What's the biggest culture shock you've experienced?

[Sacredhandbag]

Good or bad?

For me it was definitely the bike culture in Amsterdam - and I loved it.

But also, the over enthusiasm of shop workers in America, the silence in the streets in Japan, and the way Australians are so outdoorsy but can't handle the rain 😅

The Philippines about 30 years ago. People sleeping on the street and very actively begging. People sleeping on the steps of the hotel we stayed in (Manila, and not a particularly posh hotel). Businessmen turning up to book a room for an hour with a woman they'd literally just met on the steps of the hotel.
Beautiful scenery.

I haven't had the opportunity to go back so can't comment on how things are now.

Oh and London. First time I got off the train from my small village I thought there was a bomb scare or evacuation as everyone was walking so fast haha. I also tried to smile and say hello to people.

Many many visits later I do London speed and ignore everyone like a local

Does this mean I can tell my two coworkers to stop blowing it like the last trombone on earth?

They do it so often I thought it was culturally acceptable here or something.

I can never ever ever get used to people spitting in public. I was in china thirty years ago and people spat everywhere, including in the aisle on buses and taxis. Then I lived next to a family of Chinese contract workers (temporary, shipped in for a job) and our poorly built houses had air vents facing each other and from dawn to dusk all I ever heard was the hawking.
it took age also to adjust to people saying "you are looking fat" as a complement (east Africa).

Living in Italy the other parents didn't want handicapped or disabled children in the summer activities. And were really cross with us for wanting them included. Not bella figura. They all loved our ,( blond normal) kids
So much for child loving!

Oh and being surprised that Australia wasn’t full of great looking people like on Home and away et al, actually being quite shocked at seeing many v overweight and scruffy people in the suburbs of NSW.
Going to a club with my Australian friend and feeling like we were in 80’s Britain
The whole vibe of Oz had a comforting, sort of England feeling from the 80’s..really odd

Oh Leith Links! You should have said 😂

Such an interesting thread, very intrigued to go to Japan now!

The American obsession with germs. Seeing apples individually plastic wrapped yet I have never seen people decimate public toilets in the way American women do. If you go in at the start of the day somewhere like a museum or a national parkv the toilets will be clean, but by the end of the dsy the floors will be covered with litter and tissue. Perhaps its always seen as someone else's job to pick up rather than do it yourself.

I see the same issue with plastics here in England.

Definitely saw it this morning in Tesco where cucumbers are individually wrapped, cauliflower is in plastic bags that are open, onions, potatoes and peppers in plastic bags next to those that aren’t.

Public toilets are also not great despite people paying to use them in many cases.

How incredibly rude and hostile people from the North of England are to those of us from the South. It’s ridiculous, as soon as we spoke they hated us for absolutely no reason except we were Southerners. Bizarre behaviour.

Unfortunately it appears you met a few idiots. We aren't all like that. You were just unlucky. Some people are just stupid, no matter where they are from.

Backpacking years ago. India. Toilets. Sh1t everywhere. Walls, Floors, probably ceilings. This was a "toilet stop" on our bus trip from Kashmir to India.

But on MN of the old lady had stroked a stranger's child's face it would be cause for hysterics. Maybe parents get the reaction to their children they deserve.

You had toilet stops? We had bush stops during a your of India, women one side of the road, men the other. My knees couldn't do it these days!

It happens both ways, some from the South are surprised to find not everyone has a whippet or coal in a tin bath!

I visited Australia once.
I was overwhelmed by how nice everybody was. I didn’t meet one rude or impolite person.
I spoke with other American women who’d gone and they had a miserable time - they complained about everything.
I loved everything about Australia, but mostly the people.

Yes we found it a nasty hostile place
can not understand the hype surrounding it
I’ve travelled the world but just something about this place. Absolutely nothing like you’re led to believe!! There’s a reason it’s so damn cheap to go to!!

London continues to top the list... Riding a bike from Chelsea to East Ham is like crossing all continents.

The homeless tents on Park Lane and Gypsies cooking kebabs in Marble Arch before heading off to Westminster Library to recharge phone and sleep in reading rooms (loudly snoring).

The demise and ruin of some areas, the deranged and unhinged walking freely, the rubbish
...next to some of the most magnificent historic and modern structures and institutes in the world!

I’ve lived in the U.S. for over 20 years and still get culture shock in Texas! It’s so sprawling and spread out, no one walks because it is too damn far between things and half the year it seems to be 45 degrees and humid so you die of heat exhaustion walking anywhere.

My company has an office there and we were shocked recently because there was an incident where someone left their gun on the passenger seat in the office car park. That was a problem not because it was there but because it wasn’t in a holster, Texas law specifically allows you to have a gun in your car at work but it must be in a holster. Blew our minds at my office in CA.

Marching bands every 12th of July all 'playing' the same tunes, union jacks everywhere, the intimidating Lambeg drums, hundreds of people on the streets watching the bands parade and HUGE bonfires being built and set alight very near houses on 11th night

Scouser here. I moved to Ireland and hardly noticed any difference between there and home, even on the west coast. Then I moved to Surrey and was like a fish out of water. Totally different values and interactions. It really brought home how different the North and That London are.
After my first night in my flat in London, I woke up and thought “excellent, I’m not dead.” I was quite convinced I’d be stabbed in my bed or similar, such was my perception of crime. I lived in Richmond.

I doubt your post is truly your culture shock experience as much as it is your culture criticism. And if you have such a desire to criticise Protestant culture, then you are hardly likely to be among the throngs in the streets, actually experiencing it. 🙄🙄🙄🥱

Where in Texas were you?

I'm 54 and I've lived in Texas for most of my life, apart from nine years in England, and I've never ever seen anyone with a gun who wasn't a police officer. I know many people who own them but they don't go around openly with them and I live a five minutes drive from an outdoor shooting range. I've lived in four of the largest cities in the state too.

I doubt your post is truly your culture shock experience as much as it is your culture criticism. And if you have such a desire to criticise Protestant culture, then you are hardly likely to be among the throngs in the streets, actually experiencing it. 🙄🙄🙄🥱

For a right-handed person: the fork is held in the right hand while eating. If you need to cut something, transfer the fork to your left hand while using the knife in your right. Cut off one piece, then put the knife down on the edge of your plate and swap the fork back to your right hand to bring the food to your mouth. The American etiquette columnist Judith Martin ("Miss Manners") jokingly observed that the extreme inefficiency of this method is proof that Americans are more highly evolved than Europeans.

You might think it would make sense to cut your entire steak up at once, to avoid the repeated back-and-forth. This is not allowed. It's only acceptable when cutting a child's food up.

When eating, as opposed to when cutting food, the fork tines curve upward and the fork is held in a pencil grip. Anything which cannot be impaled with your fork is scooped with your fork. Knives are only used to cut food, never to load food onto the fork. So it's difficult to eat peas, for example. You can "herd" them up against the other food on your plate at first, but the last few bites are bound to present a challenge. See above regarding inefficiency as a mark of sophistication 😂

On coming to the UK, I couldn't believe my luck when I learned that here it's perfectly polite to shovel food in using a quick and easy technique which we Americans would only employ when alone in the kitchen with the blinds shut 😁