viking Chess
Kubb, also known as “Viking chess,” is a lawn game where the objective is to knock over wooden blocks (kubbar) by throwing wooden batons (kastpinnar) at them.
Play is a crucial ingredient to creative living. Finding time to play as an adult can be difficult. That’s why picking up creative hobbies, especially unique hobbies from other cultures, can be helpful for many creative reasons. With this hobby, you can get outside, play with others, and challenge yourself in a game that’s similar to bowling and horseshoes, and more. Games can last between five minutes to over an hour and can be played on a variety of surfaces, making this an easy hobby you can pick up and put down whenever you have time.
Creative Lessons
- Learn how to collaborate and work with others.
- Once you learn the rules, experiment, discover new ways to play and new strategies to win.
- Use this hobby to embrace the great outdoors and all nature has to offer the creative mind.
Tips
- How to Play Kubb – Triple S Games
- Channel your creativity into the game by making or decorating your own Kubb set
- Play with friends and family to strengthen bonds and teamwork
Bonsai
When it comes to unique and creative hobbies to learn from other cultures, few are as challenging and rewarding as the art of bonsai.
Bonsai, which translates to ‘tree planting’ in English, is a Japanese art form that dates back thousands of years. The art utilizes cultivation techniques to produce small trees that mimic the shape and scale of full-size trees. Some bonsais are passed down generation by generation. One of the most expensive bonsai trees was sold for $1.3 million.
Zen is the foundation of this creative hobby. The purpose is to contemplate and absorb oneself in the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity. To be successful, you need to work and train yourself just as much as you care for and shape your bonsai. You will need to practice zen virtues like patience, calmness of mind, balance, respect, and more.
If you’re looking for plants to fill your space to improve well-being and inspire creativity, start with a plant that is creativity itself.
Creative Lessons
- Patience and Focus – The art of caring for a bonsai requires proper care, which takes time and patience. Let go of expectations and be patient with the process. Growth takes time. Observe the changes and reflect on your own growth as you care for the bonsai.
- Flow – While observing the growth of your tree and the new opportunities for how you want to shape it, connect with nature and the flow of the process.
- Balance is Key to Growth – Become aware of how your bonsai grows and what it needs to thrive. Find balance in its development and your own development.
Tips
- Meditate and visualize what you want your bonsai to look like before you begin.
- Try a bonsai starter kit to help you get going.
- No room or time for a real bonsai? Try a virtual bonsai.
Miniature Painting
The unique hobby of miniature painting from India dates back to at least the 9th century CE and spans across many centuries and cultures. It has been around longer than paper has existed. Defined by delicate and graceful brushwork using a range of materials like squirrel hair for the brushes, organic and natural minerals for the colors like stone dust, real gold and silver dust, and palm leaves, paper, wood, marble, ivory panels, and cloth for the base.
This creative hobby takes patience, practice, and perseverance to learn. The best way to learn this creative hobby is through creative travel. There are many travel options to learn ancient art forms and hobbies from Indian cultures. When you add cultural activities like this one to your travel plans, you support creativity further through collaboration and digging deeper into the stories and beliefs behind the art. However, if you’re looking to start this new hobby from home, there are online options to guide your creative journey.
Creative Lessons
- Patience – Miniature painting is all about patience and practice. You will need to befriend failure and enjoy the process.
- Flow – Bring your focus to the miniature world. Block out your environment and get lost in the present moment by focusing your attention on the smallest details.
- Be Deliberate – When details matter most, every action should be deliberate and purposeful. Do one thing at a time and be mindful of your actions and goals.
Tips
- Learn the chronological history of miniature painting – Artisera
- Learn more from the five great masters of Indian miniature painting
- Udemy online Minature Painting Class
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
