What was the first culture shock you remember having?

[MeiganMcSeinna6]

high school for me , thought it would be all sweet an innocent , Wrong

Moving from a big farmhouse with no neighbours to a small bungalow in a village with neighbours attached. It was honestly the most miserable time of my life. My dad was a tenant farmer and passed away so we had to leave the farm. We lost my dad and left the home I loved in the space of two months. It was a massive shock to the system and I hated it.

Starting first job in retail and yes to a previous poster - I didn't recognise many of the fruits and vegetables I was putting through the till. Customers laughed at me. I was mortified and will never forget it. I felt really working class for the first time

Also going to university. My first experience of diversity. Had never met an LGBT person before or a Muslim. I was also shocked by how sexual everyone was! A couple shagging in the corner of the student's union. I was only 17 when I started uni. Hated it. Educationally ready, emotionally not.

I think DS’s friend just had a culture shock at our house. They went to make lunch (I’d have made it for them but DS always likes to make his own) and he was all confused as he didn’t know how to work a hob. “How can you not know how to work a hob?” says DS. “I don’t know, I only have an aga at home!” Says friend. He also had to explain how the oven was separate to the hob 😂.

Visiting Cape Town under apartheid. I was too young to understand properly.

@MaMelon

Seeing punks in London when I was 6 in the mid seventies. We’d gone there for the day from my tiny Kent village - I’d never seen anything like them!

Moving to the NE of Scotland later. So cold! Having to get used to a new dialect and accent - and having adults taking the p out of my English accent. So ignorant.

Exactly the same for me too! I was only thinking about it the other day, punks on Oxford Street. I'm from Kent too :)

I was thinking I didn't have one - but I do. My biggest culture shock was the death of my Mum, suddenly in an accident (related to a health condition) when I was 8 and she was just 28.

Everything changed, forever and still makes a difference in my life 35 years later.

Huh.

Well I hadn't moved country but did move county! From Kent to Croydon/Surrey! I was shocked at the way people spoke to each other. Mum and I were in a greengrocer's (I was 10 at the time). I wasn't really following the conversation of a woman and the shopkeeper but they were having a laugh and the woman suddenly said "Aw shut ur face" but she was laughing. I was shocked! I was even more shocked to find out what the F word meant! There was a huge council estate at the top of our road and they all spoke like that. Of course I do now! Blame Croydon!!!!

Also the water quality in the UK. Have you noticed when you used to go on holiday (pre covid) your hair would suddenly bloom on holiday despite using hotel shampoo? Suddenly you will have a lovely shine, natural locks you never knew it existed and then you will come back to the UK and wash your hair to find your hair going back dull and falling out.

Not at all. I've noticed an improvement in my hair when I've stayed in soft water areas of the UK (and now live in one). I don't remember ever noticing an improvement in other countries I've visited though.

Visiting County Kerry in Ireland in the '70s. It was as though I had stepped out of a time machine and into the 1930s.

Moving to Brixton age 18, from a childhood spent in a small, rural and very white village.

Absolutely brilliant, and have been here three decades now.

Also, like a couple of previous posters, walking out of Delhi airport - first time I'd been outside of Europe. The smells, the heat, the cows, the absolute chaos.

[quote fallingdownahole]@Gwenhwyfar oh no I've never tried Belgian water! I don't think my hair would cope if it's 100 times worse! I live in London btw so extremely sorry if you live in a soft area but London water isn't good for my hair and never has been. [/quote]
I've lived in parts of the UK with hard water, but it's still nothing as bad as Brussels water for hair and skin. It's fine for drinking even though most people buy bottled.

@80sMum

Visiting County Kerry in Ireland in the '70s. It was as though I had stepped out of a time machine and into the 1930s.

I went in the 2000s. I found it very similar to what I'm used to apart from the fact that I couldn't understand anyone over 50.

"Seeing punks in London when I was 6 in the mid seventies."

Seeing them in another part of north Wales in the 80s - I think they took a while to 'go' from the more rural areas.

Moving from a small, very rural village to Brixton in the 80s and walking down the street smiling and saying hello to everyone I met. At least the worst I got were some strange looks and a bit of muttering.
Same job, coming back from a night out to hear my employers having a dinner party for a group of Tory MPs and hearing one of them say, ‘Of course, you can tell the proles anything and if you say it often enough and with enough conviction, they’re stupid enough to believe you.’ That was a shock to my 20 year old brain - I was naive enough to think the government worked in our best interests…
Going to Russia where (obviously) everything is written in Cyrillic and feeling that this is the closest I’ve been to how it must feel to be illiterate.

@MeiganMcSeinna6

high school for me , thought it would be all sweet an innocent , Wrong

For me, it's the same, i.e. the move to secondary school.

I couldn't believe how the teachers would let pupils get away with swearing, just walking out of classrooms, smoking (not just tobacco), and general vandalism. I started seeing it on the first day and expected the teachers to do something, but they just ignored it.

It was a culture shock because no one got away with any of that at our primary school where teachers came down on you like a ton of bricks just for minor things like talking in class after the teacher had told us to be quiet.

@ChickenSchnitzel

London aged 6 - especially the tube. I vividly remember the buskers, the homeless people and overall the smells. I had never been to a city before and I was awe struck.

London aged 18 - first trip from the highlands of Scotland - and I felt exactly the same!

@HarrietOh

Getting an admin job at a Russell group University in my mid 20s. It was first time I was exposed to the middle class and it was such a shock.

Cambodia, being exposed to such a corrupt country where people are terrified of the authorities and can’t protest.

Would you like to elaborate on why being exposed to the middle class was a shock please?

Going abroad on holiday for the first time and noticing that women of other nationalities don't alway shave under their arms.

Coming to a British school on an exchange and experiencing school dinners for the first time.

Steamed pudding - omg lovely

Then the absolute vomit worthy
Semolina
Rice pudding with a splodge of jam
Stew - so tasteless
Boiled within an inch of their lives - vegetables

Greece. I went back packing over 40 years ago and apart from a trip to Paris, it was the first time I had been abroad. I will never forget stepping off the plane in Athens and being awestruck by the light, it was just so different from the North West of England where you're lucky to get more than three weeks of decent weather in a year. The wonderful smells too of lemon and eucalyptus in the air.
We accidentally caught the slow train to a seaport in Northern Greece. It took eleven hours on hard wooden seats and seemed to stop at every village en route. As the only non Greeks on board, people came to look at us as if to say why on earth are you on this train. At lunchtime a guy boarded the train and cooked fresh meat on skewers then some else got on with two adult goats! It was so far removed from the tourist trail.

Going from state to private education at 13...big shock.
Going to Asia aged 18...Bangladesh was an eye opener.
Becoming a mum at 30...biggest culture shock ever. Was a single mum and attitudes are still from 1950s.
Moving to Liverpool from down South age 25...loved it tho.

Exactly this at Oxbridge. Bog standard comp - the blank look which followed and ignoring after

That's like Bake Off contestant Flora who forgot to turn the oven on one episode because they only had an Aga at home!

That was to you @itsallaboutschmoo

@LadyCatStark

I think DS’s friend just had a culture shock at our house. They went to make lunch (I’d have made it for them but DS always likes to make his own) and he was all confused as he didn’t know how to work a hob. “How can you not know how to work a hob?” says DS. “I don’t know, I only have an aga at home!” Says friend. He also had to explain how the oven was separate to the hob 😂.

Sorry my post about Flora was meant to quote this one.