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

@Annedunne181

Ireland. One of the strangest and most religious countries I have ever been to.

The sheer power and control that the people gave to the Catholic church.

I thought it was very strange how people let the Catholic church have so much power and control over them. I have never seen such religious power. The catholic church had total power. The catholic church kept abusing people from every angle, and yet the population was still devoted to the church.

Also there is a place in Ireland where Catholics go on holiday to punish themselves. My friend's mother told me that she went on a weekend's holiday to thnis place called lough derg, where she was not allowed to have any food and she was not allowed to have any sleep. To purge her soul. It is very popular with Catholics in ireland. People go every year. You couldn't make it up!

To be fair, this has changed massively in the last 30 years - most younger people have no time for the church at all. I'm born and bred here, and my parents were born in the 1940's so grew up during the worst of this sh!t. I've often asked my mother about it, why people put up with such crappy treatment from the church. She said that people were afraid, they didn't know any better, not that they were stupid, but the church had such a strong hold on society that to speak out was to ostracise yourself.

The church also ingratiated themselves with government, helping to shape policy (the archbishop of Dublin at the time apparently helped write the constitution, which is why it was a very religious document), they also controlled schools and hospitals, so they ran everything.

Also, I read somewhere that the reason the church grabbed so much power initially was that in the aftermath of gaining independence from the UK, the country was in dire poverty (the Anglo-Irish Trade War in the 1930's, huge unemployment, mass emigration).

And so the church tried to sell people on the fact that we had 'moral superiority' over the British because of our piousness, even if we had nothing else.

I guess once they had that power, they held onto it using fear, intimidation and indoctrination - much like other authoritarian regimes.

UK why do you not have top loading washing machines as standard?

@Mulletsaremisunderstood (great name!) yes it is definitely changing for the better. I hope.

@Lostinwinter lack of space. The USA and Canada have utility rooms. Most houses in the UK and Ireland don't. Therefore washing machines have to be smaller, as they are usually in the kitchen

@Lostinwinter I agree that top loading washing machines are better. I grew up in Europe, with small front facing washing machines.
I then got a Canadian boyfriend, and went to Canada for a while. I saw my first utility room and my first huge top loading washing machine. I could fit so many clothes in!

I remember thinking, why do we have such tiny washing machines in Europe.

@Annedunne181 you won't think I have contributed anything of intelligence or interest. Your comprehension skills are not the best.

I am English

My washing machine is in a cupboard in my bathroom. I don't have a tumble drier as they cost a lot to run. I hang stuff to dry on a line when its not raining, otherwise it goes on the Aga or hangs on the shower rail to drip dry.

I use a bowl in my sink for washing up for all the reasons people have explained above. I have a mixer tap in my kitchen but not in the bathroom. I prefer a hot bath in winter but a shower in summer and I guess that explains why there are less baths in hot countries (along with the water shortage issues).

I remember using German shelf loos but see them less often these days. I hate holes in the ground and have always been terrified of dropping things down the hole. In Canada I was dissappointed by the state of the public loos and was told that it was because the Japanese tourists stand on the seats to use them - I am not sure if its true.

[quote Annedunne181]@JaneJeffer Hi jane care to explain what you wrote? I won't what because you are Irish?
Did you miss the part where I said half of my family is Irish? Lol so I am racist against the Irish am I? My own mother is Irish.

Try to write something, where you don't make yourself sound like a permanent victim.[/quote]
Fucking hell. Lay off JaneJeffer, will you?

I'm really sorry if the Irish side of your family have had awful experiences. Ireland certainly has some history that we're not proud of, particularly regarding the horiffic abuse and treatment of women by the Catholic Church. However, things have changed. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. But a lot of us are doing our very best to change that. So it's hurtful to be told that we're the cruellest country in the world, where women are treated like dirt, and awful things happen to women, who 'let' the Catholic Church abuse us.

That is absolutely not my experience of living in modern Ireland. I absolutely will not deny that terrible things have been done to women here (do you really think you need to spell that out to us? How patronising).

However, all your 'I know about Ireland, how dare you suggest otherwise' indignation is a bit wasted on us who have spent our whole lives here. I'd venture we know a lot more about what life was, and currently is like for Irish women.

@biddybird

UK: people don't rinse their dishes when washing up. Just put them on the rack dripping with soap suds!

No. Not all of us do.

@Lostinwinter

UK why do you not have top loading washing machines as standard?

They are usually fitted under a kitchen work surface, even in a utility room.

Thank you @InsideOfEmptiness

[quote mommybunny]@Nancydrawn you are right about not being allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey but as far as I’m aware it isn’t the only state where that applies: unless the law has changed in the last 20 years, Oregon also didn’t allow people to pump their own gas.

And lest people think it was just a way to increase the price of petrol, it was almost always much cheaper to fill up in New Jersey than over the bridge in New York. We had among the lowest gas prices in the country when I was growing up.[/quote]
i can see the sense in this, i imagine it is a safety measure.
maybe there was an incident with a careless motorist smoking while filling... people don't always do what they should.

I saw on Twitter the other day that the Irish constitution still says that a woman's place is in the home (or is it kitchen?)

Is that actually true? It's quite shocking, if so.

Here's a novel idea....use the internet to try to find the Irish constitution rather than relying on Twitter as a potential source of reliable information.

And maybe try to engage some form of logical thought. Would a country's constitution really make reference to a woman's place being in the kitchen?

For fuck's sake....

Yes the constitution makes reference to a woman's duties, and should be updated, but it also has within it a recognition of the role the SAHM, that is woefully lacking in so many aspects of society.

The wording of Article 41.2 is

1. In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

It has been recognised that this wording should be updated removing reference to duties, removing the link between women and domestic roles, and recognising other updates to the constitutional definition of family, but the original intent that a woman should not HAVE to work rather than be at home caring for her family, is not necessarily a bad one, and certainly not something that warrants such gross misrepresentation here, or on Twitter for that matter.

I find British houses really warm in winter I assume because there is decent heating!

Compared to what? British houses are bloody freezing and I don't know of any other country where people constantly fiddle with heating and turn it on and off - half an hour in the morning, hour in the evening and oh of course you don't heat your house for just one person, when you can just wear a full ski suit and gloves indoors instead..

When Australians refer to 'next weekend' they are actually referring to 'this weekend'.

It would make sense if they said 'the next weekend' but they don't

@Notgoingouttoday
" In Canada I was dissappointed by the state of the public loos and was told that it was because the Japanese tourists stand on the seats to use them - I am not sure if its true. "

This photo was taken in the Cotswolds where they have lots of Japanese tourists.

Also there is a place in Ireland where Catholics go on holiday to punish themselves. My friend's mother told me that she went on a weekend's holiday to thnis place called lough derg, where she was not allowed to have any food and she was not allowed to have any sleep. To purge her soul. It is very popular with Catholics in ireland. People go every year. You couldn't make it up!

The word your looking for is pilgrimage, not holiday, pilgrimage. You going to have a pop at France for having Lourdes now too, or are you reserving your mockery for Irish Catholicism?

No bother, @JaneJeffer. I'm disappointed that this thread has gone this way, but it was bound to happen.

I took a long break from MN after the Marriage Equality referendum, as when some of us dared to be happy and proud, we were slapped right down and told that we should be ashamed, rather than celebrating, because we still hadn't repealed the 8th. Now we've done that (imperfectly, yes, but it's progress) and still we get told how awful we are. I've come to expect anti-Irish sentiment on MN. Not from all posters. Not most posters, by any stretch. But it definitely exists, and it's fucking hurtful and almost always left to stand.

@ohbygolly isn't this a thread entitled "things that baffle you about other countries"

Am I missing something? Are we allowed to mention every country except Ireland?

Snap. The anti-Irish threads that fill up with witterings from Little Englanders really piss me off. Good old British exceptionalism.

@banivani

But does your building code forbid electricity in bathrooms altogether? No, because you have lights. So it's possible - why does no-one do it when for example building a new house or renovating?

it is completely forbidden by building regulations and electrical safety regs. a light fitting is a fixed point. and it has to be a certain height. and is operated by a pull-cord. power sockets are usually low to the floor, and the idea of grabbing plugs with wet hands, and possibility of water ingress into sockets, through flooding, or splashes etc. let alone the obvious hazard of people having electrical items on which could fall into a bath of water where they are sitting. look what happened to thomas merton with the electric fan.

@WagnerTheWehrWolf I am not English.

I am actually kind of laughing at the Irish people on here who don't want anything bad said about their country on a thread that says:

"What baffles you about other countries"

So it is ok to speak about every country except Ireland? Why?