Barbeque, Sunny Skies
Bind Diverse Cultures

There is no single Culture of South Africa. As South Africa is so ethnically diverse, it is not surprising that there are vast cultural differences as well.

Main Cultural differences
Because of the legacy of Apartheid segregation, many cultural differences correspond closely to the racial groups defined by Apartheid (Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, Asians). This may change as assimilation progresses, although currently (2004) many cultural differences between Apartheid-defined racial groups persist.

Black people
The country's black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished and necessarily simple lives. However, blacks are increasingly urbanised and westernised, and usually speak English or Afrikaans in addition to their native tongue, which may be one of nine Bantu languages with official status since 1994. These include the Nguni languages, Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Swazi, and Tsonga, and the Sotho languages, which include Tswana, Sotho, Northern Sotho and Venda. Cultural differences between speakers from the two language groups are comparable to those between speakers of German and Italian. Many urban blacks speak several indigenous languages, with Zulu being a lingua franca in the Johannesburg area.

Most are Christian, with membership of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches being strong as is membership of the predominantly black Zion Christian Church, although many still follow traditional beliefs, many often consulting a sangoma.

Vibrant Music
There is a vibrant indigenous culture, with local popular music forms, such as kwaito, locally mixed house while black South African musicians such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mahotella Queens, Miriam Makeba, and Hugh Masekela are well known internationally.

White people
The white minority lead lifestyles similar in many respects to whites found in Europe, North America and Australasia, with sport being immensely popular. The braai (short for braaivleis or barbecue) is another national pastime, epitomised by an old advertising slogan for Chevrolet cars in the 1960s: Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet.
Religious beliefs are also strong, with most Afrikaners adhering to the Dutch Reformed Church. Most English-speaking whites are either Anglican or Roman Catholic. Perhaps 90,000 whites are Jewish, with a similar number being of Portuguese origin. There are some Greeks and Christian Lebanese.

Apartheid was abandoned as a policy by the government when 68 percent of voters supported change in a whites only referendum.
According to research by FutureFact on the evolving South African consumer, Afrikaans speakers have shown the most radical change in political outlook of all groups in South Africa since 1994. Afrikaans speakers are 300 percent more accepting of affirmative action in 2004 than they were in 2000. This contrasts with the total population which has not shown radically increased support for the concept.

Coloured (Mixed-Race) people
The mixed-race Coloureds are, culturally speaking, much closer to whites, especially Afrikaans speakers, whose language and religious beliefs they share, than they are to black South Africans, despite suffering considerable discrimination under apartheid. A small minority of Coloureds, known as Cape Malays are Muslim. Well known members of the community include Springboks rugby players Chester Williams and Breyton Paulse and jazz musicians Jonathan Butler and Abdullah Ibrahim (also known as Dollar Brand).

Asian people
Asians, (predominantly of Indian origin) preserve their own cultural heritage, languages and religious beliefs, being either Hindu or Muslim, and speak English, with Indian languages like Tamil, Hindi, Telugu or Gujarati being spoken less frequently.

Although Indian languages are seldom spoken or understood, English-subtitled Bollywood films and television programmes are popular among South African Indians.
There is a much smaller Chinese community in South Africa, although its numbers have been increased by immigration from Taiwan (although the Taiwanese were classified as "White", rather than Asian by the Apartheid regime.)

Food
The braai or barbecue is widely popular, especially with whites, and includes meat, especially boerewors or spicy sausages, and mielies (maize) or Mielie-meal, often as a porridge, or pearl millet, a staple food of black South Africans. Pastries such like koeksusters and desserts like melktert (milk tart) are also universally popular. Vegetarianism is becoming widely accepted.

Another favourite among most South Africans is biltong, a form of dried meat usually made from beef or game, and often consumed while watching sporting events.

Indian food like curry is also popular, especially in Durban with its large Indian population. Another local Indian Durban speciality is the 'bunny' or bunny chow, which consists of a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry. Cape Malay dishes have their origins in Southeast Asia. Bobotie is a popular dish (originating in Europe) which was adapted to suit the Cape Malay palate. It is made from curried lamb, fruit and bread, served with rice, and sosatie, a type of barbecued meat. More recently, Pakistani and Indian restaurants have been opened in major cities by recent immigrants, and provide a more "authentic" South Asian dining experience.

The Portuguese community has also made its mark, with spicy peri-peri chicken being a favourite. The South African Portuguese-themed restaurant chain Nando's now has restaurants in the UK, Australia, Malaysia and Kenya.

TV and films
Television, which for political reasons was not introduced in South Africa until 1976, is also popular. Traditionally, U.S. programmes have dominated TV schedules. Programmes like The Bold and the Beautiful have been popular with South Africans of all races, but locally produced soap operas or 'soapies' now draw a large audience and are exported all over Africa. The SABC drama series Shaka Zulu, based on the true story of the Zulu warrior King Shaka, was shown around the world in the 1980s, but had to be marketed by a US distributor.

While many foreign films have been produced about South Africa (usually involving race relations), few local productions are known outside South Africa itself. One exception was the film The Gods Must Be Crazy in 1980, set in the Kalahari. This is about how life in a traditional community of Bushmen is changed when a Coke bottle, thrown out of an aeroplane, suddenly lands from the sky. The late Jamie Uys, who wrote and directed The Gods Must Be Crazy, also had success overseas in the 1970s with his films Funny People and Funny People II, similar to the TV series Candid Camera in the US. Leon Schuster's You Must Be Joking! films are in the same genre, and hugely popular among South Africans.

Other notable exceptions are the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 as well as U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, which won the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2004, the New South African TV channel (NSAT) began broadcasting on Sky Digital in the UK, thereby reaching the large (predominantly white) expatriate community, showing a mix of South African entertainment, films, sport and news coverage.