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.

“The worst I came across were where there was a trough that ran under all the cubicles - so you could see everything floating past.”

Sounds like the loos at the campsite at Leeds Festival

“English children having dinner at 5pm, and to bed at 6pm! I am still shocked by that one.”

I am English and think this is weird. We never did this with DD. For a start she was never sleepy at 6 (or 7 or 8 or even 9pm sometimes). We have always eaten our evening meal together as a family.

“So many people do live with many to a room, or family of 4 in a 1 bedroom flat etc too. Some of these are definitely the norm to some in the UK.”

I bet they wouldn’t choose to live like that if they could afford something better. I can see why it happens in London because rents are so high. I know that in Sheffield there are areas where people live like this – mainly where there are a lot of immigrants.

farandole The male hand holding/displays of friendship/sitting on each other's laps was something I found really odd in Pakistan. The linking of pinky fingers and swinging away was commonplace.

Also in Pakistan, the goats and chickens on public transport, random males 'pinching' a female derrière in the marketplace, families on scooters/motorbikes.

Just thinking about the driving in India makes me want to put my head between my knees and take deep breaths. We were driving on a modern dual carriageway with a solid concrete median. Every so often there was a break so that traffic cross to the other direction. So traffic joining from a side road and wanting to go right should have gone left and then crossed to the other direction at a break in the barrier. But what they actually did was turn right and travelled the wrong direction in the fast lane until they got to a break in the barrier. It was terrifying, we were in an old-fashioned Ambassador car (for 'atmosphere', I would have preferred the atmosphere of an armoured truck personally) and we kept meeting oncoming tractors and lorries that would have crushed us like a bug. The sides of the road was packed with burnt out and broken up vehicles.

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

I personally find that odd too. I know people who put their kids to bed at dinner time and then complain that they wake up super early.

My mum said I slept through the night almost immediately because she put me down late, after my last bottle. Then as I got older I still had a bedtime that would be considered late to many people, but I slept through until breakfast.

I really don't think you can damn a nation on the strength of a dodgy bar tender!

I lived in the US for five years and have visited countless times. I can honestly say that I think that American people are generally more polite than the British and definitely politer than Europeans! Has anyone ever experienced "service with a smile" in France?!

There are a lot of homeless in certain US cities. I had a long discussion with a homeless worker in Seattle. He told me that the ones on the street are nearly all drug addicts as shelters will not allow drug use there. Also the number of homeless in Portland has rocketed as homeless from other cities have been drawn there because of the help offered. When I was there last year all the hipsters were getting mighty fed up with it as whole streets had tents along them.

Seeing Masai people asleep on the side of the road in Tanzania - I thought they were dead or ill, but they walk huge distances and when they are tired just lie down to sleep on the dusty roadside. Also in Tanzania people living in tiny huts with no facilities but with children emerging looking totally pristine in their school dresses and very white socks, no idea how they achieved it.

people assuming an unmarried woman in Greece was a prostitute

When I came back from volunteering in a Southern African country at the time of Apartheid - it was isolated so few Western goods got in and lots of shortages. I went to the supermarket in the UK and came out again without buying anything because I was so overwhelmed by choice.

I really don't think you can damn a nation on the strength of a dodgy bar tender!

I didn't.

The male hand holding/displays of friendship/sitting on each other's laps was something I found really odd in Pakistan.

Being a 12 year old Brit abroad, I was mortified when my similar-aged cousin insisted on walking arm-in-arm down to the village square in Sicily (in the 1970s).

I was therefore intrigued to learn (on "QI" I believe) that it used to be a very English custom, and that men - soldiers even - used to link arms to walk in Hyde Park in Victorian times.

Food market in Vietnam - cages crammed full of kittens to be sold as food... I'm a cat lover :(

Oh, and the poison gas air in China. To be fair Beijing was cleaned up a lot for the Olympics, but I did a 2 hour transfer to Tianjin port for a cruise, and could barely see through the yellow-grey air surrounding the car

Also the roadside box-like shacks in Vietnam. In my ignorance I first though they were some sort of storage areas, but no - there were whole families living in them

The lack of respect for cultural monuments in Egypt. People climbing up the pyramids, being encouraged (for a tip) to cross barriers to get a closer look (and touch if we wanted) of hieroglyphs In the valley of the Kings. The millions of empty plastic bottles in the desert. (Of course the grinding poverty was shocking, but we had been prepared for that somewhat. Giving some kids a bottle of coke and men coming and taking it away for themselves. That got us really cross)

In Austria, the sauna and changing rooms were mixed and naked. Once you got used to the idea, it was curiously liberating.

And in reply to a PP, yes I have experienced service with a smile many times in France!

Living in the States ( south) was a culture shock. Everything from the massive Big Gulps to the Chaleston where all the black people lived on one side of the town and were really quiet and kept their heads down. Noticeablely different to Europe.

redexpat should i reconsider a trip to copenhagen? I havent booked it yet. Wouldnt want to expose me and the kids to that kind of stuff

My biggest shock was the way the British management was treating polish workers in Poland. That was some years ago.
I remember what the OP describes too but can't say I found it a shock (maybe because I've lived in enough places to not be as an iked by what is basically poverty).
The sense of being superior form the British people there though... that was a true shock to the system and one I didn't recover from (I left very quickly because of that)

Lived in Paris as a child and travelled to London regularly. First time I went to the loo alone in Britain (maybe 3 years old?) at a friend's house I had no idea how to flush as every loo I'd come across in France has the push button on the top of the cistern rather than the handle to pull down.

Another toilet one: we moved from Paris to London when I was 15 and I was shocked that everyone ate a sandwich for lunch at school and even more shocked that students were allowed out of class during lessons for a wee.

Also was confused that Londoners walk on the right in tube stations but on the left everywhere else.

Living in Spain now and was surprised that many people deliberately feed young children extra salt especially in summer. I'm not a nutritionist though so it may well be beneficial when the children sweat a lot.

A refugee camp in Como, Italy. Was right there when we got off the train.

Reverse culture shock coming back to the UK after Italy, I was surprised at how many places (restaurants, hotels) refused to allow children. Also my parents' neighbour actually told me off for taking my 4 year olds for a walk after dinner at 8.30ish and said they should be in bed!

The sheer size of people in California. I don't mean fat I mean tall. Everyone seemed to be a foot taller than me and I'm 5'6". It wasn't unusual to see men of 6'10". Most of the women were 6' tall. I felt tiny. Plus the poverty in south central LA. Armed guards at the hotel entrances.

Agree with a PP who said that Amsterdam was seedy. The contents of the shop windows on the main walkways was shocking (would be illegal here), plus the women in the windows. You could feel the testosterone in the air at night.

Mexico in a non-resort area. The poverty was striking. Dirt floors, hardly any furniture. No possessions at all really.

The chain smoking in the Czech republic.

Frith - I don't think that is an official camp. There was a problem last year with people trying to cross into Switzerland without papers and, unsurprisingly, they got stopped at the border in Como.

We went to The Gambia on honeymoon (27 years ago- gosh I'm old). Got chatting with plenty of people, and we were struck with the fact that the unspoken "social distance " for conversation with strangers is clearly a lot closer for Gambians.

So we would be slowly retreating to re-establish our comfortable social distance, and whoever we were speaking to would be advancing to re-establish his/her comfortable social distance. You'd end the conversation some way away from where you started it

Living in the States ( south) was a culture shock. Everything from the massive Big Gulps

This reminds me - New Orleans and the free drinking of alcohol in public. Specifically those sort of hole-in-the-wall kiosk things where you can get a Hurricane Cocktail or any kind of cocktail and then walk around drinking it - in the same way you'd get a portion of chips or a kebab (or visit a cashpoint) in the UK.

It's very bizarre - all the more so given that anywhere else in the USA if you have more than a glass of wine they think you are a borderline alcoholic.

troll it was about 10 years ago and was the norm in the village I visited. By near, I mean Krakow was the nearest major city, it was a decent drive away.