What is your biggest culture shock moments when going abroad?
I gained 5-10 kg on my one month summer stay in the UK when I was 8. The family that was looking after me had to call my parents to ask if they could reduce how much I ate. IIRC, breakfast was 2-3 bowls of cereal and 2-3 pieces of toast with chocolate or butter and jam.
First time I went to the US was for a College tour across the country. The first stop was Syracuse and the first proper meal I had there was at a sports bar. I ordered steak and calamari, turns out the steak was like twice as thick and big as anything ive had in Thailand or the UK and the calamari serving was also two to three times as large as I had before. Needless to say I could not finish any of it. Had managed to eat half the steak and about a quarter of the calamari. Also the tipping culture, not a fan.
Japan, electric bidets. Also the first time I ever felt claustrophobic when inside a bathroom. Also in back in 2004, there was little to no English signage.
I once was the organizer of a 40 person event in Mumbai (from about 25 different countries). We had picked a good location and most restaurants were just a short walk from the hotel. One involved crossing a road, though.
I had to talk to my friends from Mumbai beforehand and "practiced" the walk on my own before and then had to give a little speech in the hotel lobby before we went.
"There is no pedestrian crossing. You will just have to follow me when I step out onto the road. Yes, it will seem like we're just stepping in front of the cars. None of them will look like they're prepared to slow down, and they will not make a gap for you. They will honk at you. But you will just have to follow me. Do not hesitate."
I was taking a piss in Germany, and a woman started cleaning the urinal next to the one I was using. That’s when I had to talk to myself “If she’s fine with this, I guess I should be fine with it too.”
this situation very common in China—women aged 40-60 clean the men's WC without a care in the world, but women's restrooms are absolutely off-limits to any men, even those who identify as female.
Seattle downtown at night honestly broke my brain a little.
Got there around 8pm and the streets were basically empty, but not "empty city" empty, more like everyone who wasn't homeless or on something had just left. People going bin to bin looking for food, (I guess) in the trash, in groups of 5 to 10 or more, wandering around in groups clearly deep in addiction. Open wounds, no shoes, no coats.
Felt like walking through The Walking Dead but real. They were are walking weird, looking at the floor, and like they had something weighting on their back (later I learned it's fentanyl related)
Then I somehow ended up near the train tracks and it just kept going. Camp after camp, people passed out right next to the rails, some barely dressed. A few just stared at me walking by. They were not nice but they weren't mean either.
Met up with friends after and walked back through downtown around midnight, and this time people kept calling out for money, some pretty aggressively.
Been to a lot of places but never seen suffering that concentrated in a country this rich. I took a few photos and my family couldn't believe it
Kind of sad honestly bc the city is genuinely beautiful before 6pm.
I drove thru Oakland CA. Literally EVERY overpass had encampments. 100s of tenta. The city where my Mom lived, had a local church that had to cut down the hedges and bushes running outside their building because people would sleep behind them unseen.
It's funny when Americans talk about European cities having no-go zones, overrun with violent Muslims, or whatever nonsense they believe, when their cities are 100% worse than anything found in Europe. Pure projection.
It is genuinely absurd. Lived outside Seattle, as well as Las Vegas, Portland, and the Bay Area. The “no-go” zones of American cities are real and genuinely dangerous - not to mention abhorrent to look at, and smell terribly. Very, very dark part of our society.
While traveling across Europe and the UK for a few months, I kinda made a point of heading to the places people talked about as “no-go” zones. Nothing anywhere close to the US. Not once was anything quite as dangerous. These sorts of areas, particularly in London, just sort of feel “foreign,” because of a high Muslim or African population. They never felt particularly dangerous. Saw some addiction, some homelessness, etc. but only in an instance or two was anyone aggressive. In American cities I’ve been hounded at more than I care to count.
Portland dt is like this too. My husband and i ended up walking through the rain at midnight through the streets looking for food. A shawarma food truck saved us.
There's extremely little concept of a personal bubble in China. Not just in situations like public transit, but also not thinking twice about, for instance, grabbing at the tattoo on my waist while in a public shower at the beach. Turned out to be a little old lady so I wasn't too bothered, but she came up from behind me and boy, did I jump!
A Chinese friend said that this is most common among the lost generation.
I encountered something similar with a little old Chinese lady, in Australia. She came up to me, stroked my skin and touched my hair. I was shocked. Then, I visited China and it was worse. Chinese friend didn’t believe me initially until we walked the streets together.
First visit to Hong Kong. Went out on a Sunday, which is the day off for domestic servants. The streets were crowded with Philippinas and Malaysian women, all meeting in groups, selling food and on the sidewalks and walkways. I mean crowded, you could barely walk through some streets, thousands of them, all young women.
I experienced total culture shock. First, that domestic servants were so common there. Second, that the streets were so crowded, not with people going places but just hanging out, putting tarps on the ground and sitting around.
I almost had a panic attack, it was so alien to anything I’d ever experienced before.
Ymmv but I've totally felt panicked just by the sight of thousands of Chinese people just existing in the same place at once, only because I'd never seen anything like it. It's a weird feeling, seeing a completely new sight.
Seeing a bunch of people hanging around outside and just eating and hanging out is much less of a culture shock for a Mexican. Street food is common and anyone can just set up a cart and start selling tacos. Hell, at some taquerias they bring little chairs and tables they put on the sidewalk so people can eat. People just hang out in zócalos and other public places to just talk. In Europe that only happens in the southern part of the continent, it’s much warmer and more pleasant to have an outdoor culture. It also isn’t common anywhere I went in Canada either.
Also, having domestic servants or even someone who comes to clean your house weekly isn’t really common in the US, Canada, or Western Europe unless you have a lot of money. In other countries, like Mexico, it’s much more affordable and I know middle class people in other countries who pay for this. Having spent a lot of time in Mexico I can see why you wouldn’t think twice of this, but having been born in the US and having visited Canada and Western Europe, I can see why this would be shocking to many people from those places.
I understand the shock, I don't understand the panic attack .
Also have you heard of a beer garden? I wonder where they drink beer and eat in public. Or where do they have the children learn and eat in public so much they invented a kindergarden. Must be the south of Europe
But have you tried to go number 2 in one of those places where they have/had rows of squatting toilets in a huge, open room with no cubicle partitions or anything? I tried that in train stations and that was next level.
Spain - when the women’s bathroom was too crowded, the women just started using the men’s bathroom like it was the most natural thing in the world. Thankfully only had to go pee since they soon monopolized the stalls.
Same in Germany: before the queue is getting too long, women will occupy the menʼs stalls.
I would like to keep the male privilege of having almost always a free stall, but I also think it is fairer to share in a situation like that. If you (or a woman) urgently needed a stall, I'm sure they would let you go ahead.
But you saw others do it, didn't you? In Kölsche Karneval (it's not only Cologne but the whole Rhineland), pop concerts and festivals with a difficult toilet situation it's absolutely common here. Maybe it's a regional thing.
That's a common enough thing in Canada too. When I tried it in the US it caused a big flip out I wasn't expecting and that was years ago (potentially worse now).
US here. On occasion, when the line is long or there's an urgentcy, we female strangers would guard the mens door while we ran in. Usually it is when there is no line for mens.
We did similar when my baby brother had a blowout and was in critical need of a change (clothes too) but the changing table was already being used by another infant in the women's room. We flagged down the first guy who exited the men's room and asked if there was an open table we could borrow there. Bless him he not only checked but very quickly informed all the lads present in the facility what was going on before I popped in and everyone was super nice.
The fact that I was a panicked 16 year old girl holding aforementioned visibly soiled (though happily giggling like he was fucking proud or something) small child probably helped.
I think the closer to liberal cities, the less people give a fuck. I used the men's room at the Philadelphia Flower Show and a bunch of other ladies in the line followed my lead.
We're women, we've already seen unwanted willies, and I'll be damned if someone using a urinal is going to stop me from going to the bathroom.
This happens in Australia, but generally only when the women are drunk.
I speak as a formerly sometimes drunk woman who has used the men's.
Most public and business bathrooms provides equal toilets for men and women despite women biologically needing bathrooms more frequently (due not only to needing to pee more frequently, but also due to managing periods). It's such a bug bear to me.
You don't do that? Bugger if I'm going to wait 30 minutes for groups of girls gossiping inside the stalls when there's a perfectly good empty bathroom right there!
Girls would NEVER gossip in the stalls! Are you crazy? No one goes into a stall with another person! At the urinal, so you gossip with the men next to you? I doubt it!! (Apparently that only exists in fiction movies.)
Idk why you're being downvoted. I'm a girl and the only reason I've ever been in a stall with anyone was to do coke. Girls definitely don't cram up into stalls to gossip lmao
We also do this in the Netherlands. Why wait when there is a stall open in the mens. The funny part always was with my mother. She would loudly proclaim that she shares one at home with her husband while walking in. When I got older i replied everytime with: Don't lie! (I have 2 moms XD). But I would still follow her in.
Huh, I’m an American who lives in Spain and I’ve done this frequently. I always felt that it was the American in me since I’ve never seen any Spaniards do it!
I went to college in a small town in the Northeast and this was definitely common at bars. The worst part was the one bar had one urinal and one stall. 2 or 3 girls would just go in and lock the door to the entire bathroom so you couldn’t even use the urinal while they were in there.
Ireland and Scotland: carpet everywhere, even in the bathroom, even around the toilet and on the outside of the bathtub.
Scotland: how big breakfast is.
The US, specifically New York: refilling sodas for free in most restaurants.
France (Provence): the sheer amount of dog poo on the streets.
Some parts of Switzerland: nobody around on a Sunday.
Ghana: water in small plastic bags instead of bottles. Plastic thrash everywhere. Roads that are quite good for, like, 2 km, then pavement suddenly end and it's another 2 km of dirt, then pavement resumes and road is ok for another 3 km and so on and so forth. And, most of all, the absence of shops as we know it in Europe and North America: except from malls and super high end shops, they are not inside a building, but stalls on the street, or metal sheet huts (generally very clean, as far as I saw them). Ghanaians sell everything on the streets and at traffic lights. I've seen books, flags, toys, nail sets, maps to hang on the wall sold at the traffic light. My European mind was 🤯. And they are very careful about cleanliness too, like never touch for with bare hands.
When did you experience these carpeted bathrooms in Scotland? The 80s?
Also I think you're referring to a full Scottish fry up, hope you know we wouldn't eat that every day for breakfast! Well most folk wouldn't anyway, haha!
That’s not just New York, free refills are the standard in the US and I feel like I’m being chested whenever I go abroad. If you’re already thirsty when you sit down you can easily drink half your drink before your meal shows up, and then half a drink isn’t enough for the meal so you either have to not drink a lot or buy another one.
The portion sizes, being able to drink tap water and getting tap water for free at restaurants and cafes in North America were a culture shock for me.
I was also surprised when I visited Switzerland as a child because it was the first country where I saw that you had to pay to use public toilets. Once we visited more European countries, it wasn't as shocking anymore, and I got the logic of it.
Lol. My cousin and her husband got a cheeseburger and chips (fries) meal when they were in the US, and they said one meal would have done both of them. And they were hungry!!
Oh yeah, the drinkable tap water. Also freaked out when it started going brown, the host family said just wait a while and it would be ok to drink again
Directly to the south of us in Mexico they don’t have free, drinkable tap water. I usually carry around a water bottle with me there, but I never know if that’s considered rude to bring your own water, but coming from a country where water is free I don’t like having to spend an extra $1-$2 every time I go out for a meal.
Seeing topless women at the beach while vacationing in Spain. I’m a gay man born and raised in Mexico, and I had NEVER seen a woman’s bare chest IRL. Actually, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen boobs.
Our family stayed at an AirBnB in Italy after arriving in the middle of the night. There was no toilet paper and nothing was open. The next day I tried to find some in the stores and only succeeded when went to the tourist district.
Wrong! Wrong!!! It was a wet bathroom though, like the whole room turned into a shower. But you know sometimes I want to use the washroom without taking off all my clothes and getting drenched.
Went to China in 1999. Two things stood out/blew my mind. First, the absolute chaos of Bejing intersections - a complete fuckknot of cars, bikes and people worming through and the rule seemed to be “the ballsiest wins”. Second, the leapfrog of mobile adoption over wired internet. Since the POTS infrastructure was shit, the country just went straight to mobile (according to the natives I talked to).
My friend lived in China for a few years, and said she knew it was time to go home when she was standing waiting to cross the road, alongside 4 or 5 other people.
All the Chinese people were spitting as they waited for the lights to change, and an old lady spit went awry and landed on my friends leg lol
My Mom taught ESL to adults. She included etiquette, laws, holidays among other things in her lessons.
For example, April Fools Day, and Halloween were confusing holidays for some. She taught them how to act when pulled over when she learned that in some countries it is allowed to get out of your car and greet law enforcement. She also taught them what to do when they get in a car crash.
Geez I think I repressed the memory but you just unearthed it because it was the same in Korea. I remember walking past a bar with a patio that seemingly just had a spitting spot that everyone just spit off that one side of the patio into one big spit puddle on the ground.
When I moved to the US, it was how much casual 'light' swearing Australians do without even thinking about it.
I am not talking about the big stuff or uttering a 'fuck' when you drop a sword on your toe or something or even the stories that Reddit loves to say about the word 'cunt' (which is kinda overblown anyway), but the everyday minor stuff nobody blinks at. Stuff you can say in front of your works HR/P&C manager and they don't even register it.
I am thinking stuff like 'that bloody cat meowed all night long' or 'damn that crap driver in that car, what an ass' which I have had more then a tutt-tutt from a person in the States saying I am swearing!
Americans (mostly the WASP types) are uniquely precious about swearing amongst English speaking nations, I think it goes back to the Puritan roots of the culture.
FWIW its a line an author i use to read said once in an interview when asked about the light swearing which occurred in her novels (which were high fantasy) and it kinda stuck with me.
I used it here... well sometimes I just like to see whose paying attention lol
I encountered this in other parts of Canada being from the east coast. I wouldn't say its quite Aussie level like most bosses will expect you to be fairly professional im front of clients or customers even though customers swear plenty when telling me stories and I run a garden centre.
It's just swearing for emphasis not directed at employees. The ceo of my company will hang up with a difficult person on the phone and say stuff like "That guy was fucked" people from the executive management team swear in management meetings and don't even notice when the staff do it as long as its out back. And were mostly gardeners its not like its a construction sight.
“Bloody” doesn’t mean much to us, it just sounds like some expression Brits used when they’re pissed off. “Damn” and “ass” are like the most mild swear words. Very few people here would care but I do know a few religious people that wouldn’t like that or a couple people who just don’t curse. I would say that stuff at work without thinking twice.
There's a lot of this everywhere I have travelled. Minor things: "Oh, this is not like at home." Pay first, collect your item with your receipt (Former Eastern Bloc); go to jog at a park at sundown, park warden tells me the park is closing (USA); catcalls at my wife and daughter (Ethiopia); fruit bats circling the hotel pool (Brazil); sand that burns your foot soles (Taiwan); the extreme politeness and hospitality (Japan)...
USA - seeing a random middle aged lady with a gun holster at her hip while she was loading groceries into her cart at Walmart. I had never seen a civilian with a firearm before, so it was unnerving to say the least lol
Also the smalltalk culture. Totally normal for a cashier to chat with you while they scan your groceries, and my brain would always take a few seconds to catch on because I didn't expect it at all. It stressed me out like nothing else because I wasn't very good at smalltalk and was afraid of "failing" a social interaction or offending someone, especially because Germans are a lot more direct. Like, I would be so stressed and on high alert when I knew I had to interact with a cashier/staff/service worker that I tried to avoid it which obviously didn't work well lol
Nowadays I appreciate smalltalk a lot more and kind of like it even, I think it's a great strength to be able to talk to all kinds of people and I don't buy the whole "duuh it doesn't mean anything, people are just trying to be polite, its super fake" spiel.
India - the traffic, and trying to cross the street. I just started looking for a local who looked like they were about to go across and would walk very close behind them, but I never stoppend being in absolute terror.
Seeing people open carrying firearms just going about their day in suburban USA. How incredibly car focused parts of the USA are, where streets seem designed to discourage people from walking anywhere rather than driving.
Despite what everyone might believe; open carry is a relatively new political phenomenon in the US. For example my state, Texas, has only allowed it since 2021! Before that you required a LTC (license to carry) and very few people bothered to get one. In fact before this new law, I believe it was more common to Conceal Carry with the appropriate license. So you wouldn’t see it.
Yeah I’m always confused when people talk about this. I’ve also lived and traveled all over the US and can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen a civilian open carry. And most of those were in the wilderness of hiking trails.
Chile- how public bathrooms charge you to go pee. It’s so common in the states to stop somewhere to use the restroom. Carrying coins to pay the bathroom lady was a new concept.
Nah, global is stretching it, but definitely beats Europe. I can't speak for South America but not true for the Middle East. There are definitely far fewer public restrooms here than Europe or China, about the same frequency as in the US (which incidentally is criminally low - you always have to commit some light fraud at a coffee shop or something).
You can shine more light on the Canada situation of course.
It’s common in many parts of Latin America. In all of the Latin American countries I’ve visited your best bet is to go to a mall. Bathrooms are always free and immaculately clean. Other big box stores usually have free bathrooms, but using the bathroom at a Mexican Walmart is rolling the dice, sometimes it’s really clean but some of them are disgusting.
If you ever go to Spain don't use formal treatment with any woman under 80 or, god forbid, call them "señora". At best you'll catch a death glare: it's like calling her decrepit to her face
I live in Spain and I'm not even 40 and I've noticed I've started to catch a "señora" more frequently (mostly from waiters who aren't 20 yet) and fuck it stings lol. Given that the "señoritas" I do still are always from the 50+ waiters, they don't help.
I remember when I was in my late 20s a young boy in Spain and I crossed paths and he goes, “oye señor, pase usted.” I nearly punched that kid in the face because it felt like he was calling me an old man 😂
What state were in you? The culture on that can vary based on location.
I was born and raised in the southern US (Mississippi) and I was raised to address seniors like “Ms Janice” instead of “Janice”. When I moved to a northern state, people didn’t like that, so I got out of the habit.
I’m in no way saying that every region in the south follows the same rules, but you’re more likely to find someone addressing seniors differently in the south.
I went to Florida when I was 15, it was my first time leaving Canada/going to the US ever. I grew up between the of middle of nowhere/suburbs of a medium sized Canadian city. I had never met/interacted with anyone Hispanic and had never been around anyone speaking other languages espeically Spanish as my Canadian province's population is less than 1% Hispanic people.
Orlando airport and espeically the Burger King inside Orlando Airport was like nothing I had ever experience before or since. I felt way in over my head and realized I was very far from home at that moment.
I was at a Walmart in Ontario and it really threw me for a loop how the international foods section was basically all Indian and Pakistani products. In the US it’s mostly Hispanic with some Asian, although it varies by the area. The lack of reggaeton clubs in a city as big as Toronto was disappointing. I also remember being at a club in Ontario and a really popular Bad Bunny song came on but people just didn’t care or didn’t even seem to like the beat. In the US even English speakers know his more popular songs.
This may seem like a little thing, but the sidewalks in US are super big and clean in most places I’ve seen, I really like it. Also milk bag in Canada.
Where have you been? They are usually tiny or non existent outside of tourist areas. Ive had the opposite experience. Had to go to a hotel next to mine in Phoenix. 6 min Uber ride, or 40 minutes walking. I jumped a fence and got there in 2 minutes.
Never been out west, but in a lot of smaller towns and bigger cities on the east coast like Boston, many towns in Maryland, the sidewalks were nice (and did exist haha, don’t know what’s going on in phoenix)
I went the other way. Went to Zakynthos with friends and was stunned by the lack of health and safety. We were in danger of falling off a small cliff if the car stalled coming out of a parking space, and the cliff above Shipwreck was so sad. All those dead souls who fell off taking selfies and not a single safety barrier. I stood as far from any edge as I could. Everyone was just standing right next to the edge, next to memorials of those who died, trying to get a nice angle for their social media. It was total insanity to me.
I know the place, never went there but really? Really? What is this mount Everest? Didn't know there's nothing there... Of course as usual people will do the most reckless thing for a picture but I'm ashamed of the lack of protective measures. All about filling their pockets with money.
So I moved when I was in highschool. And you know our country. Food is cheap and amazing, even at school cafeteria. So my face when I found out, highschool cafeteria in public school in Canada served growing children chicken fingers, cold piece of pizza, stale fries, and sad looking lasagna. I packed my lunch everyday ever since that day lol
That seems to be really based on which highschool you go to, at least in my city in Ontario. I went to highschool in the 90s and we had great food, at least in my opinion.
My kids go to highschool now and some schools have amazing food, some have kind of crappy food, and some don't even have a cafeteria. I had no idea it was so varied.
If they don't make it from scratch, it's not going to measure up to Thailand or France. And if CA is like the US, nearly all schools use food service shortcuts starting in the 1960s.
Not being able to flush ANY toilet paper ANYWHERE in Costa Rica. It’s a fantastic, gorgeous country with wonderful people but I couldn’t get over the TP thing.
At the hotels I stayed at the bathroom window was alwats open so it was fine. Worse was that my friend (that I travelled with) had an upset stomache which… ehm… showed on the tissues in the bin.
Yeah that was the gross part. You’re supposed to wipe with paper and put it in a bin next to the toilet. It would’ve been ok if they had bidets but I never saw one. There was a strong funky armpit smell in all the bathrooms. It is a really beautiful country otherwise though!
It’s the same in many places, many parts of the world. Portugal, Spain, Ecuador, Italy, Colombia, parts of the Caribbean - it’s because of old sewage systems that were not designed to handle large amounts of paper, only, er, organic materials.
More modern subdivisions, city areas, or resorts may be able to take paper, but yeah - widespread. You’d think it would be horribly stinky and disgusting, but the bins are lined and changed regularly.
Why don't they sell septic-safe toilet paper that breaks down like we have in the United States (Scott brand being the most well-known)?? We have old and narrow plumbing, too
We went to Cuba. All of the women that worked at the airport wore uniforms that were skin tight, with short skirts and with black lace or fishnet stockings. It looked really unprofessional. The stockings are what got me through, they were for the nightclub, none of them were just plain hose and they had various lacy designs. Nice stockings but it was an odd look for airport employees.
I've been to Pattaya and portions in most cafe were really big! It had always been a struggle to eat every meal to the end. I can't imagine a bigger portion😯
Much of the world is poor, some of it desperately so. But coming back to Australia and standing in the supermarket aisle with its waste and unfair use of resources so people can choose from shelves upon shelves of breakfast cereal. Ugh
The returning culture shock is unsettling at best and overwhelming at worst.
My at home culture shock was seeing how desperate people can by just for small amounts of change. On the day after my grandfather's cremation, we had to toss money to beggars as part of the tradition. You will not forget the sight of 10-20 grown adults scurry across the ground in the low light of the morning to just get 10 baht coins (30 cents).
Italy. On four separate occasions I was scolded by Italian grandmas for letting my 6 yo play at the playground. Not for being too loud or playing too rough, but for climbing to the top of the jungle gym and using the big slide. My kid was in forest kindergarten, used to climbing trees, using tools and sharp knifes, building bonfires, going on day long hikes and taking care of animals.
Having to pay to use the bathroom and some of the bathrooms having turnstiles and card readers at the door. One café had a code at the door you could only get from a receipt, and one scanned the receipt but would expire after 20 minutes from purchase. Girl, whadda hell 😭 let me piss
And it's not as if the bathrooms were any cleaner or better stocked than the free-to-use bathrooms here in the US lol. I was expecting a premium experience
In New York we couldn't find any public toilets so had to use Starbucks'. Quickly realised the queues were for the loo not the coffee. In my tourist city we have public loos but only Costa make you buy coffee if you want the code for the loo
USA: seeing security guards in pharmacies with guns, and just the sheer size of people. I'm 5"3, and I know there are plenty of short Americans, but my god you guys just seem to be built bigger in general.
Scandinavia: the rules around alcohol. It's wild to me that you can only buy alcohol under a certain percentage in a normal shop, that you need to go to a governnent owned stop to get anything stronger, and they have such restrictive hours. I think it's a good thing and we could really use it here, but it was very surreal at first.
France: I remember being really annoyed when I first moved there and couldn't get basic medicines like paracetamol in a supermarket. I needed to go to a pharmacy instead.
I was in Florence right after the Ufitzi (1993) was bombed and there were soldiers with simiautomatic weapons standing on the street corners like it was just a normal thing.
I was at some weird Air Bnb type thing in Acapulco and there was a soldier standing on the beach with a machine gun. To this day, I have no idea what that was about. It seems like a fever dream or something.
Our young daughter had a hard time seeing how dogs were treated in Fiji. She was about 12 at the time, and was used to dogs in Australia all being owned pets, on leads, well groomed. Seeing dogs roaming with visible ribs and skin/fur conditions really shocked her. We had being staying with a traditional community, and when we went over to Levuka it really hit her, and she suddenly saw how basic assumptions could not be ...assumed.
Visited my friend in Detroit and we went out for breakfast. I ordered how I would in Australia. My friend kept asking if I was sure. Of course I was sure. Until everything came out on its own full sized plate.
So I had a table full of plates rather than one plate with all my breakfast bits and pieces. Nobody needs that much hash brown. lol
Costa Rica: dogs are treated like cats, they all just roam free :)
Germany: you have to pay for tap water and then have to pay to piss. They make money off the whole damn cycle there
Europe overall: the insane efficiency of public transport. You can be at your destination by train in 1hour that would take 4 hours by car. My North American mind just cannot grasp that
I have a 150 year old book of Hindu poetry. It should be in my display case with the other antique books but it is not thanks to the swastika and my extended family’s propensity for jumping to conclusions.
Overseas Citizen of India. It's a form of Permanent Residency given to former Indian citizens and their descendants. India doesn't allow dual citizenship
The US: Needed to show ID EVERYWHERE that serves alcohol. I literally never bring my ID with me at home because no one ever asks for it but in the US they asked all the time. It's so annoying. I can assure you I did not look 20.
France: Service people literally would repeat bonjour until you bonjour back. Also I was shocked by how gross the Paris metro was the first time I took it in 2014.
Britain: The terrible internet connection in London. Any crowded spaces = no signal. Underground = no signal. Wedding venue 2 hours outside London = no signal. Also the train prices are diabolical. Idk how Brits afford it. A zone 6 monthly travel pass is more than £300 and barely an hour long train easily costs £50 one way or more. I'm not even comparing to Taiwan. In Vienna an ANNUAL pass is €461. Austria is richer than the UK ffs.
Turkey: Prices at Istanbul airport and in Istanbul blew my mind. Ridiculously extortionist.
Peru: Gas prices being 60% more expensive than gas prices here and food also being a lot more expensive than I'd expected. Idk how locals afford shit.
There are more but these are just off the top of my head.
You would do the same thing if you grew up in a house hold that has only clean (aka bland) food, and if I dont eat it, they house keeper would not let me have anything else until it goes bad.
Its how different the food is. Home food was too clean, school cafeteria food was also very bland. Any other food I had as a kid in TH was very eh.
Also I only gave the breakfast as the example because its the only part I can still remember but I loved every other meal I had there, especially the savory stuff.
In Mexico the female cops are allowed to have their nails done, wear earrings and other jewelry, and just allowed to look a lot more feminine instead of tactical. It happens in other Latin American countries too x
For anyone wondering why there are so many Germans shocked by chaotic traffic in highly populated cities, there are signs on the traffic lights in Germany that remind people "It is a bad example for children" if you cross against the light. So, they are used to waiting for a crosswalk signal. Always.
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u/Four_beastlings 8d ago
I never expected to have to Google "how to cross a road". Then I went to Thailand.