Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Things that baffle you about another country

999 replies

Soubriquet · 31/01/2021 18:00

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 Grin

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
letitsnowletitsnowletitsnowww · 01/02/2021 00:45

@WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo

Why are kinder eggs banned in America but not guns? (Or is that a myth?) Surely guns have killed far far more people?
True no kinder eggs in America
HarrysWife · 01/02/2021 00:49

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

My MIL is from the north of england and calls every form of sweets/chocolate "toffees". So she will ask you if you want a toffee and you could be offered a mars bar, a sherbert lemon or a strawberry bon bon. its not a risk i like to take so usually decline.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/02/2021 00:50

I don't know if it was just in my large city there, but when I lived in Austria for the best part of the year, as a student, I was amazed to find that self-service laundrettes seemed not to exist at all. I didn't have a washing machine in my small flat and asked the Austrians I knew how people without a WM did their laundry. They directed me to something that appeared to be a dry-cleaner that also did everyday normal washing on your behalf as a souped-up service wash - but they were talking about prices of the equivalent of about £1 per item (including pants) as if this was entirely reasonable - and this was over 20 years ago.

I'm not necessarily saying that the businesses were charging unreasonable prices for the extensive full-laundry service that their customers might have wanted, but it was certainly way too overwrought and expensive for me as a student. In the end, one of the teachers at the school where I was studying took pity on me and very kindly did regular loads of washing for me - I was very grateful but felt guilty and annoyed that I hadn't had a straightforward option to do it myself.

Another thing there that I was much aggrieved by was that almost all of the parking spaces in and around the city were chargeable for up to 90 minutes before you had to move your car (no feeding/renewing the meter), unless you were a local resident, in which case you could buy a very much cheaper annual permit and park in one of those same spaces for as long as you liked, for no extra cost. I asked what I needed to do as a local resident to buy a permit and was told that, as a foreigner, I simply wasn't allowed to.

Thankfully, I lived near the hospital. Unlike the UK, Austria clearly sees the outrage in making people pay when they have to visit the hospital, so their car park was free and unlimited. I wasn't proud of it, but I genuinely had not other practical options available to me.

One small thing that really impressed me, though, was the honesty system - even in the city - of attaching bags of newspapers to lamp-posts with money pots for you to take one and leave your payment. There's no way that wouldn't be abused - papers set fire to or strewn all around and the money stolen - in most UK cities.

I also loved the automated 24-hour bottle 'paying-in' machines at the small supermarkets, where you'd just put your empty glass bottle on the little conveyor belt, it would spring into action, take your bottle inside and issue you with a refund ticket for your deposit, to use next time against your next lot of shopping. Sadly, again, they would just get played with and wrecked in much of urban Britain - bored teenagers would send dog poo or fireworks into them, or the very skinny ones might even try to ride in on them themselves.

Allusernamesalreadyused · 01/02/2021 00:54

England. That they don't teach the real history of british rule in Ireland. The repercussions of the famine and how they sent all the crops generated in Ireland over to UK and people starved and threw them out of their cottages. It was sustained and it was brutal and unmerciful. Even native Indians in US took pity on Ireland and sent aid. Do yes I'm baffled about the UK and their total arrogance and disregard for their colonial attitude. Thank God we got rid of them 😊

Belatedbear · 01/02/2021 00:56

@IHaveBrilloHair re Home and Away and summer - in lots of coastal towns the weather is hot in summer and very mild all the rest of the year. No winter temps like you'd experience in the UK. If someone on the show is wearing a cardy or sweatshirt, it's quite probably their winter wear.

SleepingStandingUp · 01/02/2021 00:58

When we were on holiday in France, the public loos were a home in the floor. What's that about??

everythingbackbutyou · 01/02/2021 00:58

I live in Vancouver and have never had any trouble obtaining and using an electric kettle. Nor do I have to wait an outrageous length of time for it to boil. @MrsKoala, which part of Vancouver were you living in, out of interest? Did you like it? @elp30, I am too living it up with my Tetley tea bags...
Re. the Belgian statue - it was created in honour of a legend about a little boy putting out a fire by any means necessary...

LifeExperience · 01/02/2021 00:58

Now I'll take on healthcare. It's true that the US system is not single payer. However, the government pays about 50% of all health expenditures and that percentage is rising every year. There is Medicaid for all poor and disabled people, Medicare for everyone over 65, SCHIP for children above the poverty level but whose families cannot afford private insurance, the military health system that covers active duty military and their families and the VA system that covers poor veterans and veterans with service-connected disabilities. Most everyone else is covered through employer provided private insurance.

Health care in the US is expensive, but it is very, very good. We pay a huge proportion of our GDP for healthcare, but we have very few limits on amount of care. When both my mother and father were dying (at different times) I had to tell the doctors to stop treatment and let them go, otherwise they would keep trying experimental treatment after experimental treatment. The idea of withholding treatment because someone is very old or sick just doesn't exist here.

Also, for those who think folks are dying in the streets here for lack of insurance, it simply isn't true. Hospitals are required by law to treat everyone who comes through the door exactly the same, regardless of ability to pay. My daughter is an a and e doctor, and she doesn't know if her patients are privately insured, on a government program, undocumented migrants or whatever. She is not allowed to know, by law, and must treat them all to the same high standard.

Physicians do make a lot more money here, but their salaries are a drop in the bucket of overall health spending. And they earn it. Just becoming an M.D. is extremely difficult and only the best make it into medical school.

All this being said, I do think we'll eventually end up with a single payer system that rations care. The political winds seem to be blowing in that direction.

fratellia · 01/02/2021 00:59

I was shocked to find out Americans don’t use ‘x’ to mean a kiss like we do and don’t use the word fortnight to mean two weeks

IHaveBrilloHair · 01/02/2021 01:02

@Belatedbear
You'd need a warmish coat and jeans in Sydney in Winter.
I lived in Australia for two years, I know its bollocks.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/02/2021 01:11

Sorry, HarrysWife - I was genuinely laughing with you and at the glorious mental image that you inadvertently created, and in no way at you!

It might just be one or two extremely tragic cases that are publicised repeatedly (not that that's a bad thing in any way whatsoever), but I've heard that it's not all that uncommon for toddlers to get their hands on guns - finding them in a parent's handbag, coat pocket or drawer - and tragically accidentally killing a family member when playing with it. Whether people agree or not that civilian adults should be allowed to buy and own guns, I'm beyond horrified that some people who do that will so nonchalantly leave them within the reach of young children.

I don't know if it's just a MN thing, but I too see a lot of posts on here from people asking if they should go or not - not just to the chapel of rest but to the actual funeral itself. Of course, I understand if the deceased person had been abusive to them or estranged, or when travel and/or illness-related logistics just don't allow for it; however, I would always assume that it would be an unquestioned given that you would go to your own family member's funeral, if you at least liked them a bit, even if not full-on loved them.

It must seem so bizarre to former work colleagues and long-lost old friends and neighbours when they make the effort, and then find that several of the healthy, local, close family members aren't actually attending - never mind what other family members who do go must think, when there's no specific reason for somebody to want/have to stay away - just that they 'prefer to pay their respects in their own way'. Fair enough - people grieve and come to terms with it in their own individual ways - but I'd never known so many arbitrary family funeral no-shows until I discovered MN Confused

SleepingStandingUp · 01/02/2021 01:13

@SleepingStandingUp

When we were on holiday in France, the public loos were a home in the floor. What's that about??
Or could have been Italy
5zeds · 01/02/2021 01:18

@LifeExperience Health care in the US is expensive, but it is very, very good.. Maternal death rates surely don’t support this?

TheOtherBoelynGirl · 01/02/2021 01:20

In my experience, the UK is really the only country where kettles are ubiquitous. I mean, you can find them and many people have them, but they're not an item that every single person has in their house.

Ditto egg cups, which I believe are UK specific (other countries may have them, of course, but not normal like in the UK.)

My query is why so many countries are so bad at queuing. Surely it's just the simplest and most efficient and fairest way to get a large number of people into a place. China are the worst for it, but there are many countries where people simply don't abide by the rules (and many of those people will also complain about the Chinese not queuing properly, leaving me agog at their lack of self awareness.) At an airport pre-Covid and the person at passport control that was specifically for crew and embassy staff just gave up trying to stop the Chinese passengers coming through that gate and let them use it.

I don't get it, but at the same time, I kind of admire their gung-ho attitude and 'me first' approach. Sometimes I do find the British way too polite about this stuff.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/02/2021 01:21

England. That they don't teach the real history of british rule in Ireland.

We don't teach the real history of British rule almost anywhere in the world. You might get the odd tale about those troublesome Greeks who want to get their hands on our priceless marble antiquities that our good, decent Lord Elgin stole fair and square (for their own good, don't you know - they even bear his name, so they're obviously ours); but by and large, the victors don't just deny a lot of the facts to their victims and foes but also to themselves and to their own children.

To me, it's grossly offensive using a word like 'famine' when referring, not to a natural mass failure of crops, but to the fact that they'd all been stolen - not even just for the thieves to have them for themselves but for deliberate wicked political and military overthrow tactics. (Not saying the so-called 'IPF' is the only contentious issue, by any means).

SelkieQualia · 01/02/2021 01:22

[quote 5zeds]**@LifeExperience* Health care in the US is expensive, but it is very, very good.*. Maternal death rates surely don’t support this?[/quote]
Health outcomes in the US are the worst of any high income country. By a very long way.

TheOtherBoelynGirl · 01/02/2021 01:27

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

This is something that differs a lot by family and, in my experience, class. When I was young, I was always amazed that we were given chicken nuggets and such at certain friends' houses but that the mum wouldn't eat with us and the dad wasn't home yet. Then the mum would start cooking dinner, always something "nice" like spaghetti bolognese or whatever (an actual meal as opposed to beige).

As I got older, the penny dropped that it was always the friends on the nice side of town who did this.

We always ate meals as a family, whether it be spaghetti bolognese or chicken nuggets and my dad was home by 6 and dinner was on the table at that time.

We did go to bed early and I think that's a good thing. Young children need around 12 hours sleep a night, so if they're in bed much later than 8, they'll be too tired for school. I'm constantly amazed when I'm abroad and see young children out in the supermarket or whatever. I do think it's nice that you see young children out in restaurants with the whole family but I don't really think it's a great idea on a regular basis.

TheOtherBoelynGirl · 01/02/2021 01:29

"We don't teach the real history of British rule almost anywhere in the world. You might get the odd tale about those troublesome Greeks who want to get their hands on our priceless marble antiquities that our good, decent Lord Elgin stole fair and square "

That is not, by any stretch of the imagination, how British history is taught these days.

TheOtherBoelynGirl · 01/02/2021 01:30

"Also, for those who think folks are dying in the streets here for lack of insurance, it simply isn't true. Hospitals are required by law to treat everyone who comes through the door exactly the same, regardless of ability to pay."

Riiiight, except people end up in massive, unpayable debt if they do attend hospital so they just don't go in the first place.

Hardbackwriter · 01/02/2021 01:38

@SionnachRua

How long do they take? I thought they were only an hour like a normal service? You can have shorter if you like

Sorry, that was poorly phrased. I mean the time it takes between death and funeral. As an Irish person where the usual turnaround is 3 days it seems bizarrely long! But again this is based on reading MN.

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 the difference is - though perhaps I'm misunderstanding Irish funeral culture - that there are different assumptions about who you go to the funeral 'for'; that in England you're there for the deceased and so, by and large, you don't go if you wouldn't have had a cup of tea with them while they were alive. Whereas the impression I get from Irish friends is that there you go for the living family, and so you go if you have any connection to them? For instance they've mentioned going to funerals of colleagues' family members despite never having met them, to support the colleague. That actually makes more logical sense to me - the living will know of and appreciate your attendance, unlike the dead - but I would still feel uncomfortable going to the funeral of someone I barely knew. I remember going to an ex-boyfriend's aunt's funeral when I'd only met her once and just feeling very awkward about it, like I was an imposter or intruder.
tobee · 01/02/2021 01:41

@Allusernamesalreadyused

England. That they don't teach the real history of british rule in Ireland. The repercussions of the famine and how they sent all the crops generated in Ireland over to UK and people starved and threw them out of their cottages. It was sustained and it was brutal and unmerciful. Even native Indians in US took pity on Ireland and sent aid. Do yes I'm baffled about the UK and their total arrogance and disregard for their colonial attitude. Thank God we got rid of them 😊

I agree!

I was educated in England and we barely touched on our relationship with Ireland. Next door neighbours and this was the 70s and 80s. You would think Ireland was a peaceful island in the South Pacific for all we heard about it!

tobee · 01/02/2021 01:43

Also isn't American healthcare basically a money making Industry? A business?

JaneJeffer · 01/02/2021 01:47

Thanks @TheOtherBoelynGirl it's interesting that the well-to-do people are feeding their children with convenience foods and not a proper dinner!

OldieButaGoodie · 01/02/2021 01:47

Australians are like the Irish when it comes to funerals (and a lot of other things!). I've attended the funerals of a colleague's father, who I never met, as well as the parents of friends who I never met either.

I was there to support my colleague/friend in their time of grief and it's not an unusual thing to do here.

Famousinlove · 01/02/2021 01:50

America - why don't you have fences around your property?

Swipe left for the next trending thread