Things that baffle you about another country

[Soubriquet]

America:-

Why are the gaps in the toilet doors so wide? Do you really enjoy an audience?

Why can’t tax be included in the price? If I want to buy something for a dollar it should be a dollar! Not dollar plus tax!

Australia:-

Still weird that you have Christmas in summer.

Wonder if they have different Christmas songs there.

Can’t see walking in a winter land being a big hit.

More like hiding from a hot heatwave

@HarrysWife

I think you have misunderstood sth very fundamental. Read back - there is even a link with pictures. It is just a differently constructed toilet bowl. Nothing gets wacked out and put on shelves - and I very much hope you are joking. Otherwise ....

I'm not German, but you never have to actually touch the poo once it's been dispatched. It lands on the shelf, you glance at it and then, when you're ready to part company, the powerful flush scooshes it up and into the water and then down away, into the stench pipe as with all toilets.

I suppose you might have to put on your rubber gloves to harvest it on the odd occasion, if you have any real cause for concern and need to take it to the GP. I presume little skidmarks do collect on the shelf, but you expect to have to regularly clean toilets anyway.

"The funeral 'culture' - and again, learning this from MN so it may not be reality - seems so dry and aloof to me. In Ireland anyone and everyone goes. The deceased child's school teacher (from years ago)? Come along. Someone they vaguely knew from cycling club? They're in too."

I think it is reality (in England and Wales anyway). Many people would not feel comfortable going to the funeral of someone they don't know. Former school teacher and cycling club friend would go, but the MN threads are usually about someone like your MIL's neighbour that you've never spoken to or something.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Malaysia & the Philippines - women have children very young, move overseas for work and let the grandparents raise them before returning to raise their own grandchildren. I’ve seen this repeated across generations. Why not work first then have kids so you can raise them yourself? I do wonder if I am missing part of the economic argument here."

They can earn loads more abroad so they can save and buy a home for their families when they come back. This is because of global inequalities not because they have children too young. Read the book Global Woman.

That is the bit that I understand.

But why not just wait to have kids until after working overseas and earning that money rather than have kids, then go overseas without them?

I have asked but always got shrugged shoulders and ‘we always have children young’ (frequently before or during training/uni)

I've always understood (probably completely incorrect) that US doesn't like nhs type healthcare because healthcare is seen as consumerism like most other things. I think (again might be wrong) that free healthcare is associated with socialism?

I mean we have private healthcare here so presumably people plenty of people in the U.K. want to be consumers too? We also have plenty of private education here which I don't think is so common in the US?

My best friend is from the US and lived in the U.K. for years. Votes Labour etc but thinks the NHS is not good because of waiting times etc. (I've put that a bit simply) I feel she's been culturally indoctrinated from birth about private healthcare. Maybe we have about the NHS? (Which I think is something to be very proud of)

One massive often not talked about (as far as I can tell) is the lack of joined up healthcare in US because of the competitive nature of healthcare over there. The story of Dr Death in the podcast Christopher Duntsch surely illustrates this?

@Bookridden

Is it true that Americans don't have kettles?

Yes they don't drink tea

I'm in Australia and i always hang my washing out to dry. I have never owned a tumble dryer since moving to this country.

Why would I?! It's perfect clothes drying weather where I am for about 330 days a year. If my neighbours think I'm poverty stricken then I'm ok with that. Some of my clothes probably make me seem that way anyway

Also, in regards to A/C machines being bad for the environment- are people in cold countries under the impression that their home heating systems are good for the environment..? Most people who are environmentally conscious limit their usage of A/C, just as the environmentally conscious in cold countries will limit their usage of heating. Also my entire roof is covered in solar panels, as are almost all roofs in this country. I can't believe that anyone needs that explaining to them.

@Gwenhwyfar

"As an Irish person where the usual turnaround is 3 days it seems bizarrely long! But again this is based on reading MN."

This just depends on availability of burial/cremation places I think. They are over-subscribed in London so can take a long time. It's not the same all over the UK.

Ah that makes sense. I know that here a friend's parent died in January a couple of years ago. Being January, there were a lot of deaths and so they were waiting a week for the funeral. Everyone felt it really was an inordinately long time...and then I see MN threads talking about waiting months and my mind is boggled! I just can't imagine sitting around for that long. But maybe it has its benefits too.

I'm loving the idea that a poo shelf isn't just a slightly different shape/design to the inside of the toilet bowl but an actual external glass-fronted display/trophy cabinet Imagine that on your CV as having been a curator of one of those

I should say, they were waiting around for an autopsy which is what delayed it all! The funeral homes were ready to go as per the normal schedule.

I'm going to jump in again on American gun culture. Assault rifles aren't sold for deer hunting. Assault rifles are sold because people want them, and the US Constitution guarantees our right to own them if we want. I don't have assault weapons personally because I own guns to use. But I know people who enjoy shooting semi and auto, and why shouldn't they? There are more guns than people in the US, and an additional 43 million were sold last year. If guns in and of themselves were dangerous, people would be blasted walking down the street in every neighborhood every day. Yet gun violence in the US, contrary to what Hollywood and the BBC would have you think, is very rare outside of a few large cities and along the border with Mexico. And that can be attributed virtually 100% to gangs and drugs. If you don't want to be shot in this country, stay away from gangs and drugs, and you'll be safe. Another fact the media rarely mentions is that the vast majority of gun deaths in the US are suicides. Far fewer die from homicide than die in car accidents, and yet people don't get spun up over car ownership.

"But why not just wait to have kids until after working overseas and earning that money rather than have kids, then go overseas without them?

I have asked but always got shrugged shoulders and ‘we always have children young’ (frequently before or during training/uni)"

They go overseas for decades don't they? And you can't change a culture overnight if they usually have children young. If they come back home at 40, will they be able to find a single man who wants children?

@Prokupatuscrakedatus i wasnt joking but i googled it . that seems to make A LOT more sense. still odd but not quite as odd as i was imagining

Ooh, an American (and Mexican American, at that too) who owns a kettle (see photo).

I moved with my English husband back to Texas in 2004 and we bought a kettle immediately. It cost $15 at Walmart. To be exact, it cost $16.24 because Texas has an 8.25% tax rate. But if I had bought it in a different county, it would have been 7.25% or in a neighboring state, it would be 6.35% tax.

Look, I even bought my husband Tetley tea bags today (see photo).

@PeggyHill I lived in WA and loved that we didn’t have a dryer. The Fremantle doctor dried the clothes in an hour if that.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll . in my head it was a wooden shelf, next to the toilet. Next to where your toilet roll holder would be. My main concern (after how it got to the shelf) was how you cleaned the shelf afterwards. I googled it and I have to say Im (relieved but) disappointed. Thats not a shelf. More a poo holding area of sorts.

"gun violence in the US, contrary to what Hollywood and the BBC would have you think, is very rare outside of a few large cities and along the border with Mexico."

and yet from Wikipedia:

"Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is 25 times higher.[14] Although it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, among those 22 nations studied, the U.S. had 82 percent of gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed with guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed with guns.[14]"

@HarrysWife
I was wondering ....
There is actually a part of product development (toilet bowls not poo) that tests flushability of diverse .... compositions using the poo equivalent of the blue liquid.

"why on earth don’t their clothes shop changing room cubicles have mirrors?"

I didn't know this, but I've been to some French shops like this and it's to force you to come out to look in the mirror where the assistant can give you the hard sell.

@Gwenhwyfar, aah, that makes sense. One time, I remember trying on a dress and the sales assistant expressed mild disappointment afterwards that I hadn’t come out to show her. I didn’t want to come out because I hadn’t shaved my legs.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus imagine that being your job.

I think that's a bit disingenuous comparing gun ownership to car ownership. A gun is a weapon. Designed to injure or kill or threaten.

A car isn't designed to do any of those things. A car injures and kills people incidentally.

UK funerals are weird to me too. I see threads asking things like should I go to see my father at the chapel of rest and so many people say not to!

My question is why people in the UK have a separate dinner for the children and then put them to bed really early?

Really puzzled by the washing up bowl comments. Think it's because I'm not clear if the suggested alternatives are:

1. Fill the sink with hot soapy water instead (in which case what's the difference apart from using more water and having - in a single sink situation - nowhere to pour away liquids as you go along: OR

1. Wash up in running water? (If the bowl objections are that the water gets dirty as you go along).

Are all you bowl objectors (or at least the ones without dishwashers) washing up in running water? If so how does the soap stay on to clean them?

I may have totally misunderstood or missed the point 😂

Why do Americans call chocolate “candy” and not chocolate?

In countries with siestas does absolutely everyone stop working including offices with air con and do you all really go home to sleep?

USA and UK - the single use plastic is off-the-charts. Stores like WalMart and KMart spewing out plastic products by the day. No controls over what McDonald's can serve you: plastic straws, plastic lids, plastic EVERYTHING. All used for two seconds and then straight in the bin. The most developed countries in the world, and they don't give a shit about plastic pollution.