Biggest cultural shock you have come across?

How very friendly and open people are in the US compared to the UK - at least on the east coast, I have never lived in the south.

Having grown up in a rural place without mains sewage, I remember one of the exciting things about going to uni was seeing a Dynorod van, and realising towns are places where you don't have to rod your own drains. (Have also had to fetch water home in the UK, when the borehole failed.) Wasn't so happy about having to learn to use gas cookers, though.

I think my upbringing is why I haven't had such a culture shock when travelling to some places. I was laughed at on a yoga retreat, where I'd been told the accommodation was basic, came out saying, "but it's really posh! There's water and electricity!" We didn't have to empty the compost loos ourselves, either. My understanding of basic is more basic than others have, it seems.

While working out in Singapore, for a very wealthy company, I was shocked that there was a sign on the back of the door of each of the ladies' loos (western style sit down loos) which said "Please do not stand on the loo seats". Like someone else upthread found, people didn't like to sit on loos when they'd been brought up to squat. Fair enough - maybe they found it unhygienic, but could they not have hovered like I do when I don't like the look of a loo seat?

How to check there are no leaks coming from the gas canister powering your stove (Jordan): set fire to a tissue and wave around all the connection points. If nothing explodes, you're good.

I know pp have said this but south africa
Driving past the shanty towns then ending up at the V&A

Also how drinking outside is banned in parts of the US I've visited (the coasts). 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!

And another one seconding the toilet-paper culture shock when I first moved to the UK and realised people don't use water to clean up after doing a poo. (Where I come from we'd use a handheld water faucet or a mug to clean up, but of course means you usually only go in your own home.)

Love this thread btw.

India, so many things...stray dogs everywhere. Farm animals living on the street. One time we met a man who had ridden on his camel from Rajasthan to Pune, it took him ten days!

"The sewage system in Portugal which means you can't even flush paper down the toilet and have to throw all used toilet paper into an open basket next to the toilet."

It's the same in some of the Greek islands. The bathroom in Corfu got very whiffy on the one day we didn't have a cleaner.

DHs mother grew up 10 in a single room with a shared bathroom!
This was in Glasgow. She would only be 72 if still alive, it was not unusual

I remember getting in trouble in Rome visiting some people for asking for a milky coffee after lunch - friends husband was very offended!

Coming through Calais recently, I was unnerved at being asked to unpack my car by a soldier carrying a big fuck off gun. Made me very on edge and I probably looked as shifty as anything

The toilets in Italy left a lot to be desired, as did the driving. I was also shocked at the huge amounts of prostitution on the outskirts of Verona.

To be fair, there are plenty of very young mums here in the UK, but I believe fewer of them are married than those of a similar age in the Deep South. All my cousins got married - they didn't all stay married, and weren't all married at the time they knew they were becoming parents, iyswim, but they all did marry.

In the US, man with a gun at the back his pick up as if it was anything but a really dangerous weapon. I felt like I was back to the Far West. It was very close to San Francisco and 2004

standing on toilet seats is an Asia-wide problem

This also happens in the UK

Rural Hungary - A man being knocked over and killed crossing the road and his body just being left there. It was still there when we returned several hours later and not even covered over.

The sewage system in Portugal which means you can't even flush paper down the toilet and have to throw all used toilet paper into an open basket next to the toilet.

Drink driving in Perth Western Australia. They don't have police cars to take you in if you are caught they have buses. Huge big coaches.

The crates and cages of dogs, all crammed in on top of each other in horrific conditions with visible injuries, they were being transported on a lorry in China, destined for human consumption.

Germany was very clean and tidy and the Germans were very slim compared to us.

As so many PPs have said - China. . Waiting for a train to HK on a teeming platform surrounded by people carrying all sorts of living creatures who were about to become supper, I thought "If I have an accident now, I won't be able to ask for help and nobody who loves me will know what happened to me". It was like being beamed onto another planet.
Closer to home, casual racism and homophobia in both France and Spain.

mommy that's mad about the guns!

I do remember seeing some very young mums with several children in tow when we stopped at a supermarket. Do people just marry their high school sweetheart?

The men holding hands is a sign of "hey we are besties!", its totally normal. Strange from the outside looking in though. As a british asian, the whole early dinner thing is odd to me. My kids generally go bed around 9.30/10 from when they were toddlers. They wake up with no problems. Plus the weddings with no kids. I find asian weddings are a chaotic free for all where if it were 'intimate', ie, small numbers, it would be seen as odd

Seeing a stall selling knives and other weapons in a shopping mall

You can buy guns and knives (serious Crocodile Dundee type knives not cutlery) in Walmart.

My father is from that part of Florida Hamster (Pensacola) and it really is as proper Deep South as it is possible to get. When my cousins were in high school (secondary school) they used to be able to check their rifles at the door 'cause they were goin' huntin' in their pickups (having been licensed to drive at 15) later.

Most of my cousins on that side of the family were married before they were 20. I have one cousin who is younger than me (I just turned 50 and he's probably about 45) and is already a grandpa.

Interestingly Detroit airport is one of the finest I have ever seen!

Seeing a stall selling knives and other weapons in a shopping mall in an untouristy area on the outskirts of Orlando last year.

Two for me:

I was sitting with a South African colleague when my BBC news alert flashed up that Oscar pistorius had shot his girlfriend in the night. He immediately said he bet he thought she was an intruder. The conversation carried on and he said that's why he left - he didn't want to raise his daughter with a gun beneath his pillow every night. I'd heard a lot about crime in South Africa, but that brought it home to me.

And similar to a previous poster. We were walking along a beach in Sri Lanka and came across a dead body, someone who'd clearly drowned and been washed ashore. DH went to the nearest bar and asked them what to do, whilst I stood guard and warned western families with children to stay away. The response from the bar was that they didn't speak English. We eventually walked back to our hotel and told them, so they could inform authorities etc. Their response? I'm sorry you had to see that, have a free bottle of wine to take your mind off it, and I hope it hasn't ruined your holiday.