What was the first culture shock you remember having?

[MeiganMcSeinna6]

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

@igelkott2021 I think the bottled water thing is snobbery tbh. You only drink tap water if you can't afford to buy bottled. My German friends still don't drink tap water and are sympathetic to people who do (except me, they consider it one of my English eccentricities along with eating peas off the back of a fork ).

@itsallaboutschmoo

Starting at Cambridge and being asked by a fellow fresher 'what school did you go to?' Like he'd have heard of it? It was a backwater comp in special measures. Realised at that moment what I'd let myself in for

I also went to Cambridge from a comp. The funny thing was that I had not heard of most of the public schools that fellow students had gone to, so those conversations tended to end fairly quickly. That said I met some really nice people from public schools and didn’t really dwell on where we had all started out. There were loads from super-selective grammars too- again, I had no idea what they had had to do to get into those as I just went to the school nearest my house.

@Babyroobs Having worked for several charities, I can say that kind of culture is normal in charities. A lot of them are run by very privileged people who got their jobs because they know the trustees - who are also very privileged people. My first job was with a charity and there was a very obvious divide between those who were 'the right sort' and those who weren't. I wasn't. It was a miserable place to work.

As per PPs I worked in a mental health charity which provided counselling services to other workplaces. They promoted equality, employee wellbeing and other admirable values. The reality was a culture of micromanagement, bullying, unrealistic workloads and - yes, you guessed it - staff's mental health at rock bottom. A huge turnover of staff on a regular basis yet even now the most toxic manager is still there and has been promoted a few times.

In England - often subtly nuanced class markers and a lack of social mobility. A bit alien to little me from NI.

Somebody asked me, in the first week of uni, 'What are you reading?', I replied 'Northanger Abbey' and he laughed at me. He wanted to know what course I was on.

@Spikeyball

Going to university with a working class background and seeing the attitude of some students towards those who were working class. My biggest was having a disabled child and finding the attitude of some professionals towards people with disabilities and their parents, particularly of those who worked in profession I used to work in.

I agree. Becoming the parent of a disabled child after having two non-disabled children was (and still is) a huge culture shock. To realise just how badly society treats families with disabled children and how the worst culprits are usually the professionals who are employed to 'help'. The whole system is set up to make life as difficult and as adversarial as possible and the attitude of those working in the SEN system is shockingly bad.

Moving from a small, work at your own pace mixed primary school to a posh, academically rigid, all-girls secondary school in Surrey. I hated it. Then moving to a huge, mixed, slightly rough grammar school near Liverpool. Loved it!

in no particular order:

visiting Mexico in the late 1980's. I thought I grew up poor...
(re Mexico poor materially, not necess emotionally deprived, but seeing kids begging in the middle of 8 lane motorways in Mexico city)

1st job working for an Old Wykehamist (after being at a sink-Comp)

working for a charity and NHS mental heath teams and seeing the racist / sexist / disablist culture as opposed to what is espoused.

Becoming the parent of two children with SN / SEN and experiencing the 'dis-abling' of the whole family by authorities meant to help.

being English in Scotland (sometimes) but then going back to Kent after 35 years and feeling an outsider there too.

My first culture shock was aged 9 when we moved from a major city to a rural speck of a village which wasn't on the way to anywhere so comparatively isolated, and I went to school there.

In my city school there were lots of children, I'd guess about 300, and I had friends from India, South Africa, South America, Egypt... all over the place.

Went from that to a village school with about 30 kids total, only half of them in my class, and every one of us was white. Everyone knew everyone and quite a few of them were related. I found it quite tough for a while.

The amount of alcohol that it’s socially acceptable to drink and just how much English events revolve around it. My family are Chinese and most don’t drink or like me just a very small amount.

@hocusspocuss

Somebody asked me, in the first week of uni, 'What are you reading?', I replied 'Northanger Abbey' and he laughed at me. He wanted to know what course I was on.

Had you never seen University Challenge?

No, @HaveringWavering - never, not prior to university anyway.

Visiting London for the first time when I was eleven. I came from a small town in the north west where everyone was white apart from one child at my school that had Indian parents. I remember getting off the train in Euston and being overwhelmed by how busy and crowded it was as well as hearing all the noise and different accents and seeing how diverse the population was.

@Auntienumber8 Same! I survive at work events by pouring my drink away when no one is looking. I can make a beer last 6 hours. I just got tired of people asking me continually whether they could get me another drink.

I get drunk from drinking half a pint of cider so i really really can't drink too much. At my first work event- Christmas party (in London), I accidentally drank too much cos I didn't know how to say no. my university in London had a lot of international students so I went to the freshers meant for international students (less alcohol focused, more focused on sightseeing) so I never really drunk properly before other than a few sips here and there. Didn't grow up in the UK and my parents don't drink either.

I went on the tube and started vomiting all over myself (and the seat). I was mortified and this man came up to me and said ' Love it happens to the best of us'.

Going to sound horribly naive but going to uni in a outer london borough.

I grew up in a leafy middle class suburb in the south. There was one black girl in my secondary school and a handful of Asians but almost all of those Asians were the children of local surgeons and professors as we were near a very big hospital and medical uni. Everyone I knew had their own bedroom, professional parents, expected to go to uni and got cars for their 17th bday and although I knew it wasnt the case for everyone I didnt know how privileged I was.

The majority of people at my uni were ethnic minority and almost everyone I made friends with was from another ethnic origin, the area was run down and the students there were often the only one of their 'home friends' to have gone to uni. I remember a lot of them loved halls as it was the first time they hadnt shared a room with a brother or sister. I was so out of my depth I hope my children are less sheltered

@TheVolturi

A few years after I got together with dh he wanted us to go to visit his dad, he was living in India. From landing at the airport I was in genuine awe at just how totally different it was to anywhere I'd ever been before. The trip from airport to his dad's was interesting! It was like wacky racers, there seemed to be no rules to the road, actual whole families on one tiny scooter, carrying furniture amongst other things, cows in the road, an elephant walking down the street, I had to pinch myself! Within a couple of days I was totally settled in and it all seemed quite normal.

I recall Dehli being a bit of a shock, we were in an old mini-bus that I thought was just the tour's transport from the airport to the hotel, but it was our's for a couple of weeks. The driver had an assistant who would hang out of the window and tell him when it was safe to overtake, no mirrors.

@Anordinarymum

Going to work in a factory on piece work after having worked in a school.

They would have murdered me and picked my bones over in that place.

The mob mentality ruled

I worked during the sixth form in a catalogue mill, filling the orders and I was shocked at the language and behaviour of the older women who worked there and the 'pranks' they played on the few, usually young. men, one poor lad had a used sanitary towel pinned to the back of his overalls. It wasn't that I was from a remotely middle class home, we were solid weorking class but their mob mentality was shocking.

Really interesting thread!

I wouldn't say I've ever had a huge culture shock - I haven't even been abroad! But two smaller one are parenthood (Jesus Christ) and going to uni in Lancaster (I'm from the North East) and realising how much some Southerners look down on Geordies even though I got the grades to get in just like they did and my accent is not even broad.

@Abhannmor

Very hard disagree *@igelkott2021*. In the USA or here in Ireland it's all about the money for sure . But England's class system is deeply embedded , very subtle and quite complicated. It's had since 1066 to take root so not surprising really.

Hmm maybe - I don't see it myself. To me it just seems to be about what car you drive. If you have a posh car you're worth knowing. If you drive a Honda Jazz, not so much

Moving from a northern city to a Welsh village aged 8.
People couldn't understand my accent, everyone seemed to be related,
I had imagined we'd be living in a cottage but we were living on a council estate,
I was really shocked at the lack of diversity.

@AlfonsoTheMango

Respect.

I thought I had an interestingly challengingly story to add here but it completely disappears compared to your experience.

@changingsheets

Visiting down south. The North/South decide is shocking.

yes but its also party country/city devide.

My first time in Birmingham was terrifying, there was a shooting just after I got off the train, same type of fear with london (walking down the street and a girl punched me for no reason, I was just a kid trying to keep up with my mam in the crowd) but by contrast devon and cornwall are lovely dispite being southern.

Manchester is northern and while nothing bad has happened to me there it does make me nervous in the same way london and birmingham do so I think its a 'big city' thing.

Arriving in Cape Town from London, age 6, seeing apartheid in action. I was just so shocked, seeing signs saying who could sit or stand where, realising that only certain people could use the public swimming pool. I was still at the stage of practicing reading every sign I saw out loud. And shanty towns. OMG.
Then China in the early 80's - everyone wearing the same thing, only 2 or 3 styles of shoes available in the shops, even only a few hairstyles. Also the pollution in Hong Kong on the same trip, I could barely breathe for the first few days.
And then street beggars in Russia. I really hadn't expected it there, but as western tourists, even though we tried not not to look it, we were surrounded by child beggars constantly. This was just before Glasnost, there was very little food, all the restaurants were shut, the poverty shocked me, particularly in comparison to the lavish public spaces, eg the Metro and various museums.

@InvincibleInvisibility

The cheek kissing in France, especially when my then French boyfriend cheek kissed his male friend...

Ive been here 17 years now and it seems totally normal (though of course nonexistent atm with covid)

We had French club at primary school and the teacher made us do this as part of the French lesson. She'd probably be in big trouble for that these days....

@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.

You were lucky though. I had to go through that shock at age 20 so I was quite the country bumpkin in the city!