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

The lack of tumble dryers in the UK - isn't it because they use masses of energy and are bad for the planet? When would you waste all that electricity when you could just let your laundry air dry for free? I've never owned one and manage to dry everything easily!

Washing up bowls - if you're washing under running water instead you must be using so much extra soap and wasting tons of water. If you're washing in sitting water directly in the sink, then what's the difference between that and using a bowl? I use a bowl, scrape waste off first, wash in bowl, rinse and stand on draining rack (no towel to smear dirt back on!).

Babies left outside - it's so good for the health, lots of fresh air! In years gone by in the UK patients with chest illnesses used to be put in beds outside and wrapped up.

Well, I for one was very pleased it was a shelf loo when I found my IUD lying there (never felt a thing) on a holiday.

Dread to think I might never have noticed.....

you could just let your laundry air dry for free?

Sure, like for 2 - 3 days in winter in the living room in a small flat? No thanks. My tumble dryer does it in about an hour. And is hidden away in the bathroom.

I’m American. Say what you may about our health care, but we have had great treatment and I was horrified to hear that in the UK, new mothers stay on a ward with other women? Even when I had my son 31 years ago, I had a private room with a chair that converted to a bed for DH, a whirlpool bath for a sore back after having a baby, and a lovely special dinner provided to us to celebrate parenthood. I worked in childcare and the poorest new mothers, on state benefits and Medicaid (Government provided healthcare for the poor’ would be horrified to have to share a room in this day and age. I’ve been in the hospital in recent years, for heart issues, and rarely have seen another patient. All hospitals have private rooms with full bathrooms.

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

It is a business, as is health insurance. One of Liz Warren's plans was, essentially, to make all insurance run through the government, so as to remove the idea of profit. (It's basically what Medicare for All is.)

What I'd say about healthcare is that it's enormously divided. The best hospitals in America are very possibly the best in the world, and there are easily 40-50 that match pace with almost anywhere. You don't have to be fancy to have these--you can go with a solidly middle-class (American middle class) healthcare plan.

The healthcare for the poor, particularly the rural poor, is appalling. Rural hospitals are closing left and right and so many people don't have a primary care physician. For some, the A&E is used as such, because it's the only place that guarantees treatment without insurance. This is hugely expensive and very bad policy.

I don't think people in Britain understand the deep streak of American libertarianism (I struggle with understanding it myself). When Obama insisted that everyone in America carry health insurance, which was to drive down costs overall, there was such a huge backlash that it started political movements. There are still at least a dozen states that have refused to take the Medicaid expansion, which would expand healthcare to working class people in large part through federal funding, because a) they object to the chance to be taxed for it and b) they don't want the federal government telling them what to do.

So, it is among the best healthcare systems in the worldif you have the resources to access it. Again, you don't have to be richthere are secretaries or custodians in companies with great healthcare plans who have access to the best hospitals in the world, but it's by dint of the luck of their employer.

It is also an unacceptable system for so many who don't have access to it.

America - why can't you weigh recipe ingredients, even when it's things like butter?!

"I’m American. Say what you may about our health care, but we have had great treatment "

Yes, ok, but few would deny it's without its issues. No one is saying our healthcare is great either, particularly for women's issues/maternity.

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

This is in the 80s, everyone ate beige food then. I don't think you'd see the same now.

And when I say the 'nice' part of town, I don't know if anyone would describe them as 'well to do', more like it wasn't a council house.

@MadCattery

I’m American. Say what you may about our health care, but we have had great treatment and I was horrified to hear that in the UK, new mothers stay on a ward with other women? Even when I had my son 31 years ago, I had a private room with a chair that converted to a bed for DH, a whirlpool bath for a sore back after having a baby, and a lovely special dinner provided to us to celebrate parenthood. I worked in childcare and the poorest new mothers, on state benefits and Medicaid (Government provided healthcare for the poor’ would be horrified to have to share a room in this day and age. I’ve been in the hospital in recent years, for heart issues, and rarely have seen another patient. All hospitals have private rooms with full bathrooms.

It would be nice to have a private room after giving birth rather than postnatal ward, for sure. I personally wouldn't pay $4500 for it though, which is what the average woman pays out of pocket in the US... I also wouldn't swap postnatal ward for the US's maternal mortality rates, which is the highest in the developed world.

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

Excellent - very glad to hear that, if we're finally teaching honesty instead of vanity, at long last.

…the fact that mountains in Europe run East/West and in the US they run North/South…
Now I’ve heard it all!

…The electricity here is half as strong as the UK…
It’s current flow that kills, not voltage.

British Summertime: for the rest of the world it is just summertime, so funny to force 'British' in front of it in everyday language.
That’s because, at times, the UK has had no ‘change of hour’ for daylight saving. Also (long time ago) different daylight savings dates vs other countries.

Spanish: …figure of a Nativity scene, a man squatting down…
In most modern scenes (if there at all) he is just ‘mooning’ and not ‘making a delivery’.

Siesta time (ime Southern Spain and southern Italy) is mostly applied as and when it suits. Big business ignores it generally, so a big supermarket goes 9am – 9pm. However a village shop (all types) may well close 2pm – 4pm for example. They’ll often be open late though, so 9-2 and 4-10 not unusual. Sunday closing is still very common away from tourist places.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll
Loving your humorous posts! Thank you!

@Guineapigbridge

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.

Plastic straws and stirrers are illegal in the Uk.

www.gov.uk/government/news/start-of-ban-on-plastic-straws-stirrers-and-cotton-buds

@MIAUUU

UK: the forced effort to make things sound British and superior. Like:

• in positive news it is called the Oxford vaccine, in negative news (e.g. when efficacy is questioned) it is called Astra-Zeneca vaccine. Do people really buy into this bullshitting?
• British Summertime: for the rest of the world it is just summertime, so funny to force 'British' in front of it in everyday language
• This one I find incredibly funny, read it in an astronomy book: "Planets have two names: a Latin and an English name" !!! 😂😂😂

We are generally quite self-deprecating so this seems unlikely! With your example, I think its outside the UK that is questioning the efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. It doesn’t make sense for us to use Oxford (British institution) to pass good news and AZ (a British-Swedish company) for negative news, they are both British.

British Summer Time (BST) is daylight saving time, when the clocks go forward one hour in the spring and back an hour in the autumn, and the rest of the year it is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). We are not the only place in the world to do this! East coast US has EST and EDT. Central Europe had CET and CEST.

Not familiar with astronomy. Is your point that planets are named after Roman gods, so ‘English’ and ‘Latin’ names are the same? I’m not sure what is so incredibly funny about this though 🤷🏽‍♀️

"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."

Have you been to Asia? Makes us look quite green by comparison. A smoothie in a plastic cup in a plastic bag with a plastic straw. Individual coffee sachets in case getting a spoon for the jar of coffee is too taxing. All biscuits individually wrapped lest putting them in a tin is too effortful.

I'm not talking under-developed countries either.

Why do we have the discussion on washing up bowls whenever these threads come up? I honestly thought they were something from many years ago until I came on MN.

Here we tend to give the dishes which need it a quick rinse first then fill the sink and wash them, then dry. I've never scratched anything in a sink.

I have a washing machine in my bathroom (and it's a top loader, which they still sell here) - and the clothes are dried out in the fresh air.

Someone asked about bare feet in NZ - why not, it's dry (mostly) in summer and we like to wander about with bare feet. Pies at petrol stations - what can I say, we are a nation of pie eaters!

@tobee

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

Yes. Which is why I’m sceptical when a physician starts referring us for tests that cost loads of money. In the back of my mind I’m wondering if they’re necessary. They tell me so, but is it really? I’ve had to spend several hours on the phone this week trying to find a provider that is in network with my insurance to reduce the 2k copay I was quoted for a test. It’s a terrible system to navigate and confusing if you weren’t brought up with it. Thankfully the company had a dedicated help line that were very helpful to me this week.

UK - why the two tiers of invitations to weddings? Seems so awkward and long drawn out.. In Australia if you are invited to a wedding you go to the ceremony and the reception. The reception includes a meal, alcohol supplied by the couple, speeches and dancing. All guests attend all of it.

We do have private healthcare available to us in the U.K. But since we have a pretty good free NHS most don't use it.

The joined up nature of the NHS meant that we were able to do the Covid RECOVERY trial. Which, I'm told, wasn't possible in the US with their healthcare.

There is a strong libertarian steak in the US. And plenty of huge medical companies, hospitals, insurance etc who are definitely in the business of keeping Americans in touch with their libertarian side.

I'm sure their are plenty of Americans who think people in the U.K. have been brainwashed into thinking that the NHS is a good thing.

Btw, if I'd had private health insurance I could have had my own private room and en suite. When I had my ds I could have gone to the swanky new maternity unit at a nearby hospital with private rooms and en suites for free!!!!! On the NHS!!!!

@110APiccadilly

America - why can't you weigh recipe ingredients, even when it's things like butter?!

I am going to hazard a guess that this might hark back to days gone by. Using a cup meant the relative ratios of ingredients were maintained without the need to weigh. Did all households once have weighing scales? I don’t know, but have also been puzzled by the cup system (and have conversion tables written up at the back of my hand written recipe book)

Having lived in several countries I can add some information here!

The problem with basements isn't rainfall. London is less rainy than the mid-Atlantic. It has to do with the type of ground and the height of the water table. In most of the Northeast US that I have been to, houses have basements. If a house is built on a slab, it was done to cut costs. In much of Texas, where the water table is high, no one has one, and they're not common in California. Some types of ground are hard to dig in so digging out a basement is more work than it's worth.

With health care, the US does have worse outcomes on many things--it's poor value for money. (The UK scores very very highly on value for money; you probably could not squeeze out more care per penny than the NHS does, but it's overall underfunded.) However, it's more involved than that; there are issues with racism and poverty. The US has systemic racism issues that affect health care and doesn't invest enough into anti-poverty programmes. If you were to break outcomes down by group, you'd see significant variation and these problems would not simply be solved by changing how the health system is financed, because health care is being asked to deal with the results of all sorts of other social problems.

All that said, if I got to choose, I would probably choose neither system. The NHS is too centralised and run on a shoestring.

You use less water using a washing up bowl. People have used them for donkeys years, and not had any problems with them. I don't have, or wan't, a dishwasher, they use a lot of water, and some people moan about loading and unloading dishwashers, as though it is a big chore.

Unfortunately the NHS is underfunded. This isn't helped by having had a Tory government in place for the last ten years who have many MPs, supporters and financiers who have a vested interest in it being underfunded. Would love an American style healthcare system. I do not ignore the fact that PM David Cameron was a supporter of the NHS recognising the amazing care they gave to his son Ivan.

Considering they are run on a shoestring they have amazing care and research facilities etc.

Australia:-

I'm in Australia .

Wonder if they have different Christmas songs there.
A few - often with Aussie words sung to traditional music. But we do sing all the normal Christmas carols and it's nothing strange , we know it doesn't snow here but we like the songs anyway.

Can’t see walking in a winter land being a big hit.
But we do sing songs like that - it's all part of the magic of Christmas !

Here is the first verse of "Aussie Jingle Bells"-
Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust,
esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia
on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Speaking of which--the UK has a big tendency to think that the only alternative to the NHS is the USA as if Canada, France, Germany don't exist! USA does this also but the only two possible alternatives are UK and Canada...

The things the USA made me love are window screens and school buses.

It is weird that washing up bowls come up on these threads a lot! Plus the notion that British people don't rinse their washing up. I think the rest of the world thinks were a minging lot.

Pies at petrol stations? Whoever went to a petrol station in U.K. and wasn't able to pick up a Ginsters? Food of the gods.