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 😅

@Spudstogo Don't believe you.

What ????

I had to do a module of community nursing during my training : I didn't know people still lived like that.

Sadly, returning to the UK from almost anywhere these days reminds me how awful the litter is here.

New Orleans and walking into bars with signs that said "All guns should be holstered". So bizarre that people can just walk about freely with guns. Blew my mind.

😂Never thought of it that way.

Dutch bluntness

I remember that!

I worked in Amsterdam for a year and really liked the Dutch but they could be pretty direct. It was quite refreshing as there was no bullshit, but took a bit of getting used to. I had a nasty bicycle accident there and had injured my face quite badly, black eyes and lots of scabs. Met a friend on the street one day and said 'I look terrible, don't I' and he cheerfully said 'Yes, you do!'. Not sure what I expected to be honest, because it was true.

Yes. Companies in Johannesburg area advertising their home protection schemes including alarms, defenses and man traps.

I’m from Ireland but lived in the UK for a long time. Your comment reminded me that when we moved back from the US I was struck by 2 things, which I’d never noticed to a huge extent before:

• Smoking in the street - you literally couldn’t avoid it. I used to hate walking up the Main Street in our city because it was everywhere.
• Swearing loudly in the street - again, it was everywhere and you couldn’t avoid it.

It was only when we moved back that I realised I had had 3 years of not being exposed to either in the US and it was a total onslaught when we repatriated

Americans don't really use knives.

We do use knives to eat, but not in the same way as in the UK.

The cleanest of Tokyo and not rubbish bins plus the silence in public transport

Could not agree more. I walked around for two years thinking everyone here was an alcoholic. Adding to that the almost need to have a glass of wine after work to unwind.

Drinking culture here is unreal/

It’s definitely true - whether you believe it or not

I lived in Dubai for a while and used cabs a lot. Without fail i'd be asked if i was going somewhere or "working", just because I was blonde so automatically assumed to be a prostitute and grabbed/groped accordingly.
Total shithole of a place beyond the glitter.

Here it's an Eastern European thing. It's absolutely revolting in some places, having to walk round huge globs of spit on the pavements. I've always found spitting in the street disgusting. My husbands mate once hawked one up and spat on the pavement while we were out and I went ballistic! And he is English! Funnily enough, I've never seen him do it since!

I live in one, it's great! Incredible social life but the shutters give the impression no one is around.

Totally this. I can’t believe the very little regard for taking rubbish with you, throwing things out of car windows and fly tipping.

When I go ‘home’ I am always amazed at how clean everything seems.

For me it was having another mother latch onto me at a SureStart centre. We lived in a small village in the north of England, the surestart was in the nearest town which was one of mixed social demographic. I didn't understand why the centre was mostly dead until this woman latched on and told me she'd been forced by social servicss to attend.

I felt sorry for her. She was only 17 with a 2 year old and had no family support. I'd given her suncream (the surestart people wouldn't let the kid outside without) and a lift home on a boiling hot day when I caught her wrestling her child into a winter coat. She invited us in and I was horrified to find how she lived.

Her toddler wasn't weaned beyond puree stage, he had no bed or carpet in his room, only a mattress on the floor, he had no toys, books or crayons and the whole place smelled of redbull and cigarettes. That is the sanitised version.

Transpired that she'd got pregnant and the father and both families had turned away from her. Before having a house, she'd lived in a mother and baby unit and had absolutely no one. She couldn't really read or write. It was worlds away from my life at 17 with ballet lessons and A levels and made me terribly sad to think, 10 miles away I had so much wheras she had barely anything.

My kindess and friendship, however, was used in an interesting way. She'd asked for my name and address because she said her social worker needed the details of all her friends. I called SS myself and she was attempting to give my details to them as emergency carer for her child. The little boy was removed eventually as was another baby at birth. I often think of her and what has become of her life.

I would like that; can’t get use to the fake politeness and going around the bushes english way of communicating

We were spoken to by the police because we walked about 500m in the States. They asked where we were going on foot, and as soon as I opened my mouth they said "Oh, you're English" and left it at that.

WTF? 😲

NA is like that too. Thats how I grew up. Funeral homes are a big thing.

The poverty in America. I was at a petrol station and a man was going through the bins for cans to recycle for a few cents. People were giving him cans from their very large fancy cars like it was a great act of charity.

The rule following in Munich. An empty road on a Sunday morning, but people were still waiting for the pedestrian lights to change.

It was a shock that my 6ft 4, then 22stone 36 year old DH couldn't buy a beer in America in a quiet bar as he didn't have ID on him! At the time he looked 40 odd!

Transnistria was a very strange place. Just odd

I felt really out of place in Kiev as a female solo tourist. The you ger generations were good but the older people were really rude and dismissive.
Of course I've had people being rude to me in my life but this was pretty much full on once they realised I was English. I had learned a few words and phrases to get by but some people just shooed me away with their hand and turned their back on me, even the police did this.