Biggest cultural shock you have come across?

as the Chinese students were standing on them and breaking the seats

I don't get this at all. Assuming you are a cultural squatter, if faced with a western toilet why not just either crouch over it or sit on it and bring your knees up to your chest if that position is something you are more used to.

Or if you are set on a squat, lift the loo seat and stand on the porcelain. It's got to be easier to stand on a flat porcelain rim than on a bevelled loo seat surely?

It seems utterly crackers to stand on a loo seat to squat on it no matter how you have been brought up.

Strangers making eye contact and having conversations on the subway in NYC.

Sitting on a park bench in St Petersburg one evening, somebody on a horse jumped the railings from the street and cantered off into the darkness. We were just remarking that you don't see that every day when a man walked past leading a bear on a chain.

Philomena I live in N Ireland, and most parks and some streets have signs up saying that alcohol is prohibited in public and that you can be fined.

Oh dear, which parts of the UK is it banned in treaclesoda??
And @ Cormorant, well put indeed!

Japan; uber-polite, almost no crime, no litter, everything immaculate, Buddha statues in forests and up mountains. Felt so safe even in crowds in the middle of Tokyo at night. Not saying it's perfect, but it's a gorgeous country.

I wanted to say the exactly same thing.
So clean and safe. No litter, no graffiti.

"and what do you think is normal?"

Our normal is eating as a family between 6 and 7 usually. DD has never been an early to bed child, and is now 16 and goes to bed after me, even on school nights.

Blowing I wish, the plane from Bangkok to Phnom Penh is seriously full of European men of a certain age, often with ponytails, and that is not counting the ones that live in Asia full time. My DDs think I am seriously embarrassing in public when I refuse to allow people to get away with bad behaviour but they join me in giving these arseholes the stare when we see them with young girls in bars etc. ......... I suppose they did get Gary Glitter eventually but how long did that take, and he was famous, not just some random arsehole ?

LockedOutOfMN

Mine have both had much later bedtimes than their peers, 8pm. We are unusual and sometimes felt naughty for such late bedtimes"

When travelling around Thailand a young Thai girl of about 16 asking and pleading for me and DH to rescue her from the two French guys who had bought her for the weekend and toddlers begging on the streets of Chiangmai. The inequality of wealth in S.E Asia. My MIL is from Malaysia and lots of her friends there have multiple live in help such as drivers, cooks, gardeners, house maids and nannies all from the Phillipines and Indonesia, even SAHM's have this level of hired help. I just wonder how the SAHM's there fill their days

Krop Absolutely, the sight of old western men, lots of them. with very young Cambodian girls

But surely our governments can be notified of these bastards? So we can do something about them?

Spoon in cup is essential maddie I still do that after 20 years in the uk.
This is to do with needing a spoon to help mix a sugar cube into your coffee/tea (whereas with granulated sugar, it dissolves pretty quickly)

When I discovered Malaysian crisps have icing sugar on instead of salt

Public toilets in the USA - the fact that people can see into the cubicle from outside as the door is not flush to the frame. In such an advanced country I just didn't expect it. If I go again I will be taking scarves to hang over the gaps!

Holiday Rep in Goa (a lifetime ago). Early transfers with clients back to the airport along a road where just after sunrise dozens of blokes would be squatting in a field having a number 2 every time we passed.
Crete - driving down a road on my moped and skinned goats hanging outside - the stench has never left me.

When I was ten, we had French student. They slurped their coffee out of their mugs, kept the spoon in and dipped their bread into it. I thought it was dead odd at the time.

Not remotely illegal to drink alcohol with a picnic in most of the London parks. Forget Brexit, most of the big City banks would leave overnight if you tried to stop them playing softball with a cooler full of beers on a summer Friday evening, and there would definitely be the most middle class riots ever on Clapham Common if you tried to remove the Mini-Waitrose-chilled prosecco from the gangs of yuppie Sunday picnics.

I live abroad - can I talk about the reverse culture shock I get when I come back?

First thing that hits me: the lack of clothing at T5 at 0630 on a Tuesday. Put some clothes on! . Come on now, it's never that warm, even in July. The customer service (good and chatty, normally) the availability of pork, wine and generally everything that is convenient in a supermarket (I live in the ME but my US MIL says the same when she sees noodled courgettes and sliced mango in ready packs, when she comes to visit DGC in the UK). Queues, polite people ("no after you" on the whole) actual weather not just sun and sandstorms, greenery and the Royals. They are the shining beacon with regards to the UK's soft power over here. Can't wait to come back next month!

Jasmine, when ours were little, we used to work backwards from when they needed to/we wanted them to wake up. If we'd put them to bed at 6pm when they were 4/5, they would have been up at 3am, 4am if we were lucky. So we put them to bed later. They get home from school at 5.30pm so, even without any homework or extracurricular activities with time to play with their toys, tell us about their day, have a bath and eat some dinner, bed before 7.30 would not really have been feasible.

Obviously every parent can and should do as they wish but like other posters I was one of those who experienced culture shock at some of the apparently early bedtimes for younger children in Britain.

My first experience of 'traveling' was doing Camp America when I was 20. I remember landing in JFK and being bussed through NY and genuinely being shocked at the number of black people! Solely because i come from a very white city in Scotland and hadn't really experienced any non European city at that point.

English children having diner at 5pm, and to bed at 6pm! I am still shocked by that one

and what do you think is normal?

I find it strange not to be able to take a bottle of cold white wine to the park on a sunny summer day for a picnic!

I live in the UK and that is illegal where I live. I thought it was illegal everywhere! You learn something new every day

Trying to use my British hair dryer in an American plug socket was...interesting. I've had faster farts. I'd no idea it was different.

70ontheinside
Huge culture shock when a relative here in the U.K. died and nothing was done as I expected it to be done. Makes you realise how ritualised death and grief is.
Yes so true, the "admin." of a death is so different in U.K., France, and Spain which are neighbouring countries of similar religious/cultural backgrounds.

Oh and definitely the toilet paper going in the bin, not in the toilet (all over south america) that was hard to get used to

The driving in Naples. The cars didn't move out of the way for an ambulance!

The whole family on a motorbike thing I saw too, in Paraguay. The mum was breastfeeding at the same time