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 lack of variety of crisp flavours in every other European country.

Yes and your experience is valid as anyone else's.

What do you find so weird about it?

Remember seeing a group of twenty something Turkish lads queuing patiently to take a selfie and play with a kitten near Suleiman’s tomb in Istanbul. Also, a cat dozing on a sunny pavement in front of an ATM and everyone doing funny walks to withdraw money without making it move.
Never experienced any problems on a solo trip to Istanbul, btw.

In some UK workplaces you get a cake from your colleagues on your birthday and in others you bring the cake. Seems to depend on size of workplace I think, but maybe also a geographical thing.

I'm on the continent now and the birthday person has to bring the cake.

At first I was actually surprised by the idea of someone buying a round of drinks on their birthday as I'd been brought up with it the other way around, contradicting what you say about the birthday person always paying in the UK.

I've never seen it so not that easy to find or know about.

I think the cake is eaten at the party most places?
I’m in Ireland and just heard about taking cake home in a napkin on MN. I was also a little surprised. Here the cake is cut and eaten by the party guests (and often their parents at little children’s parties 😋). Just a small cultural difference.

But isn't the cake eaten in the UK too and leftovers taken home??

That isn’t the impression I’ve got from various MN posts I’ve read. It seems to be cut up to send home in napkins in some parts of the UK anyway 🤔

Those people are insane.

What's weird about that?

It's usually leftover cake when that happens. Or taking some home for someone who couldn't make it to the pan. I find people's overreaction to this extremely weird.

They didn't. As an Irish person, I must admit I flinched when a pp described her experience of being in Ireland and hearing everyone cursing freely as 'grim'.

I'm an Irish women who 'discovered' cursing as a young girl. None of my family curse and none of my friends curse the way I do. For reasons I don't fully understand to this day, I found it incredibly liberating. The best explanation I've managed to come up with is that it was my small act of rebellion against being the 'good little Catholic girl' I was expected to be.

Maybe other people are wincing at how their country/peoples is being evaluated. But in general I do think it's just a fun thread not to be taken too seriously.

Yes, where I'm from in UK the friends always pay for the drinks or meal for the birthday person. Same with a hen do. Colleagues usually have a whip round for cake and a card.
The few countries I lived in in Europe I found generally to be the complete opposite. Birthdays could end up expensive!

I live in one of the poorest areas of London. It is still different.

No, nobody would find taking home leftovers, or extra for someone who couldn’t attend, strange.

Cutting a birthday cake with the aim of sending home the slices with the guests - which I do think happens - seems unusual to me. We tend to eat the cake immediately here 😁

It’s not a big deal, just a little cultural difference as I said.

I went to India on a work trip and it happened to co-incide with a company social event. Although we'd never met in person I'd been working with some of my Indian colleagues daily for at least a year so I was there as part of a social group not a guest on the side.

The Bollywood style dancing was great, everyone dancing together in a circle (well the blokes danced in one circle and the women in another) and really going for it. But the culture shock moment was that each team had prepared an entertainment performance and most of them were comedy skits taking affectionate piss out of the company dynamics and leadership, and since some of teams reported to my colleagues in the UK I got to watch my Indian colleagues doing impressions of them, like the young slim Indian guy waddling with his arms out to be his larger British manager saying "Helllo I am Dave and this is my Porsche" 😂😂 All the very senior managers were there and laughing along.

The culture shock was partly that the company do including entertaining each other, and partly that it was totally fine to do cheeky impressions of management. Loved the people in that office!

On the topic of British drinking culture and its comparison to the rest of the world, I was on the opposite side of culture shock. Around 10 years ago I was in central London on my way to a morning meeting on a weekday. A Mediterranean looking and sounding young man approached me and asked in bafflement “why are all the pubs closed?!” I was a bit bemused and said “…it‘s 9.30am. They’ll probably open around lunchtime.” He was utterly baffled that they weren’t open! I don’t know if it was the norm in his country that they’d be open at that time, or if he had heard lots of things about British drinking culture that led him to expect us all to be in the pub drinking at 9.30am on a Tuesday 😂

OMG the cycle culture in Amsterdam freaked me and my kids out walking round. So many times we nearly got hit. My DD wanted us to hire bikes but I wasn’t convinced as to the safety. It’s such a busy place.

in recall taking school kids on the bus to France for a trip. The arc de triumph roundabout is something everyone should experience. Apparently insurance isn’t valid when using that roundabout!! lol. And then we were told that they parked their cars with their handbrakes off so that cars could be shunted by other cars when trying to park. Not sure how true this is or was and it kind of makes sense bit I assume they all drive round with dented cars.

Cuba was interesting. My DH were followed round by locals who were trying to buy branded clothing off our backs and needed items we were carrying - Sony handycam back in the day. We were followed by portrait artists desperate to sell us our portrait or characature. It felt uncomfortable being followed so much. We were quite young at the time.

Why would you invalidate someone else’s experiences because you didn’t experience it? I had an awful time in Istanbul, groped multiple times on public transportation, men trying to rub up against me, it was dreadful. Only time I have cut a trip short (I was on my own there, would have spent my 23rd birthday there but thought spending at an airport and on a plane was better than dealing with that). I am from Delhi so it wasn’t the blonde light skinned assumption that some women have made about why they suffered harassment, and it’s not like I hadn’t encountered it before either (being from Delhi) but the sheer quantum in Istanbul was something else.

Yeah in the uk you’d never expect to see a dead body unless it was a very close family
member they choose to say goodbye to in the casket privately before the funeral - even then Lots of people don’t

It was a shock. Why don't you eat the cake at the party????!!!!

In my experience that usally happens at children's parties. They have had enough sugary food already and are more interested in zooming around playing games. So the host will send them home with a "party bag" which usually contains a few small trinkets like stickers or pens and a slice of birthday cake in a napkin.

Returning to the UK from Europe, shocked at the state of our high streets.

Hungary, clean streets, smart shops, quality brands, lots of choice, loads of customers shopping.

The Netherlands as above with plenty of independents, quality food and flower markets, people cycling in, shopping, sitting outside for coffee. A community.

Online shopping and cheap imports from China are really letting us down, changing the face of British high streets and shopping habits.

Yes, you can get ranch here.... in some places and increasingly in American restaurants, but in the USA you can get it everywhere. It's served with fries as frequently as is ketchup! People dip their pizza in it!