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.

As a student on placement in Switzerland about 30 years ago I was gobsmacked at not being allowed to hang my washing out on a Sunday and the extent to which my landlady felt justified in sticking her nose into my business. However, it was normal for her son to keep his army rifle (? not great at firearm ID) at home and fiddle about with in on the communal landing with no visible safety precautions whatsoever.

YY to whole families plus domestic animals on a single moped in various countries in SE Asia. And a man chopping the legs off live frogs on a market in Malaysia and casually throwing the twitching bodies aside into a bucket.

Having lived in continental Europe for many years I've acquired a bit of the laid-back attitude to naked bodies on display. Still more fussed than the locals, but it is indeed very liberating not to have to do the excruciating towel dance in changing rooms, on beaches, etc. and at home we really don't bother about it.

When back in the UK I hate having to share fight over a double quilt with DH, as I've got used to having one each. It also really bugs me that there's never anywhere to hang your coat up in pubs, cafés etc. And don't get me started about the public transport!

a long queue of people ranged exactly one foot behind one another deep in newspapers :o :o :o

This is what I LOVE about being British! Not only do we queue, we read newspapers in the queue and have an automatic sense of personal space!

Euphemia re Glasgow and Edinburgh, so true! I'm from chatty, open-hearted blunt Yorkshire and feel so much more at home in Glasgow. Edinburgh is so dour and uptight and I constantly feel like I've overstepped the mark with whatever I say.

Edinburgh friend went through to Glasgow once and went to a chippy. Chippy man decided friend was wearing fake specs as a fashion item (he wasn't, he just wore specs!) and started trying to poke the lenses to see if they really had glass in :o When he realised they were real specs he apologised and they ended up having a long chat and putting the world to rights.

In Edinburgh that would NEVER happen.

Visiting (local) friends in the Middle East who were wealthy and had three servants from SE Asia. I'd have used a better word but they were treated like servants and that shocked me. We mostly met outside the house but on the few occasions we went to their house I was horrified that these women were expected to silently wait on them hand and foot - no one in the family said thank you to them for, e.g., clearing cups away or even acknowledged they were in the room unless it was to tell them to do something.

Agree with the German nudity thing. It's definitely made me less prudish out of necessity!

I also agree with whoever said waking up the morning after the Brexit vote and watching all the anti immigration interviews on TV. The biggest shock for me though was,, as a teenager, going through Stansted airport a few months after 9/11 and seeing British armed police everywhere. I'd never seen a British policeman noticeably armed before in real life and it really shocked me to my core. I still don't like seeing it. I remember feeling like it was a huge turning point.

Streets full of limos in New York. I stayed in a hotel with a nightclub underneath and every night, around 40-50 limos would pull up outside. Also bizarre, seeing fruit and veg shops open at 3am. And those horrible gaps on either side of public toilet doors in the US, so everyone queuing can have a good gander at you.

The beauty of some parts of Italy, in complete contrast with other parts that were full of rubbish, graffiti, thieves and illegal immigrants hassling you on every corner to buy their fake goods.

The first time I went to Spain and how the heat hits you as you step foot off the plane, plus eating in restaurants with lizards crawling up the walls! Also, how many Europeans still smoke. In the UK it seems to be becoming more unacceptable, but in Europe every one and their dog seems to be lighting up.

Nice culture shock though, seeing the Amish people and their wonderfully simple way of life. It's fascinating how they go about their daily lives while being constantly stared at and photographed by hordes of tourists.

superbeagle Interesting... Where else have you lived to compare it to? Obv Amsterdam doesn't count

Street children in Brazil, I mean really young, and seeing signs in hotels saying it was now illegal for adults to solicit children and to take them to their room, the law had only come into effect a few years before we visited. So sad. I'll never forget those poor children in door ways.

I probably live quite a sheltered life but I was shocked at how many people in the US walk around with guns in their pockets whilst walking around Walgreen's

Polly The US and New Zealand.

NZ has a similar system.

It's been in place for a long time. It's effective. In the same way that safe injection sites have proven to be a better alternative to drug addicts dying in the stairwells of hospitals. Nothing is gained by making either of those things illegal and imposing criminal penalties on offences. You're never going to get rid of prostitution, so it's better to regulate it as you would a business and make it safer for those involved.

Oh god, the servant culture of the Middle East. I knew it existed, but I assumed that ill treatment happened behind closed doors, because surely you wouldn't openly abuse and exploit someone?

Nope. Local acquaintances openly talking about their maids being forbidden to leave the house ("because the last one ran off"), issuing instructions to young women from SE Asia (who are forced to buy domestic uniforms from their own wages) without making eye contact let alone saying please or thank you, passport confiscations. A small boy fell over in the playground last weekend, and understandably cried for his mother. His mother actually checked to see that the nanny was busy before going to him herself. Every time I think I've adjusted to how batshit mental it is, someone excels themself.

Switzerland - tiny children on trans with enormous square leather schoolbags on their backs.

Oh and as a 15 year old who had held very few babies, being expected to hold a floppy headed newborn, and eat aniseed sprinkles on bread at the same time in the Netherlands. In fact the whole Dutch custom of sprinkles on bread...

super. Oh, ok. I think it was just a bit of an eye opener as I hadn't really come across it much before, apart from in obviously 'sleazy' areas. Of course it's a safer system for the girls, I'm just opposed to it in general. (may be biased by life experience, not a prude overall)

Walking through Camden years ago an being in amazement at the goths, punks. It was fascinating and stood there in owe of people's hair and piercing. Being scared of going the shops in the basements because they looked dark and dingy with black as predominate colour. It's a shame the place is not like that anymore.

The train not working and having to take a replacement bus. I had to change at Hackney and it was a culture shock. Walking through the backstreets was nothing like northwest London. I could not believe that there are places like that in Britain. The area has completely change now.

Not being able to understand a lot of accents. I expected everyone to speak like the queen. Excluding the Scots and Irish.

My biggest one was that lots of English people had very poor grammar. I knew anyone who spoke my native language who had bad grammar when speaking the native language. Fascinating that this happens with English born who reside in England.

People not having proper lunch at one o'clock and sandwiches being the go to food. Also, twelve o'clock being considered lunchtime at all. Not having three Square meals, excluding tea time, which means siting down at four o'clock after school and having real tea. Sapper at eight.

Tea not meaning tea but food. What is dinner? all very confusing.

Tv licence,

How you don't have to pay/bribe people to do things that are free.
Excellent customer service with all the prices labelled.

Shocked that there is street markets in England.

The trains actually works and carry people from a to b.

How loud British children where. At my school were told to model our selves on British children who were always quiet in class, respects their teachers, humble and nice to one another. Was I wrong and shocked at how they treated teachers. Luck of interest in school work and very few paid attention in class. I realised we were good kids. And there is bad and good children everywhere.

Prostitution can not be made safe. The New Zealand brothels are often awful for the women who actually have to work in them.

AprilludgateDwyer

I'm back working in Dublin, drinking during working hours is a sackable offence in most organisations here!

deploy similar in South Africa with maids. Although the jobs were very highly sought after - one friends maid was almost killed by her cousin who wanted her job! As if said friend would employ a stone cold murderer!

We saw loads ofJjapanese with brollies walking around Pompeii.

I saw a Japanese tourist with a full on flowery face mask in a Mediterranean town last year.

I wondered what the anti-niqab brigade would make of it.

It was like this but flowery, and because she had a much larger hat on than either of the women wearing hats here, you could see pretty much nothing of her face.

Prostitution can not be made safe. The New Zealand brothels are often awful for the women who actually have to work in them

What, as opposed to the illegal brothels? It can be made safer. I'm not suggesting it's a flawless system.

YY to giant Germanic schoolbags - my DC could bivvy in theirs at a push and they cost an absolute fortune!

As a student on placement in Switzerland about 30 years ago ... it was normal for her son to keep his army rifle (? not great at firearm ID) at home and fiddle about with in on the communal landing with no visible safety precautions whatsoever.

As there is no standing Swiss Army, all adult men are required by law to keep a working rifle in the house. Meaning that Switzerland has one of the highest %ages of gun ownership in the world.

And one of the lowest murder rates (210/218 - the UK is 188, and the US 112 ...)

Lurking Yes, the Swiss are definitely the most law-abiding people I have ever lived amongst. Comforting when it comes to the rifles, irritating when they micromanage your laundry habits.

Lurking

Additionally, it is not true that Honduras “bans citizens from owning guns” nor that Switzerland “requires citizens to own guns.”

From Snopes

www.snopes.com/politics/guns/hondswitz.asp

I found the German part of Switzerland's petty rules, difficult. In England I am a law abiding citizen. In Switzerland I was a constant breaker of rules, often unknowingly, who got told off by strangers.

Me too brasty, never knew I was such a rebel until I moved to Switzerland.

Dipping into chicken soup with a ladle and bringing up the chicken's entire head and feet. We just drank the stock.

Yes exactly Matador
Switzerland made me realise that visiting a country, and actually living there, are very different things. Also heard the same from a friend who worked in France and could not get on with the normal workplace culture there. Moving abroad when you are retired, is very different to moving when you have to work in a place with local people.