Biggest cultural shock you have come across?

Right. I have lived for quite a few years in the sort of environment you all describe

Ive lived in the environment for 40 years and in its own way your post was as bad as Chavelitas.

Europe is a big place!

So is the US. And there are as many cultural differences among different regions as there are among countries in Europe. It is folly to generalize too much.

Some examples of positive culture shock:

in Australia (Queensland), lots of beaches have barbecues which you can use to cook your own food for completely free. They often have a public toilet with free showers, too.

There are a lot of complaints on here about foreign toilets, but one great thing I noticed about public toilets in India was that there was usually a queue for the gents and not the ladies, unlike every public toilet in the UK. It made a nice change me waiting outside for DP, and asking him why men always take so long in the loo?

Also in India, if you admire someone's baby, they will usually hand them to you for a cuddle

Oh I forgot another great set of New England accents is in Manchester By Sea.

Hibbledobble a very remote village with a dirty track going to it it is not the whole of Poland!

Most people live cheek by jowl in Europe. Ahahah. Europe is a big place!many europeans think that flats and houses in this country are minuscule.

Mousymary and where exactly do you get that info about italy and children not having their bedrooms?

This thread could have been quite interesting instead it only highlights how stereotypes come about and get reinforced, how people define a whole vary varied country but just one impression.

Or just hurling a full bottle of liquid - a very unpleasant missile. Ones full of piss used to get chucked at Donington.

I was involved in a community organising a big convention at a university in America. Most attendees were American, about 25% European. The online flame war that erupted when the organisers stated that the event was going to be gun-free was epic, especially with Dutch and other people being very blunt in English as they went WTF??? Half the Americans were anti-carrying guns, half pro, roughly split urban:rural (see also Dem:Rep)

I organised the next one in London. We pointed out that tourists wouldnt be able to bring any guns into the country. Three Americans wrote to say they wouldn't attend because they wouldn't feel safe. They weren't missed. Though explaining that the aircon wasn't broken, there just wasn't any in a modern uni building, took a while!

Not so much cultural but I was in Antigua for the cricket World Cup and they'd only just finished the stadium, there were absolutely massive rocks all over the place but they wouldn't let you keep the lid to your bottle of water in case you threw it!

There's a thing you can do with water bottles that involves stamping on one with great force so the lid shoots off and turns into an offensive weapon.

That guys sounds like my friends dad, who in turn sounds like peter griffin haha

You'd also think his different but obviously American and obviously not English accent would have tipped them off.

Have you heard a Beantown accent??

I know Brits are notorious for missing out R but Bostonians top them.

I've been giving some thought to the Deep South/horror movie connection, and here's a theory. Lots of the Deep South has historically been rather rural and isolated, and therefore has become perceived, fairly or not, as seriously under-educated. That has contributed to a belief that the inhabitants are generally unsocialised.

At the same time, much of that part of the US was settled by Scots-Irish who brought with them a fantastic story-telling tradition, particularly about spirits and ghosts. Combine the weirdness of the inhabitants with the story-telling and you have the makings of some pretty good horror stories.

Just a theory .

Some tourists are just ferociously rude

Sadly this is true. I once watched a very well dressed woman approach the pay desk at Versailles and bark out "how much of this funny money d'ya want?"

Ironically, in a job like that, the lady behind the desk could probably cope in more languages than most; happily, though, she responded with a perfect gallic shrug and an icy silence, so the woman shoved roughly the right amount at her, grabbed her change and walked off muttering

When I was younger and obviously more naive, I was shocked by the attitude towards animals in Southern Europe. I once saw a dog get hit by a motorbike in Kos, and the motorcyclist just carried on driving, leaving the whimpering, bleeding, dying dog in the middle of the road where it was hit by several other bikes and cars.

I was devastated, shocked and in tears. I actually reported it to the next policeman I saw in the town, who told me, not unkindly, 'Miss. in Greece, a dog is a dog'.

Lizzie I'm Irish and haven't lost my accent but in the US people sometimes ask me if I am south african. Mind you, I once thought a chap helping us move was Slovakian like the others on the crew - he was from Donegal!

I have a memory of an American tourist in a suburban Parisian supermarket who approached a shelf-stacking member of staff and just said 'MAY-O-NAISE' very loudly and slowly. The staff member looked at him and said 'BON SOIR' very loudly and slowly. The American said 'No, no, MAY-O-NAISE!' To which the exasperated staff member said 'BON SOIR' slowly, as though to a child. I think I left before it got resolved.

Some tourists are just ferociously rude. I evidently blend in as French, and was standing in rue Cler once, and one approached me and just barked 'Eiffel Tower' at me. No excusez-moi/excuse me/désolée, je ne parlais pas français, rien. I think I gave them directions (I can't remember, it was seven years ago), but that is pretty typical. No effort made, no manners whatsoever, and that is really important here. How you treat people is absolutely how you'll be treated (with obviously some exceptions - some people are just terminally horrible and can't be helped, everywhere).

Watching TV news in India which featured a local plane crash. The plane had caught fire and many people had died. I was shocked to see the broadcast showing the twisted burnt dead bodies lined up on the runway

When I lived in Korea and saw a Mongolian blue spot on a baby's bum. I thought someone had been hitting him, I was properly upset. Thank god!

Pallisers, I live on the opposite side of the continent to New England and one country up, but I've always known the term. You'd also think his different but obviously American and obviously not English accent would have tipped them off.
Mind you, English people generally thought I sounded Irish, followed by American, Australian and German. I don't sound even a tiny bit Australian or German though I can understand the first two. Americans think my family and friends are British when we go to America (it seems like some Americans are aware of rp accents and Cockney and that's about it - perhaps Canadians are like this too, but I live in a bubble).

Some have mentioned Japanese people and face masks. Yes, they want to avoid getting tanned, but no, that's not what the masks are for. The masks are to avoid infecting others when they have a cold.

I was quite surprised that Japanese males (and generally of course Japanese manners are wonderful) would expect me to carry their luggage (as a homestay parent) & not hold doors for me. Otherwise love the Japanese (though they are not the most curious people on earth).

My son went to America last year (from Canada). He found it shockingly over-regulated, was amazed at the ads everywhere, was shocked at how little his new American friends knew of indigenous American history (down to not even knowing their local bands' names - that would never happen here as we all know whose ancestral territory we're on), general lack of knowledge about geography beyond America.

When I first went to the UK as a child (1970's), the cars seemed so small, and the coins seemed so heavy. Moving back to Canada the coins felt like fairy money.

Moving back to Canada how badly almost everyone dresses. This still surprises me - people dress like shit, baggy casual clothes with no thought to what shapes flatters or looks interesting. People at funerals in cities (eg not in logging camps) wearing track suits, jeans. People at the opera wearing jeans and tshirts (I think it's nice to have a reason to dress up sometimes).

Going to other parts of the world and seeing general size differences in people - I never used to see overweight women in England but now it's the norm. When I was a kid and visiting Germany I was a bit boggled at how large people were (as a child I'd never seen large people more than one at a time).

Personal space differences. In my part of Canada it's quite large, smaller in the south of England where I used to live. Had to tell a man off in a queue the other day for parking his lawn chair so his nose was about touching my bum. He was Canadian so no excuse for over-crowding buddy! (We were going to be queuing for a couple of hours so some people brought chairs).

When he said he was from New England the other students hadn't heard of it and thought he was from England...

In fairness if he was somewhere in the southwest, they may not have grown up hearing this term used for the eastern states but were well aware of the actual states of New England. It is not an official geographical name that needs to be learned - if you live here you hear it a lot "weather in the New England area" etc but if you live the opposite side of the continent you may not hear it at all. All of those students would have studied US colonial history and would be well aware of Massachusetts, DC, NYC etc.

Ah, that's good to hear matador. I always feel that French people are unfairly dismissed as being rude, but I've always found them lovely (With occasional exceptions, as you'd expect anywhere) and I always find myself sticking up for them.

Being on holiday in Crete, wandering around a tiny village and seeing a little old lady sporting a full, handlebar, Tom Sellick moustache.