Expats, tell me what aspect or social norm of your new country was strange to you?

Most people have put that on their first post and then not subsequent ones.Just read back

Yep, in posts that are maybe pages apart separated by different conversations.

😀 Signor Giuseppi is a good one. Our Carrefour now has a section for “les bulles”.
Lidl’s was hilarious in the last Italian week. We were all trying to buy up the four cases of Prosecco that they had put out. People turned up at 0835 and were furious that it had all gone. The staff were 😮

Plenty of cava and prosecco now in Carrefour

Oh Emily you may be my favourite MNer now

For the culinary deprived in France...
Our favourite hard French cheeses are cantal and ossau iraty, plus other ones from the pyrénées.
Plenty of cava and prosecco now in Carrefour, Lidl’s prosecco is great but only there in Italian week.
In fact Lidl’s has made it much easier for us to buy forrin foods and wines in rural France. 😀

Italians working in public-facing roles are spectacularly vile to customers. It's as if their MO is to make customers feel like it would have been better if they had never been born. It's so bad that I almost wish I'd known about the head-tilt and didyoumeantobesorude when I lived there.

Heard that from somebody who lived in China.

Yeh bitofpractice I've heard that 90% of chinese food is a bowl of rice with a tiny tiny bit of flavour from a shoot of a plant

I really want a cornish pastie now. I will make them at the weekend. Proper ones, like I used to buy in Surrey

The only cheese I ever disliked was a British cheese. Wensleydale I think it was called. It was sort of sloppy, like curds squashed back together. It had bits of fruit in it to try and make it nice though. I'm a cheese fan. I'd eat any cheese so it was a shock to discover one I didn't like.

My exDP loathed China - especially the casual cruelty to animals He said the food was awful too (very rural, undeveloped area).

wow. that does surprise me DamnCommandments! I thought that it was one of the least racist places.

Anyone else thinking China sounds amazing? Wish I had the money to travel more widely.

Dulra - even within supposedly the same country (uk) there are national differences as it were. I'm scots, when first dating my now ex (English to the bone culturally) he was dumbfounded by the fact I'll talk away to anyone 😂 at first he thought I must know them if eg I was chatting away to someone at a bus stop or in a cafe - he couldn't understand it at all. Also the swearing but I'm also a weegie so swearing is very much part our language 😂😂

Oh, and in China I always felt 100% safe day or night when out and about. Not so here at all.

China again..love complete strangers insisting on inviting you over for a meal or personally accompanying you on a sight seeing tour. The way they dote so much on kids and elders are respected absolutely.

Hated the bread. Horribly sweet.

France -everyone so beautifully dressed! Again this may have changed now but coming from a thongs and tshirts wearing culture it was quite an eye opener.

Ireland- mac and cheese in fish and chip shops. Had never seen that before but it was delicious.

Brit in Asia, when a student being frequently asked three things, did I like rice ,course, what religion was I, christian, and did I find it hot, yea really. And then in Ramadan accidentally walking into the late evening hall were all the Moslems were breaking fast, not sure who was more stunned them or me.Fortunately a kind fellow student recognised me got up very quickly and guided me out

I think toploaders are going out in NZ. I see fewer of them in the shops and suspect only old people get them.

durla felt the same as a Scottish person in England, as regards to swearing. People were always quite taken aback that every second word was 'fuck' so I had to reign it in a bit.

I'm intrigued, I've only really ever eaten soft cheese from France (brie, camembert etc.) What French cheese should I be trying that's not a soft cheese?

Actually that's not true, on French exchange we had babybel!

Love this thread

Irish person here lived in England for 10 years and married to an English man. Things I found unusual about my own culture after moving back to Ireland was how much we curse! Lived in London for 10 years and then moved back and was shocked how much we can't seem to complete a sentence without adding in the odd swear word (I am back 12 years now so happily cursing as much as the next man again ). Also how late the Irish are compared to UK. You say we'll meet at 2pm guarantee it will be well after that before people start arriving in England you say 2pm and people will turn up at 2pm.

Things I found unusual in England. Death. It seemed so taboo my husband hadn't been to a funeral until his nan died when he was 33. No one goes to visit the body or is encouraged to. We seem to deal with death so much better and way healthier.
I also found some of the English people I came across mainly through my work unable to make small talk I could blabber on for ages about nothing and they just looked at me in horror and said very little back.
Also you tend to go out of an evening very early. Pubs are packed from 7pm. Here they don't start getting busy until after 10pm but that may be because drink is so expensive in Ireland that people have a few at home first. I also found the chain bars hard to take. You could be having a drink in Leeds or Leicester and be in the exact same place same décor everything

As for the tea mention earlier in the thread I have not found that In England my mil is from the South west of England and I have to lose weight before visiting because of how much she feeds us!

Most people have put that on their first post and then not subsequent ones. Just read back

It’s a bit late to mention this but WHY WOULD YOU POST IN THIS THREAD WITHOUT SAYING WHAT COUNTRY YOU’RE IN??!!

There are hundreds of posts on this thread where people launch in with “All the cheese here is rubbish, not like at home” without saying where a) here or b) home is.

We'veused toploaders in Aus and NZ and they've always been crap at getting our clothes clean as well as mangling a few items. We brought our front loader over from the UK and it washes so much better as well as being more gentle with clothes.

BitOutOfPractice

Yes it’s a very common attitude. Not everyone though, and thankfully not my husband or inlaws or our close friends.

The range of different cuisines in restaurants is definitely more limited in Paris than in London, although I will say that Paris does reasonably priced sushi much, much better than London.

@Cigna I have no idea what they are doing with their Belgian roadworks though! The roads in Belgium are atrocious! Driving from Calais to The Hague the French roads are all smooth, then as soon as you cross the border into Belgium its all bump, bang, potholes, noisy surfaces, then cross into NL and it's smooth again. It's so funny!

Personally I found Brussels to be one of my least favourite places. Sorry!

LoveInTokyo I hear that attitude all the time from French and Dutch people. But that's usually from people who've not spent much time in the UK. If that bloke has lived in London and still thinks that, he should be taken out and shot.

It's so much harder to find something a bit "different" in France isn't it? It's all brasserie food or classic cuisine, I find. Which is often great but sometimes I'd like something different.

Having said that, I guess a lot of standard pub menus are the same in the UK: curry, fish and chips, pie, sausages and mash, lasagne, scampi etc