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

@AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight haha, most supermarkets I go to don't do the self weighing fruit thing, but I got shouted at at Real the other day for not noticing they still did that 😂

Oh, and the "Pfand" system where you get money back for drinks bottles at supermarkets and things, that part is great, the part I have trouble with is that its kinda frowned upon to put bottles in bins, youre meant to just place them in the street near bins, they are gone withing 10 mins by someone who collects bottles for money, but I still feel really guilty doing it like I'm littering, and feel the need to loudly mention to whoever I'm with that it will be picked up by a pfand collector soon and is less risky for them than trying to get bottles out of bins. Just incase anyone thinks I'm littering.

Oh and the not saying please/thank you this is a peculiarly English obsession

Pass me the salt/pepper with no please and thank you

Took me a while to realise others were not being rude

Scot in Germany. People say "hello" and "goodbye" to the waiting room, whether its the vets, doctors, gynacologist... Have found muself doing it now and worry I'll end up doing it back home!

You tend to pay at the end at bars (no idea how bar staff keep track in busy bars, and theyre so trusting!!) and things here, which also causes an issue when I'm back home and go to walk pff wothout paying!

Theres no proper smoking ban - gross! Even the smokers I know don't like that after a while.

A lot of people take table tennis and table football ("kicker") terrifyingly seriously!

All the shops shut on Sunday which took me months to come to terms with as I previously always shopped on Sundays.

As a Scot, this ones pretty major: vinegar on chips (dont get me started on the fact that there are no real chips here, hate fries!!) is seen as seriously weird, most places don't even have it or just have fancy salad vonegar, and if you mistakenly ask for it, people will look at you like you've just asked for faeces to be sprinkled on your fries.

Natsku I loved in Finland in my 20s (long ago) and one of the things I loved was seeing older women with normal bodies that had led lives with scars and bumps etc just walking around the changerooms and sauna at the local pool naked with absolute confidence and right to be there.

Lived/worked in Tunisia once passed the being hassled how friendly and giving people are and how gossip is a national past time. But that meant everyone you met on the street that you knew you would stop and have a five minute conversation with. Learnt to not admire anything in someone’s house as if it was small enough it would likely be packed to give to you and always arrive a little hungry

West coast America the Hi how are you doing is just being polite they don’t actually know you took a while to get used to this. I though one waitress knew my dad and was put out he didn’t introduce me. Very friendly until something goes wrong then far more confrontational than British people tend to be

Australia that laid back attitud we were told to not rush everywhere all the time and get out of London mode when I came back here after over a year living in Sydney everyone did seem uptight

I didn't expect to find things strange when I moved to Finland 10 years ago because I spent so many holidays here as a child but I guess you view things differently as an adult so I was quite taken aback at all the little children roaming around without adults (now I love it), the utter casualness of the nudity in public changing rooms at swimming pools (now I love it, so freeing), and the difference in pub/bar culture - it's much more focused on getting drunk rather than being sociable (I don't love this)

OP, you are an immigrant to OZ, let's leave the good ol'e Colonial-smelling terminology behind, shall we?

Ooh and not locking doors, friends just walking in.
Kids playing outside was a nice one.

Loads when I first moved to Scotland!
I thought everybody knew a man called 'ken'
When first getting to know dh, he always used to talk about his 'Neebors'. One neebor did this, another said that. I had visions of him living on one of the biggest friendliest streets ever....: nope, neebor is just another word for friend apparently.

There are many, more. My family are Scottish as is dh and now our DC, they all like teasing me on a regular basis, despite the fact I've lived here for 17 years now!

Regarding the grannies, do you get a lot of advice about appropriate levels of dress for small children in cold weather?

All sorts of advice some totally crazy. In the ex-pat circles we call them Oma Polizei.

Also an obsession about keeping feet warm.

If you sneeze you must be cold so put socks or house shoes on.

Oh and they have a basket of house shoes for guests.

Breakfast and evening meal are identical, bread, cold cuts, butter, cheese.

Bloody good bread though.

tante lot of similar ones for me in Korea, weird banking practises, never going to people's houses, shoes off inside (which I love, even at work, we change to our indoor shoes), super punctual public transport...

A lot of stuff in Korea I dislike, a lot of it I am just bemused by and some of it, I prefer.

1. Group mentality - you don't really need to ask people's opinions on stuff cos 99% of the time, everyone thinks roughly the same thing on important issues. It is a bit boring sometimes because I feel that there's not always that much to talk about. Plus, if you step outside the groupthink, people definitely don't like it. Every girl has the same make up, every guy has the same haircut. Once somewhere becomes popular, everyone will go there. People think it's really weird to go to eg Mexico. Mexico is not a current 'hot place' so why would you go there? Vietnam is a 'hot place' so we must all go there. But when they go, they almost all go on package tours and stay in Koreans-only hotels and eat in Korean restaurants and never speak to anyone not Korean. Their sense of Koreanness pervades everything and it can be exhausting.

1. Everything non-Koreans do is a source of absolute fascination/ridicule/bemusement EVEN IF Koreans do the same thing. (Still very monocultural here - I literally heard someone say 'that foreigner has a HANDBAG' the other day - perfectly ordinary handbag, but cos a FOREIGNER is carrying it, it's something interesting and to be remarked on.) Speaking in Korean is proof that you must be the most educated foreigner EVER. You say 'hello' and they all fall about saying how smart you must be. It sounds nice, but it's exhausting cos you can never actually have a conversation.

1. On that point, being called a foreigner. I hate it. I hate that everything is divided into 'Koreans' - God's chosen and special people - and foreigners - everyone else who is not Korean. 'Do foreigners like eg Chanel?' as if all foreigners, all 7 billion of us, all think the same way.

1. Spitting on the street/not washing hands after the toilet - totally normal here and someone once said that people think that if you wash your hands, people will think it's because you were doing something DIRTY. I mean, what? Both of the above are absolutely disgusting to me and I will never ever get used to them.

1. On the other hand - once you are in a group, people are unbelievably kind. I mean, like they will do anything for you. 'Being in a group' can mean anything from a long term friendship to being recognised as 'Korean' or at least 'human'. Like I told a lady in a shop that my husband was Korean and she gave me a ton of free stuff.

1. Being able to eat out every night of the week for under 20 quid for 2 people. Really crazy and the food is delicious and often super fresh.

1. The public transport in the cities is unreal. You can travel around the Seoul metropolitan area for less than a pound and go to the mountains easily etc. Even travelling from one end of the country to the other costs about 40 pounds and takes 2 hours.

1. I was amazed at how much care people take with their appearance. They will dress casually, but everything always looks brand new, hair is always freshly cut, perfect make up etc.

1. Old ladies are fierce as fuck and no one messes with them. If an old lady tells you to do something, you do it. They'll yell at young guys for harassing you on the train (mercifully uncommon), they'll shout at vendors trying to rip you off, they'll tell you you have lipstick on your teeth, they'll tell you that your child is being a deplorable brat. At the same time, they can be incredibly soft and warm - they'll just randomly give you sweets or tell you you're beautiful. If you are ever in Korea and are having trouble, find an older lady and you'll be fine.

10. The service is unbelievable. If you order stuff online, it comes within two days tops. If you buy stuff in shops, you'll get a ton of free stuff. If you ask for a discount, you'll get it 99% of the time. You can order any kind of food, day and night and it will arrive within the hour - if you order Chinese food, it comes with actual plates and stuff that you just put in a special bag and leave outside and they'll pick it up, so you don't even have trash. It's SO convenient to live here in some ways.

Many other things, too many to mention really.

An Australian and I am baffled by UK weddings as described on MN.
I have been to any many weddings in Oz and they all follow the same format.

1. a ceremony

1. a reception with a meal, speeches, dancing etc. All food and wine paid for by the bridal party.
2. Everyone goes home.

I really don't understand the idea in the UK that there is some sort of food/drink based function straight after the ceremony and then later an evening party where less special people are invited? And people have to pay for their own drinks? It all seems so long and drawn out and leads to the awful ranking of guests into different categories.

South African living in the UK. I moved as a young teenager so quite a while back!!

• crisps instead of chips
• trousers instead of pants
• Traffic lights and not robots

The first time I went into a supermarket here it was amazing, the conveyor belt moved your shopping up and they used a barcode scanner instead of typing the prices in by hand

Going to school, I was gutted that at break you only got to eat a packet of crisps and then had your school lunch, and not having a full packed lunch of sandwiches etc plus a hot meal at the actual lunch time.

Got in trouble at school for telling the teacher that Kevin had a bloody nose. Apparently I was meant to say his nose was bleeding

Cursive writing was not standard!

Sweetcorn on everything and I mean everything

Finally, waking up to a chilly misty morning and dressing in shorts and tshirt as the sun will burn through the mist and it will be a beautiful sunny day. This does not happen in Scotland, which I realised whilst being inadequately dressed!!

In Japan nearly 27 years and there have been LOADS, as you can imagine

although either I have just got used to everything or it has actually got better recently...things like you can get money out of the ATM outside banking hours (the ATM used to be inside the bank and only open until the bank closed at 3pm

Credit cards can be used everywhere now, at least in fairly big cities (used to be almost completely cash based)

Obvious ones like shoes off in the house are really quite sensible.

communal bath etiquette can take some getting used to - you wash outside the tub and then get in for a soak (even at home).

Fireworks in the summer always used to confuse me (so used to Guy Fawkes night and being freezing, so it was weird to watch firework on hot, humid summer nights)

Being invited to someone's home used to be very unusual - you would always meet at a restaurant. But things changed a while ago, and younger people have "home parties" and potluck dinners etc.
Having said that, I have still NEVER been to my SIL house...

Trains are amazing because they really are ridiculously punctual - I think it even made the news in the UK the other day, because the train company had to apologise for a train leaving 30 seconds early
Thing is, it really would be inconvenient if the train left early - you expect to turn up at the station 20 seconds before the train leaves, board, and then be on time for all your other connections.

One thing that I still can't get used to is the way they officially "open" the beaches swimming for the summer season, and then "close" them at the end of August (when we still have at least a month of beach weather to go...). Nowadays people often ignore the official season and swim whenever they want. (actually the lifeguards are also only on duty until 5pm and you are supposed to get out of the sea at that time).
This doesn't apply to watersports, like windsurfing, etc. just swimming. (a PP mentioned the swimming pool etiquette - similar type of health and safety, I guess)

oh you said Czechoslovakia...really should read better..:)

" But bits of Austria, and all of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary drove on the left until Hitler invaded and forced them to drive on the right. "

yes, and also in what is now 'the Czech Republic' because I was in a car museum there and the steering wheels of the oldest cars were on the same side as ours. I asked someone about it, and they blamed Hitler..

Oh, another like
"Fuck" is used like punctuation, and like pp said, "cunt" is pretty much synonymous with mate.

Brit in Aus here too.
Weird but love
Sausage sizzle - never used to eat hot dogs cos I don't like hot dog buns, there's too much bread for the amount of sausage. A single white slice of bread is perfect.
Rego/VicRoads/servo/bottlo/smoko/arvo... Shall I go on?
Did my first Aussie shop the other day, barefoot in shorts and singlet. Normally throw thongs (the shoes!) on but it was 38C and I was sweating just thinking about putting more clothes on.

Weird and dislike
The casual racism that seems to be prevalent (I'm technically rural, but the metro boundary is about 10km up the road, so barely rural!) Every foreigner with non white skin is a "wog", every native with non white skin is an "abo" and it's horrific.

Cyprus here too.

Half day closing on Wednesdays.

Young babies and toddlers eating in restaurants after 10pm.

Yes yes to the speaking volume too! I had two C sections here. Terrifying!

In winter, everyone wearing tracksuits everywhere!

And the beach thing too . I have never got into the habit of going really late here when its very hot like some people do.

“In fact the only reason the rest of Europe drives on the wrong side is because Napoleon was left handed....”

Partly. Roberspierre establishes it as law in Paris first and Napoleon just followed it and spread it with conquest. Just like the Brits did with their colonies. But bits of Austria, and all of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary drove on the left until Hitler invaded and forced them to drive on the right.

Interesting trivia from a new scientist article I read... Lots of countries considered switching over in 1960s including Pakistan. They didn’t because camel “trains” “drove” through the night while the drivers kipped. And it was too difficult to teach an old camel new trick .

Brit living in Cyprus for 9 years now.

Cypriots are in the main lovely people,but god are they LOUD! The first year I lived here I thought everyone was angry or aggressive all the time..nope, they are just loud and don't mean to be rude! Giving birth here was tricky

Food is life here.It was normal for everyone in the office to discuss their breakfast, lunch and dinner plans daily. Even if someone commented they were going to TGI Fridays next week, a chorus of 'what are you going to order??!!' would break out. Followed by a 20min discussion on what people would order if they were going.

The heat..I still can't handle the beach unless it is May or Sept/Oct.My two boys that were born here barely break a sweat and get really cold in the 'winter'😂

(Although, oddly, childminders are called Tagesmütter (or, if male, Tagesväter - and I have heard of a few, more than in the UK) and that doesn't seem to come with disapproval attached. Tagheime definitely were, though)

I'd rather (and do) sleep without a pillow than on one of those giant German ones. The way that they (certainly MIL's generation) called a duvet and pillow the 'bed' confused the hell out of me at the beginning.

When dc1 was small we lived next door to a pair of lovely and very elderly Russian-German ladies. They would often appear as we were leaving the flat and bemoan the clothing we had put on dc1 (in a mild, albeit damp, southern German autumn/winter). He was sure to freeze abominably.

I went back to work quite early with dc1 (pre-Elterngeld days) and dh would bring him to me to bf in breaks (higher ed institution) and I had a student express open disapproval when she saw me doing so while having a coffee once. Nurseries for under-threes in that part of the world - which we didn't use, as dh was a SAHD for a year or two until we moved - were called 'Tagheime', literally 'day homes' , which said all it needed to about attitudes to WOHM. I found a lot of people really struggled to wrap their heads around me being simultaneously an evil working mother and a loopy mollycoddling extended breastfeeder.