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

giant square pillows on bed

Owing to work moves, we now have British, Belgian, Swiss and German bedding. I sleep on the British and Swiss pillows, DH on Belgian, DD1 has one of those ridiculous 1m square German pillows, and DD2 has given up the whole thing and still sleeps on the pillow that came with the little IKEA toddler duvet set. Everything is labelled with marker pen and it's like doing a bloody jigsaw puzzle when you change the beds

Regarding the grannies, do you get a lot of advice about appropriate levels of dress for small children in cold weather? I've had many a friendly offer of unsolicited advice, only for them to get embarrassed when they find out I'm from Scotland. Yes, there is an entire country of children who are able to go out without a hat or matchhose when it's 10 degrees and somehow they survive

I never knew that Dull. Every day's a school day!!

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

"Also, I don't understand standing to the right on escalators etc. when you drive on the left. Seems backwards to me."

I think I know the answer to this, SuperBeagle.

Re driving on the left, "in the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him."

Standing on escalators on the right probably also relates to right-handedness. When escalators were invented in the very late 1800s left-handedness was viewed as 'wrong', to the point that left-handed children were forced to learn to write with their right hand. So right-handedness was seen as the norm. Therefore it became the custom to stand on the right of an escalator in the UK so that your right hand could hold onto the moving handrail.

Well, that's my take on it anyway

Had lunch with an American, Canadian and myself a Brit last week, all 20+ years in rural France.

All our French partners are hoarders,and we find the quantity of snacking in our home countries bizarre.

Very difficult to make friends where we live. Most people's friends are either from primary or secondary at the latest. They hang out with those friends forever.

Can be friends with people at work but very unlikely to ever be invited to their homes. Will meet for lunch in a restaurant though.

Social events are couple based or family based.

Big kids here play with little kids always. They never tell them they are too young to play. Makes for excellent mixed aged gatherings, parents rarely have to step in.

Brit in Aus here. Nothing much phased us when we moved over here until we encountered the Drive thru Bottle Shop!
You basically park your car under a car port, someone from the shop comes out, asks you what you want; goes back in and gets it. He then comes out with a mobile EFTPOS machine and your booze, you pay and drive off!!
Utterly bizarre.

Oh, @Nakedavenger74, I work at Bunnings; home of the sausage sizzle!

I lived in the States for 3 years. Early meal times; 5pm is dinner time, all the restaurants closed by 8. My first dinner party I started early, cooked a 3 course meal and everyone went home as soon as they'd finished dinner. They were (& are to a certain extent) with technology. I was paid with an actual paper cheque. No chip & pin at the time (they only have contactless technology for Applepay , no cards do contactless)

Tipping I still find frustrating, but since finding out that they're taxed on predicted tip from your bill, I'm more stringent.

No one just goes to a pub (bar) for a drink because they're pretty seedy places.

Parking only facing the side of the street that you're on.

I was born, raised and lived in England until I was 20 then lived in the U.S. for 45 yrs.

First of all I must say that the U.S. is a huge country with varied customs and regions. I am in a very rural part of the NW.

I must have come across very rude for many years here because if someone invited me to their home for dinner I would just show up and not offer to bring food with me. When I started inviting people to dinner at my house they would always ask, “What shall I bring”? I’d tell them to just to bring themselves but people would show up with various foods. I found this very annoying. Example; one family brought big bags of potato chips (Crisps) and sat and ate them at the table. Some have brought ice cream and chucked it into my made-from-scratch trifle or other deserts, ruining them.

I was just asked to dinner and told to bring deviled eggs and the desert. They think every meal is a pot-luck get together.

Here I think the word ‘bugger' is a spin off from the saying ‘cute as a bugs ear’ and they sometimes call children ‘cute little buggers’. There was a Day Care center near us called, ’The little Buggers Day Care”. I showed this place to my dad when he was visiting from England and I think it was one of the highlights of his trip.

Here to say someone is full of spunk means they are energetic. My mil died a few weeks ago and I was informed she was full of spunk when she died.

I really love living here and after all these years England has become strange to me. Things I find odd about England;

Children starting school so young. Here kindergarten is for a few hours/day and the kids are 5 or 6 yrs old. 1st grade is when they start to go all day and it is for 6 - 7 year olds. And kids get 3 months off in the summer.

People in England tell each other off (shout) if they think they are breaking some rules.

Dog shit in little bags hanging in the hedgerows.

Washing all the dishes in the same dirty soapy water and not rinsing.

Supermarkets not bagging up groceries for you or asking if you need help out to your car.

People parked all over the place.

People driving like bats out of hell down country lanes.

Since I’ve been gone I notice Brits have picked up some American customs such as saying mom instead of mum, having high school proms, trick or treating and some more. Also I am shocked my the number of American fast food joints there. Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks. We just had fish and chips 45 years ago.

A PP mentioned something about only getting Lipton tea here. Our local stores sell Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips.

Isn't there a brand of bug spray in Aus/NZ called Bugger Off?

Yes, the good old sausage sizzle! I'm used to it now but agree it's weird.

I lived in NZ when this Toyota ad came out and there was a bit of a fuss about the use of "bugger" and after complaints it was only shown after the 9 pm watershed.

Also Aus/NZ. The 'sausage sizzle'. Usually done to fundraise. A sausage wrapped in one slice of white sliced bread. Just odd. Why not a lovely bap or a finger roll?

Brit in Germany (Munich)
-don't do Double duvet covers rather two singles. These are folded in half then placed half way down the bed.

-giant square pillows on bed

-kids clothing is much less gendered and well suited to the weather.

• wooden toys over plastic (especially battery operated)

• Brezen (pretzel) are ok 1st foods.....even though covered in salt it's just picked off.

• lots of please and thanks and have a nice day here

• every car is big fast and german made even though they don't get out of 4th gear in the city.

• graves are very well kept and also decorated with the season

• little patches of waste ground are used to grow flowers and then you self pick and leave cash in an honesty box (would never happen in uk!) in autumn flowers replaced by pumpkins!

• so many more lol I find the german lovely though. The grannies are a bit of a nightmare sometimes though.

@Montypontypine mince and cheese pies were one of these reasons we decided to move here after a particularly wonderful one in Te Anu. Mince. Cheese. Pastry. What more do you need in life. (Central heating would be nice actually)

Oh. Sitting on the ground, as done by teens waiting for a bus, or just waiting. Not just in the summer, so long as it's not actually raining.

Thinking of the abbreviations in Australia, the police check website used to be "crimtrack", and immigration is still "immi". The car rego authority in Victoria is called VicRoads. The Melbourne A-Z is called Melways.

Some years ago, when wanting to name some tunnels in Melbourne, "inny" and "outy" were touted.

It's very much of the say what you see school, hence, the Little Sandy Desert and the Great Sandy Desert, and the just plain Little Desert.

And everything Pallisers mentions except the dish rinsing. I have never seen a home in Ireland where dishes were not rinsed.

Seasonal decorations - I think this is a German cultural thing too,
Eating at an ungodly hour - my family always eats between 7 and 8 and we are considered strange,
Punctuality,
Also, everyone off to bed before 11.

Interesting about the Taiwanese person understanding the Irish tea thing. There are some 'face' elements to Irish and some Asian cultures that are similar ime.

Uk in NZ.

Oh my word ... optional shoes. DS was 6 when we moved here. He refused to do anything barefoot at school and was marked out as a stroppy young thing.

Mince and cheese pies, just why???

No blinking central heating. Cold houses and the endless rain. Our house is very well insulated

Idiot drivers everywhere

I quite like it here ....

Oh dear God, YYY, Rainbunny - the Liptons tea.

Irish in US:
Convenience of everything - shopping hours, drive through banking;
Right turns on red (see above);
Screens on windows to keep bugs out, and screen doors too;
Great heating in the cold weather, and AC in heat and humidity - my feet were warm all winter for the first time;
Hot water 24/7 [yeehah];
Every man for himself driving style, which I liked once I got used to it. I can drive with the best (worst?) of them now, day or night;
Ease of dealing with DMV for licence;
Horrible and completely unnecessary rudeness of Immigration officials;
Children expected to deal with their own (extensive and appropriate) winter wear - no parents allowed into school morning or afternoon;
No cultural snobbery - very wealthy people going to a baseball game and chowing down on hot dogs like everyone else, clapping and singing along to hits of the 60s and 70s, swigging beer out of Solo cups at BBQs, lack of formality;
Affection for teenagers, teens returning the favour;
No grafitti (a local quirk);
Great public facilities and community spirit (again, local observation);
Philanthropy - mind blowing amounts of money given away, raised by parish school at annual auction, expertise at running fundraising events;
T-ball, the greatest American pastime of them all;
No uniforms in schools;
Everyone wearing appropriate cold weather clothing, footwear, outerwear;
Drivers ed in schools at age 15;
Positive attitude.

Horrible fashions and hairstyles - I left Dublin and arrived in the midwest where people were horrified if I wore black, grown women wore big bows in their hair and cutesy dresses, so much hairspray, huge shoulders, big gold tone buttons, red lipstick whether it suited the woman or not. It was like the set of 'Dallas'. Women wore 'pantyhose' to work despite the fact that it was in the high 90sF and incredibly humid. Back then, Americans knew absolutely nothing about Ireland (or anywhere else for that matter) beyond impressions from films like 'The Quiet Man' - I was asked if we had phones in Ireland. I was asked if all the blacks in Ireland were in the army as they were in the US. I was asked what the Irish did for Thanksgiving. Gobsmacked...

DullandOld the criminal offence was assault and battery, not assault and buggery!

errr what Toad? tolerance of widespread child abuse due to cultural considerations sad

Also not sure what this means? panhandles leading to back sections that waste even more garden space

I agree with you on our shittily heated houses though.

Supermarket trading hours was weird one fro me in London. The frantic queuing and ransacked shelves at 4.30pm on Sunday evening. Supermarkets are just about 24/7 here.

Kiwi dip. Tinned cream and powdered onion soup. Obsessed with it. Ubiquitous at every gathering. They can get that to fuck! Horrible.

And tinned asparagus wrapped in white bread with the crusts cut off. There is a whole genre of Kiwiana food that I advise all tourists to avoid if at all possible.

Lovely meat pies here though.

English in NZ.

• children, barefoot by choice
• obsession with (not very good) cars
• high street brothels
• in Auckland, bungalows that sprawl across sections, leaving no space for gardens or privacy
• panhandles leading to back sections that waste even more garden space
• a refusal to heat houses adequately in winter
• (Auckland again) an instinctive horror at spending money on improving transport, unless it's on roads
• compulsory "donations" for state schools
• tolerance of widespread child abuse due to cultural considerations

Actually I like it here, but these are the things that baffle me.

missbattenburg, yes those comments I can relate to!

I have lived in other countrys but India is the most challenging. But having a chuckle at what others have written about the others I also know about.

Having to spend usually 2 hours washing peeling and storing food when you have bought it, and being very careful of what you buy during monsoon season due to human contamination on the crops.

Weddings, ah weddings, been woken at 6.45am with the drumming/music that goes on until 10pm, so loud the windows shake.

The total lack of consideration for your neighbours with noise, whatever day or time it is. A wall was being knocked down at 8.30 at night then drilling, why not just do it during the working day?

Child labour, watching the children carry sacks of building material on new builds (held up with bamboo) makes me so sad.

I miss the UK reading this........