Subtle Cultural Differences

[smugaboo]

What subtle cultural differences have you noticed between your country of origin and the place you live now? Or between you and your partner who is from a country other than you?

I'm not talking about obvious stuff - but those things that you never counted on, and surprised you - and were hard to explain. I'll give a couple of examples:

My DP (English) says "there again", as in "there again, we could just skip dinner all together and go to the pub." I say "then again" in the same context. When I first heard him say it I thought he had gotten it wrong and I was a bit embarrassed for him. Whoops.

Another one, we say the "hokey pokey", as in 'doing the ...", but my dp swears it is the "hokey cokey" - and I have heard it sung that way since. How in the world did that happen? Chinese whispers?

D'ya know what I mean?

I only opened this thread because I saw the post on cutlery! I used to live in Canada for awhile as a child with my uncle and his family. My aunt (not a nice woman anyway) would rally the children into making fun of me for using a knife. They would put a fork for everyone on the table and "One knife for [TBM]" I was always glad for my grandparents to eat with us as they were/are civilised Brits!

My aunt was like that, like the time she made a scene about me (a 9 year old) asking for a rubber I don't think I would have even known what she was on about if she had used the proper word (well I knew what they were but it wasn't part of my world IYSWIM)! She demanded to know what I was doing up there "colouring..."

She sounds like a right cow Tinsel

9D we have friends in Cremorne who have set up camp down at Cremorne Point already. Have you been out in that heat yet today? Scorchio! We're meeting them for a picnic later this avo and hopefully see the aerial displays.

Sad to say but we'll probably see the rest of it on the telly as the little fella will be asleep.

Lol at Hokey Tokey. Sounds like something you'd do with a bong...

She is and that's being polite, fortunately he got rid of her and is married to a lovely lady now.

I have just laughed myself silly watching a couple come into the park. They were carrying a large Esky between them and walked either side of a telegraph pole. Hooray for them for being plastered at 2pm!

DH has just been to Liquorland and said there were four friends in there, three of whom were completely plastered and one was the stone cold sober designated driver. The three drunk ones made the driver pay for all the extra booze they were buying on the grounds that he was the only one who was sober enough to sign his name.

General Pants is not the only compulsory tourist photo I've ever had to take.

When we lived in Hong Kong we were near a street called Wan King Path and every visitor had to be taken there for a souvenir snap. Then we'd take them round the corner to Fuk Man Road. Which, even better, had the Fuk Man Road Public Toilets at the end of it. I was always waiting for George Michael to emerge zipping up his fly.

Some I have noticed here in Oz

Good on Ya or Way to go - Well done

I told a friend I was 'poorly' and he looked at me like I was mad! It is sick!

Stubbie - Bottle of lager/beer/whatever

Tinny - Can of anything

Jocks - Male underwear

Pants - Trousers

Bathers - Swimming costume

Squash - fizzy drink of any sort

Chips - crisps

And all those that AdventFemme mentioned!

Stobbie poles - lampposts/electricity poles

Just spoken to Cremorne friend who has said it is heaving down there already so I think we'll give it a miss. Dare we walk down to the Botanics?

Sandcastles, I also had a friend who thought poorly was the funniest thing she'd heard. Made me say it over and over again

Happy Hogmanay everyone!

Oooh I didn't know that about poorly. I was roundly mocked on my last trip home for saying 'I'm good'. I had no idea that I was saying it.

Also Hokey Cokey here. Hokey Pokey as correctly pointed out is ice cream. LOL at running into the middle alone and shouting ra ra ra!

In Oz they refer to a car parking space as a 'car park'. Had me confused for years that one - Aussie, driving around a car park 'I can't find a park', Me, baffled 'you're in one?!?'.

I love the drive through bottle shops here

All the swimming pools are ancient, there are no funky wave pools like at home. You have to drag toddlers to the beach and watch them get sucked in by the ferocious surf.

In Holland you are allowed to smoke in service stations. I always expected them to blow up whenever I went in to pay.

There's no way I would go up to the city today. DSS and his gang made their way up at about 10am, clutching a large cooler bag of supplies and debating how they were going to smuggle the booze in. ROFL at all the drunks staggering around Sydney already.

We are going to watch from the beach I think, if DD can stay up that late.

ghsoty - wash your mouth out - ice block here in Qld - ask for an icy pole here and you will get a very blank look.

squash here in QLd only refers to lemon squash - the rest is soft drinks.

poorly - crook. Feelin' crook mate!

goodonya - well done

avagoodweekend - enjoy your weekend

she'll be right - it'll be all right.

yo-ghurt instead of yog-hurt although dd1's classmates are all starting to say yog-urt as they are doing jolly phonics and the cd is full of lovely UK accented children ( since it is a UK program) singing songs - like driving vic's van round the village - no such thing as villages here - they are towns.

oh arfishy - dh loved that - on his first trip to Aus we took him through the drive through - and he loved it!!! couldn't understand why brits did not have it. He also loved the Liquor barns!!

Amazed that English people will picnic anywhere.

Now granted they are in the 'countryside' but surely not just on the grassy verge of a minor road?

Little plastic table, flask and sandwiches: good view from where they are sitting most the time but also sitting dangerously close to traffic and at about exhaust pipe level. Nope. Not me.

I have a few.

I do a lot of work in Italy with English people & at least every tour there's a comment about Italians not making good coffee!? It then comes out that they've asked for a "latte" and been served a warm milk not milky coffee. That would be because latte is milk and the coffee variety they're after is a caffe latte.

Ordering cappuccino after a meal is just not done in Italy-it's a breakfast only drink & like asking for a horlicks at the end of your meal!

Panini is another one. It is the plural term for a certain type of sandwich. In the uk it is most frequently used to describe what we'd call a forcaccia.

And Italians often wave goodbye to English people saying "hi hi" or wave hello saying "bye bye" as ciao means both.

Aw, you've got to love the Brits and their random picnics
I heart my local drive thru bottle shop. I say to the man "Hello, have you got a nice NZ Sauvignon Blanc for around $15 please?" and he comes back with superb bottle of Nobilo Savvy that is $15.99 ...
I love him.

Oh I forgot about the drive thru bottle shops, and the fact that they are called bottle shops!

Almost makes up for the fact that you can't buy wine with your groceries and you must enter a separate shop. Heaven forbid that you buy Chardonnay with your cornflakes.

We honeymooned in Italy and eyebrows were raised at our cappuccinos after dinner

Bottle shops? Bottlos to you, my dear.

Have just watched the children's fireworks and they were fab. Have to admit that a tear or two might have escaped.

Am I ethically obliged to go back down to the barbie in the garden? I took a vodka watermelon and told the other baby's mother what was in it but not her father. Would hate them to think tonight was the night to start BLW. Perhaps I should shout out the window.

Whoops I forgot to add the o!

I must say I watched the midnight show with a lump in my throat. This city rocks!

LOL at BLW with a vodka watermelon. That's one way to ensure a good night's sleep!

Don't ever eat spaghetti with spoon & fork in Italy. And whatever you do, DON'T ask for filter coffee afterwards

What do you use to eat spaghetti with in Italy then CDA?

Other Singapore things that come to mind:
Hand phone (HP)= mobile phone
Traffic light is green but pedestrian light is sometimes also green giving pedestrians the right of way. Very dangerous.
The same road sometimes has two different names, one for the traffic in one direction and the other for the other direction.

There are quite a few but the one that always gets me is "Just now". I have always used it to describe something I have just done as in "I had a cup of tea just now" but DH uses it to describe something he is about to do. I always have to stop and think now whenever someone says it.

Just with a fork (in right hand) or knife & fork as with anything else.

Eating at 5pm.

I was on a train one summer afternoon, filled with families and children bouncing off the walls.

It was my pre-baby self and I was trying to hide behind a book to block it all out.

Suddenly I realised it had gone eerily quiet.

I looked around and what did you know, flasks sanwiches and crips had appeared out of every nook and cranny and there was peace, oh peace, I tell you!

Noodles are just like spaghetti and are eaten with chopsticks here. Duck noodle soup = yummy.

I love the idea of a drive-thru bottle shop but can't see that one taking off here. The chinese people generally do not drink alcohol as they have a very low tolerance. The expats have a high tolerance hardwired into their DNA though .