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 😅

British Airways aircraft staff (not on the way out, only on the way back) every time I come back from a work trip abroad. Especially after the rudeness of German and French airline staff. I feel I am in a version of Downton Abbey every time I board. And especially after the obsequiousness of Emirates staff (which feels like a piss-take) - BA seems just amazing.

I guess seeing the poverty in Cambodia. And the fact nobody was over the age of about 40. Lots of people with no limbs. Lots of very young kids living on the streets. Fairly open paedophilia. In that you saw old white men leading street kids into hotels. Nobody batting an eyelid. Massive police corruption. It was all quite a lot to take.

This was about 20 years ago.

1986, i was a teenager from a 99% white Scottish Protestant town to Bradford. It was very very different.

Must be from Wakefield.

Covering mouth and nose is a must while sneezing. But blowing nose in public in the US is fine if you must, but you should be discreet about it. Do it quietly and subtly. Don’t go to town with a big ol’ honk and vigorous rubbing. Safe that for the restroom!

@Sacredhandbag So you sit there with a runny nose on a train , get off to find a loo , blow your nose and catch about her train do you?

Anyway , not to derail the thread,

She wouldn’t even blow in the bathroom?? That’s just weird 🫠

Urgh that's horrendous

This is going to sound awful - but mine was when I was 17 and I was invited to stay overnight with a friend from college. She was the only female in a house with her father and several brothers and she was expected to come home from college and make the evening meal (tea) for everyone. That was the first shock. The second was that they drank tea with the meal. I hadn't come across that before.
My mum did everything at home (with help from us when she asked) and we only ever had water to drink with our meals. And our evening meal was called supper not tea. I had quite a sheltered upbringing.

Now I know, of course, that we all do things in different ways and although I like things done my way in my house I really don't care much what other people choose to do in theirs. But it was a shock to me that although my friend was technically still a child she was expected to do all the cooking, laundry and housework just because she was female. This was 1978.

Agreed. I’ve been to poorer places like India but I felt safer there than Marrakesh. Like you I was followed and harassed with men expecting money from me for no reason. I went to Japan a few years later and was initially very suspicious when anyone offered help but soon realised they genuinely wanted to help, with directions or taking a photo for me, and expected absolutely nothing in return. That was also a bit of culture shock actually, just how safe it felt everywhere

Yeah, that’s unreasonable. I would kind of hide in the corner and do it quietly on the subway if I had to.

The home countiies

The Cotswolds. Some of the most unpleasant people I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live alongside people like that.

When I went to the USA for the first time (17 years ago) and the waitress took my half drunk drink off the table and walked off with it. DH had to explain that you get free refills and that she would bring it back in a moment. I had no idea that was a thing, plus it seemed so wasteful as she brought it back in a fresh glass & with new (plastic) straw.
The awful maternity leave in the USA. Our server in a restaurant one night explained that it was her first night back at work after her maternity leave. We were horrified to learn that her baby was only 4 weeks old.
The fact that if I accidentally bumped into an American they would immediately apologise, even when it was my fault & I was apologising. I honestly thought they were being sarcastic (as we would be in the UK), again DH explained it was just the norm.
If you order a burger and chips, you get a burger and crisps. I was very disappointed with my first meal 😅.
Americans don't really use knives. Watching a woman trying to cut up her pizza with the edge of her fork was fascinating!
We went to Mexico and went on several day trips to historical sights etc. Back at the hotel we got talking to several American couples who often flew to Mexico for 3-4 night trips (some had been over 30 times) but none of them ever left the hotel grounds. They just went to enjoy the sun, pool, food & drinks.
That most of the men working in the hotels in Sharm-El-Sheikh had wives and children in Cairo and that they only went back to see them once or twice a year due to woring hours and the cost of travel. I was talking to one man who had not met his 3 month old baby yet!

Japanese people are incredible.

They are just so aware of people around them, incredibly polite, organised, disciplined, I can't even find the words.

Even just having a Japanese exchange student in my house was an absolute pleasure

This surely must be pretty area specific?I’ve been to the states multiple times as I have American rels and never had a problem with blowing my nose in public ,I am never without plentiful tissues and my family all get dreadful hay fever in certain parts of America.

In Japan. Left my phone on my desk at uni, sleepless night, rushed there the next morning to find it sitting exactly where I left it. Left my purse in the student canteen and someone returned it to my desk. My Japanese flatmate rode her bicycle in a pouring rain to meet me on campus and give me an umbrella because she was worried about me getting home (I did not know she was doing it, we bumped into each other on the way). Three year old kids on their little bikes unsupervised on the street and being able to cross the road safely and independently.
Best year of my life. Unfortunately, I became quite scatty with my possessions for a while after returning to the UK. I just got used to the fact that valuables will remain exactly where you left them or will magically make their way back to you.

I have been out for nearly 20 years and i am still shocked civvy street doesn't operate like military life. Communities would be far happier if they did.

South Korea 25 years ago. I was 20, my brother 18. Both tall and blonde. My Dad was tall, fat and ginger. We got pointed and laughed at everywhere we went!

I agree that nose blowing is pretty disgusting. Especially at the table when eating. Revolting. I'm all in favour of cultures who expect you to do it elsewhere if at all possible.

TV viewing in the US. It seemed so haphazard to me. Ad breaks mid-sentence of mainstream tv shows. The multiple religious channels. The whole set up lacked coherence to me.

Texas was a huge culture shock to me - mainly because of the guns. We went to church with my family there, and every man in there was carrying a gun. My 5-year-old was wide-eyed at the notion of someone shooting someone at Mass!

We lived in the US for several years - DH was there on a work assignment. He works for a British company, that at the time we were there, he’d worked for for 15 years. Same company, same department - actually working with a lot of the same people he had worked with from the UK as international connections across the teams are pretty common.

The two experiences could not have been more different.

In the UK business he had been regularly praised/rewarded/promoted for his managerial skills - specifically his ability to cut through the BS and get the job done efficiently and to a very high standard - saving everyone time, and the company money. He was seen as an excellent manager who cared well for his team and promoted a healthy work-life balance while still producing some of the top results in the company year on year.

In the US he was told he was lazy, and he was a poor manager and he would never develop further in the company because he wasn’t at his desk 7am-9/10pm. The fact that he had a happy team and the work was consistently done to a high standard, and the time he saved by cutting out the time-wasting BS, meant he could lean into other teams and help them out with problem solving when required, thus doing more than he was actually paid for, was irrelevant. It was all about appearances.

He knew by reputation it was a bit like that before he went, but I think because he’d been sent on a (very expensive) ex-pat package to the US business precisely because of how good he was at his job, and because he’s not afraid to speak his mind, even to the highest execs, which is generally seen as a positive in the US, he thought he would be ok. He was so shocked when his boss actually told him he’d do better to be sitting at his desk looking busy, even if there was nothing for him to do, than being at home with his family effectively on call as he was available to answer emails or log-on if required 24/7.

Much as we loved our time in the US, and still see it as our second home now, moving back to the UK was the best thing we could have done for DH’s career

Ditto, but Egypt. Deeply unpleasant.

I've travelled a lot and yet the only time I felt a real jolt of shock was when I first emerged from the middle class bubble of my childhood and worked with people from all walks of life. Private school and life in a big house in a leafy village had not prepared me for the "real world" !