Biggest cultural shock you have come across?

[hibbledobble]

What have you encountered while travelling that was your biggest cultural shock?

I'll go first: in Poland I saw families/extended families living 10+ in a 2 bedroom home. The concept of having a bedroom or even a bed to oneself is seemingly unheard of. Everyone sleeps in different beds each night, and beds are often shared. Having visitors in this set up is no problem either: everyone just rearranges. Water also came from Wells, lots of homes had no bathrooms. Ovens were these metal beasts that were plugged into the mains.

YY, Bertie, and decongestants being banned in Germany which means if you have sinusitis you can't sleep for a fortnight. And being fobbed off with herbal teas that claim to be an effective alternative cure.

How rude some Londoners can be. (Keyword here: some)

Switzerland: identikit teens. I wing all over and every one would be described as chav. There was just no individuality expressed through clothing. Who knew I'd miss goths?

Cyprus: was told for the same level of job (waitressing, cleaning etc) you would get the same pay. Fine. Men get 100% and women two thirds! Guy who told us couldn't understand our shock.

Triedandtrusted, we have to put notices on the back of loo doors in many British universities telling people how to use them, as the Chinese students were standing on them and breaking the seats or leaving them filthy for other people (some UK university courses only have about 10% Europeans on them now with a handful of Brits and all the rest are Chinese, this has changed very suddenly and universities had no idea toilets would be an issue for people).

To be fair Bertie if you get on a tube train going from the centre of London to the outskirts at any time between 2 and 4 pm on a school day there is a very good chance of encountering a huge gaggle of tiny over-excited school children returning to their school from a trip to the Science Museum or wherever.

The horror of some suburban MNers when they first learn that a school might take their PFBs on the dreaded Underground, and the hilarity of urban MNers at their reaction is another type of culture clash.

Those gaps around the doors in toilet cubicles in the USA. It all looks lovely. Until you realise people can see you peeing from a fee angles.

There have been whole threads about this on MN. Seriously, y'all, people don't look. You have to actually try hard to see anything, which at least us native folk don't do.

Very true about many parts of Florida being culturally Southern. (Florida was part of the Confederacy.) Even some of the rural areas around Disney are culturally Southern. But there are lots of good things about this as well as the negatives.

The kettle thing in the US: it's the difference in our electricity. There are faster ways to boil water in the US than in an electric kettle.

The driving in Naples. The cars didn't move out of the way for an ambulance!

The whole family on a motorbike thing I saw too, in Paraguay. The mum was breastfeeding at the same time

Oh and definitely the toilet paper going in the bin, not in the toilet (all over south america) that was hard to get used to

70ontheinside
Huge culture shock when a relative here in the U.K. died and nothing was done as I expected it to be done. Makes you realise how ritualised death and grief is.
Yes so true, the "admin." of a death is so different in U.K., France, and Spain which are neighbouring countries of similar religious/cultural backgrounds.

Trying to use my British hair dryer in an American plug socket was...interesting. I've had faster farts. I'd no idea it was different.

I find it strange not to be able to take a bottle of cold white wine to the park on a sunny summer day for a picnic!

I live in the UK and that is illegal where I live. I thought it was illegal everywhere! You learn something new every day

English children having diner at 5pm, and to bed at 6pm! I am still shocked by that one

and what do you think is normal?

My first experience of 'traveling' was doing Camp America when I was 20. I remember landing in JFK and being bussed through NY and genuinely being shocked at the number of black people! Solely because i come from a very white city in Scotland and hadn't really experienced any non European city at that point.

Jasmine, when ours were little, we used to work backwards from when they needed to/we wanted them to wake up. If we'd put them to bed at 6pm when they were 4/5, they would have been up at 3am, 4am if we were lucky. So we put them to bed later. They get home from school at 5.30pm so, even without any homework or extracurricular activities with time to play with their toys, tell us about their day, have a bath and eat some dinner, bed before 7.30 would not really have been feasible.

Obviously every parent can and should do as they wish but like other posters I was one of those who experienced culture shock at some of the apparently early bedtimes for younger children in Britain.

I live abroad - can I talk about the reverse culture shock I get when I come back?

First thing that hits me: the lack of clothing at T5 at 0630 on a Tuesday. Put some clothes on! . Come on now, it's never that warm, even in July. The customer service (good and chatty, normally) the availability of pork, wine and generally everything that is convenient in a supermarket (I live in the ME but my US MIL says the same when she sees noodled courgettes and sliced mango in ready packs, when she comes to visit DGC in the UK). Queues, polite people ("no after you" on the whole) actual weather not just sun and sandstorms, greenery and the Royals. They are the shining beacon with regards to the UK's soft power over here. Can't wait to come back next month!

Not remotely illegal to drink alcohol with a picnic in most of the London parks. Forget Brexit, most of the big City banks would leave overnight if you tried to stop them playing softball with a cooler full of beers on a summer Friday evening, and there would definitely be the most middle class riots ever on Clapham Common if you tried to remove the Mini-Waitrose-chilled prosecco from the gangs of yuppie Sunday picnics.

Holiday Rep in Goa (a lifetime ago). Early transfers with clients back to the airport along a road where just after sunrise dozens of blokes would be squatting in a field having a number 2 every time we passed.
Crete - driving down a road on my moped and skinned goats hanging outside - the stench has never left me.

When I was ten, we had French student. They slurped their coffee out of their mugs, kept the spoon in and dipped their bread into it. I thought it was dead odd at the time.

Public toilets in the USA - the fact that people can see into the cubicle from outside as the door is not flush to the frame. In such an advanced country I just didn't expect it. If I go again I will be taking scarves to hang over the gaps!

When I discovered Malaysian crisps have icing sugar on instead of salt

Spoon in cup is essential maddie I still do that after 20 years in the uk.
This is to do with needing a spoon to help mix a sugar cube into your coffee/tea (whereas with granulated sugar, it dissolves pretty quickly)

Krop Absolutely, the sight of old western men, lots of them. with very young Cambodian girls

But surely our governments can be notified of these bastards? So we can do something about them?

When travelling around Thailand a young Thai girl of about 16 asking and pleading for me and DH to rescue her from the two French guys who had bought her for the weekend and toddlers begging on the streets of Chiangmai. The inequality of wealth in S.E Asia. My MIL is from Malaysia and lots of her friends there have multiple live in help such as drivers, cooks, gardeners, house maids and nannies all from the Phillipines and Indonesia, even SAHM's have this level of hired help. I just wonder how the SAHM's there fill their days

LockedOutOfMN

Mine have both had much later bedtimes than their peers, 8pm. We are unusual and sometimes felt naughty for such late bedtimes"

Blowing I wish, the plane from Bangkok to Phnom Penh is seriously full of European men of a certain age, often with ponytails, and that is not counting the ones that live in Asia full time. My DDs think I am seriously embarrassing in public when I refuse to allow people to get away with bad behaviour but they join me in giving these arseholes the stare when we see them with young girls in bars etc. ......... I suppose they did get Gary Glitter eventually but how long did that take, and he was famous, not just some random arsehole ?

"and what do you think is normal?"

Our normal is eating as a family between 6 and 7 usually. DD has never been an early to bed child, and is now 16 and goes to bed after me, even on school nights.