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 😅

Working in Germany one summer in the late 80s, boss gave us passes to their nice swim club. Everyone was swimming (and showering in the unisex changing room) completely naked. The sex shops in Germany were also shocking to a teenager from Ireland.

Moving to USA the one thing that really shocked me was the lawyers advertising on tv - couldn't get my head around it. Well that and the OJ Simpson trial which was on when I was just arrived.

The poverty in Bangkok was like nothing I had seen anywhere else. Families sleeping in the street with babies and small children. That was nearly 25 years ago - I was there for work - and I often wonder how those babies and toddlers growing up in the street fared.

Landing in Mumbai airport and smelling "india" as soon as the cabin doors opened. Anyone who's been there will know what I mean by that.
Then seeing rows of people asleep on the streets wrapped in blankets.
Then seeing the incredible golden temples and places that were so beautiful that they made me cry.
I've seen a lot of places but india hits you right in the face about a hundred times an hour, and ive never experienced anything else like it.

Living on a dryer continent with glorious amounts of never ending sunshine... We handle rain, if it's predicted or continuous for days

Mine was coming back to UK.
I had been posted to a sub Saharan country and was living with a colleague's family (albeit in an annex). All was good, I love it, encountered and challenged the sexism, got used to walking to work through the cemetery to work where 80 per cent of the internees were younger than me.
Came back to the UK and wanted some Parmesan cheese, one item in the supermarket. Took me 20 minutes and many tears to align myself with the abundance of choice.

I am from the North East and this rings true to me. Not everywhere is like that, but not nowhere either.

Having spent my teenage years drinking in Newcastle I had a slight culture shock when I realised my colleagues who grew up in the South would be surprised to see a fight on a night out.

Weird! I don’t get that at all. If someone is completely covering their nose with a tissue, why are New Yorkers so troubled by someone sneezing, or blowing their nose? If this an issue with all Americans, or just New Yorkers?

Now Mumbai airport is a whole other cultural tale. I only transferred briefly thank goodness because I was molested in front of my husband (who was so distressed that he said "let's just get the fuck out of here" and we did). Not ideal but when the men in uniforms are messing with you and you have a flight to catch... well...

Thailand.

It was like health and safety just didn't exist there.

A tour bus driver was watching a film, while also talking on the phone, whilst driving the bus! Once there was a stop, he blew his nose with his bare hands and threw it on the pavement, then proceeded to flirt with me 🤢

Yep , fights were quite a thing too. And glue sniffers terrifying us on the way home from school.

The town i gew up in was ravaged by the death of the local industry and the subsequent unemployment. The downward spiral was rapid and violent.

I was just a bit perturbed that someone could think I was lying!

Sadly, it's never really recovered.

I went to Tokyo and I found it far more alien than I'd ever imagined. I am very warm and smiley, and found the people very unfriendly (on reflection, I think they were probably just polite and reserved). I felt like Scarlett Johanssen in Lost in Translation!

@TheEveningSun Backlog and money sadly
Also, we don't have a tradition of "quick" funerals because we live in a relatively cold country. My southern European relatives are fairly gobsmacked at the time lag, but then they also don't get cremation...

Visiting the Empire State Building - the place to leave your weapons.
Tunisia - being pawed at, including having a boy (possibly 10 years tops) put his hand up my skirt.
Australia - the amount of alcohol (usually Jack Daniels) that the friends I made (small teen girls) could drink (till they threw up and then started again) and I was no shrinking violet,

I totally agree with them, emitting snot into a tissue in public is revolting, go to the loo and do it in private,

Crossing the road in Vietnam. It’ll be 4 ‘lanes’ of fast moving traffic, and you just need to step out in front of it, and trust that the drivers will dodge you. It’s a crazy system, but it works.

ordering food in a local place in Hong Kong and not having a clue what anything was. We ordered chickens feet 😆 oh and staying in Chung king mansions (not sure of spelling) in HK, which was basically a high rise block of probably 500 tiny flats, with blood stained sheets, it was absolutely massive, and you’d have people trying to get you to stay in their flat.

Marrakesh- a family holiday when I was 14 (and very sheltered)- our first trip out of the hotel, we drove past a dead body on the road. The traffic was just driving around it 😯 that trip blew my mind!

India in 1994 Mumbai particularly children begging in the streets and on buses with mutilated limbs.

I had the same in Marrakesh, awful! Women chucking apples at my head & spitting at me! Then when I refused a photo with a drugged monkey that had its feet forced in socks and sandals, the guy clipped me across my head!

*ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea *
ex. but I did work there also

@Mrsgreen100 you got why Trump got in ?? His supporters are the kind who say this kind of shit and most think like that !! And there's lots of em -

Where are you from? Homelessness is bad in the UK but far worse in the US.

No that sounds rather strange tbh ….. can only think it might have been his name in kanji maybe but as he was English not sure why he’d do that,

Wonderful name for a choir or band!

I went to New York three times between 98 and 2001. The biggest culture shock was how customer focused the shops were, but if you tried to make conversation they would look at you like you were mad!
The size of the buildings were a shock too. London was still developing skyscraper wise in the 90s so to visit a city with such huge buildings was mad! It made you feel very small.

The drinking culture was very different in nyc in the late 90s too to the uk. The bar staff would cut you off after a few drinks, whereas binge drinking was huge in the uk.

Just thought (inspired by the landing in Mumbai post) arriving in Singapore and walking though the corridors with all the "if you import drugs you will be hanged" posters/notices. that was shocking.

I loved Singapore though - best food I have had anywhere.

Going to a military officer's ball in the south in my early 20s as a brash north eastern lass. The pomp and and ceremony seemed absurd to me.
These days I can mingle in absolutely any company but I must have seemed rather silly to them then.

We were getting bothered by street sellers in Paris. DSis shouts oh look police. I'd never seen anyone move so fast. They sertainly undstood that.