She didn't learn to embrace other cultures, or mimic them, she learned to accept their existence and to live and let live and deal with the stuff she thought was weird.
Vanilla,
My way of thinking too. I never have & never will think any other way & I will only express my objection when others' think they're exempt from thinking so but expect me to conform.
i.e. don't do as I do, do as I say.
If only we all had more fiends like that.

Great discussion. When I was a child living near an Australian country town, "Mixed Marriage" meant a Protestant marrying a Catholic and all sorts of difficulties were raised between the families even though they might have lived near each other for generations. Nowadays if you hear the the phrase it would be something complimentary involving a couple from diverse backgrounds. We've come a long way! Something that was once socially "intolerable" is now normal. Along with many other important factors I think post-war prosperity has been remarkably helpful in improving the moral tone. Prosperity enables people to travel and become generally informed therefore more "tolerant". Serious travel by ordinary young folk started in the 60's. ( I was on the Fairstar in 1964 having cashed in my super to buy a return ticket). I found myself learning so much about other people through having a job in another country. Later in the 60's there was a lot of noise by students but we "working holiday" types did not know much about it until many years later when we were informed by them that they had changed the world! I thought I had changed myself without their help!

Well I did have a big think about it and, after reading some of these responses it seems that perhaps I am being a little simplistic. But to me tolerance is not something you have. Its what results when you don't have something: judgementalism.

Foxy said tolerance is freedom from bigotry and yeah. From my reductionist point of view tolerance is simply the natural outcome of not judging others.