Expats, tell me what aspect or social norm of your new country was strange to you?

[AjasLipstick]

I am a Brit in Oz and for me, the hardest thing to get used to was Sunday trading hours being like the UK in the 70s.

The weirdest thing was how much less formal people are...kids are dressed very informally and parties for children never have kids dressed up in party dresses but in shorts and t shirts. I like it now I'm used to it though.

"Also people asking where I stayed instead of lived. I used to go to great pains to explain I wasn't staying anywhere but lived in South Africa. People were too polite to explain to me that's what they say instead of live." As a Scot I wonder if this is due to a lot of scots emigrating there as "where do you stay?" Means "where do you live?" Here too

As a Scot (lapsed) catholic it's still a "thing" in some areas unfortunately. I don't get it myself as dad was army so don't have a scots accent but dd gets asked as she does and was mainly raised up here but she's not asked directly if she's Protestant/Catholic she's asked which school she went to (which then gives the answer). Think she's best described as agnostic though she's not really sure herself. But it's definitely an issue where I live.

I've lived in Germany, Belgium and Netherlands at various points. I don't really remember Belgium as I was little then but I LOVED Germany.

People were lovely, polite and friendly, everywhere clean and tidy, first time was when uk too still had Sunday closing etc but 2nd time (with now exh also army) was after we had pretty much 24h opening in uk. It was a bit of a shock at first but then I liked it. Also supermarkets not so much a thing as in uk. It was the norm to use baker, greengrocer etc and only use supermarket for certain (processed) goods.

Rotas for cleaning the close and putting the bins out (and SO hot on recycling)

The driving on motorways is a bit mad but soon got used to it. Sunday's were more chilled. Although banks only open office hrs and sat mornings was a bit trying especially as cash machines weren't prolific so especially bank holiday weekends you HAD to be organised.

"Amazing tea, awful awful coffee unless you know where to look" omg yea I miss German coffee (plus a whole shopping list of other German food and drink)

Netherlands I loved even more. People so friendly and welcoming, very helpful in shops and markets, easy to find your way around in towns and cities as the street marking and signs for places of interest were so clear.

Mayo on chips - learned to love
HUGE hot chocolates with whipped cream and cinnamon or stroopwaffel on top (miss them)

The biggest thing for me was I had dd over there and bf and felt completely comfortable doing so in public there, but when I came back to uk and was still bf it was almost a culture shock to get dirty looks.

"If you did that in the UK, the sun would soon go in, it would cloud over, the wind would get up, and it would piss with rain." 😂 so true!

I agree I understand being offered a piece and cheese but not of cheese. Though of course the classic is a piece n jam (thrown oot a windae 😂). My ex was frequently thrown by such subtle differences in language, when he did still used to see dd I'd get phonetically written texts asking me to translate what she was asking for 😂😂

"I've worked in England for 20 years in at least 5 different organisations and never once been part of a tea round." I get what you're saying but really? I've lived and worked all over uk and that's fairly ubiquitous to my knowledge especially in offices.

"It surprised me going to the UK that there were bathtubs without showers." I've only got a bath

"Welfare system that makes the UK look it's stuck in about 1905." Interesting - how so?

"That good customer service is almost non-existent" totally agree and I'm a Brit! Customer service in uk is dreadful!

The "see you later" thing. In the Amanda Knox trial they made a huge thing of her texting this - that it must have been meant literally, like they planned to meet up.

But normally you could make the best of it by asking for a small cup and drinking it as hot as you can bear (it doesn't taste as much like that, I find)

Haha, yes this tallies with my experience.

Another thing to mention are all the changes I had to make to my language (including swearing less as I find it is less acceptable in England):
Hot press = airing cupboard
Sliced pan = bread
Messages = shopping
Next Friday = this Friday
Press = cupboard
Filum = film
Sallow does not mean nicely tanned complexion, it means jaundiced looking (sorry SIL)!
Arrive on time actually means arrive on time not any time 30 mins before or after the event.
I'm sure there are others.

Expat Brit in Egypt.

The driving. Dear God, the driving. The locals drive like nutters & the expats drive like nutters whilst pissed. After 3 years I'm cheerfully relaxed about a trip to the mall being like End of Level GTA, but it took a while.

You can only get imported foodstuff like Heinz beans & proper butter in the fancy supermarket, & it's 3x UK prices. We do without & gorge on UK visits.

Conversely, local produce is bloody amazing & ridiculously cheap. I have a slow cooker & batch make things like pasta sauce for pennies.

Suddenly becoming effectively illiterate was scary. I can read basic Arabic fairly well now, but it was a steep learning curve. Just everyday stuff like road signs, prices in shops, were things I had to re learn.

Everything is 'inshallah'. Students handing in homework, the housekeeper turning up for work as arranged, football practice for dd actually occurring. Generally these things DO happen on schedule, but if they don't, it's totally not the fault of the person responsible. Gets frustrating when you're dealing with IB coursework & uni applications, deadlines for which which Allah does sometimes seem not to be fully supportive of. That UCAS will not accept 'bada bukra' is entirely my uptight ass problem to fix.

Everyone thinks it's freezing. Currently 33° & my Egyptian colleagues are swathed in cardigans. My habit of swimming year round in an unheated pool is regarded with affectionate horror.

This one might be restricted to posh Egyptian kids: but it's totally fine to leave your desk whilst a teacher is talking, smack your mate round the head for bantz, grab a double fistfull of tissues & honk a litre of snot into them, drift vaguely towards the bin, realise you have another pint or two of mucus to rid yourself of, grab more tissues, drop them on the floor because bin is now too far away, head for the door in search of a refill for your water bottle or a wee because you've drunk 2l of water since break...being pulled up on any of this is totally a breach of your human rights & requires spirited argument.

'But I was travelling' ensures that anything you have missed, up to & including a year of your education, is your teachers' problem to fix.

Amazing kindness & hospitality. You can't drop a kid for a play date or party & run, you MUST eat & your crappy Arabic means that an English speaking family member will be rustled up from somewhere to translate, so you aren't excluded.

Airport style security in all the malls etc. But if you roam around the souks you will be welcomed & no one can do enough to help you.

I love it here. But it's definitely a bit magnoona..

In the UK, it seemed like everyone crowded the doors and then sandwiched in while people were still getting off

Do you live in London? London transport can be like this, but elsewhere in the UK there's normally an orderly queue to get on a bus or train

Oz in UK (albeit 25 years ago):

-formality of school uniform - my little DS starting reception a year earlier than he would have in Oz and wearing shirt and tie

• not being invited into people’s homes, even with having 3 kids in primary school. Invitations for kids to play were few and far between, and never extended to parent.

• parking on either side of the road - loved it!

• having to pack my own groceries at the supermarket!! I could never keep up and If it was a bad day (I was depressed) I’d be in tears

Oh yes school uniforms!!!
And people changing their cars every 2-3yrs...

We get invited to people's homes and vice versa - it's how I've made all my "mum friends!" I don't move in circles that change cars every 2-3 years either. Most cars are 10years old ish here!

Sometimes I think it's just assuming the group you meet is representative of the cou ntry (and sometimes it is!)

I love how some people new to UK say we don't make enough small talk and others say it's too much/odd that we do!!

Long term foreigner in the UK - I am regularly asked where I am from- but I get people are interested. I come from a lovely place abroad, and on hearing they inevitably say “...what would make you want to live HERE in the UK, you must miss it so much! ”. ...And then going “home” and feeling like a foreigner on holiday...Accused of putting on a British accent and being up myself, forgetting my roots. And then back here, my foreign accent being so obvious that it amuses my friends and colleagues. I can’t win and both feel ostracising at this point.

I don’t feel like I truly belong either place now in wider society (outside my home and friend group), I am constantly reminded I don’t ‘sound’ like I belong in the UK - in a culture that I feel I understand very well, and have lived my entire adult life for 15+ years. Yes I am foreign born and yet I don’t feel different, I am just perceived as such when I open my mouth. It’s a hard to explain feeling. I feel sort of homeless in the broadest sense.

Well that felt rather serious! Many people have lots of bigger problems than me, this is just my narrow musing on the subject! Also agree with the weird UK non rinsing of dish soap- thankfully DH is now trained, once I pointed out that soap scum isn’t that appetising!!

@Linning I'm guessing that you have not spent much time in HH, where i struggled to find the airport station in an alphabetic list. Yes, there it was up amongst the 'A's for Airport. And the announcements on the train are first in English, then German. And I have to work really hard to continue speaking German, the first sniff of a native English speaker and everyone wants a chance to practice their English. I can continue in German, and insist upon doing so. It's really not easy, especially straight off a long flight when i am tired and a bit rusty, not used to speaking German.

I refuse to emulate my mother who was only too glad to continue in English, after a token effort a5 speaking German, then wondered out load why she had never quite picked up the language. Sigh.

Further south, my experience was very different ...

We did have some fun, staying overnight in a very small rural place near the southern border. After being interrogated about where i had learned my German;, I took the trouble to tell the owner that like everyone else in England, i had learned it at school, but unlike makes fellow countrymen, i was not too shy to try speaking even if i made the odd mistake.... Next time she appeared, she happened to stand between me and DH, who had not said anything so far, would never speak 'foreign' but has worked in german speaking organisations for long enough to understand quite a bit. She asked him a simple question, and , while he answered in English, had clearly understood the question.

The look on her face as she marched back into the kitchen, to tell everyone how they had had their legs pulled by English speakers claiming to not understand was, well, priceless 😆

Driving on the wrong side of road in order to park. Just wrong.

Uk in NL

When presented with a plate of biscuits at a coffee morning take one and only one. Otherwise you mark yourself out as being the lowest of the low and unworthy of any further attention.

PossiblyPFB. I feel the same, after living in several countries I don’t fit in mine anymore.

My answer to the question of why on Earth I wanted to move to the UK is always the same: the rain. From time to time I get some people who reply “oh, not the food then?” 😁

Here, in a small South Australian town, people are so friendly that when I first used to go into shops and people would be very friendly, earnest and open I used to wonder if they really cared how I was...it's like speaking to your Auntie they're SO bloody nice, it's hard for a Northern English girl to cope with!

As an Aussie just moved from London to a village in the SE UK I'm experiencing the exact opposite. I'm sure that people here think I'm a complete raving gushing smiling fruit loop.

@notsurethisiswhatiwant maybe I’ll startbusing that line!

using bloody autocorrect

@SeaToSki where are you in the States?

For me drunk driving is .

"I'm all set." Took me ages to figure out what it meant and really pissed me off.

When someone says hello and says 'how are you doing today?' in the same sentence. I still don't know if I'm meant to ask the same back. Being a Brit when they ask half the time I'd say 'oh I'm exhausted actually thanks for asking. Ds was up all night'. Would always be met with an awkward pause.

As pp said, drinks pours. The mixed drinks have SO much alcohol in. It's impossible to gauge how many units you've had so I won't even have one drink here if I'm driving. And if you know the bar or restaurant people and go there regularly you get double pours of wine!

Then not parking facing the wrong way. Makes me furious!

Turn right on a red light. I still just can't do it. People beep and get mad at me but I just can't!!

For the cars - obviously not everyone :) but a lot of people seem to care a lot more about the state of their cars here than in France. A lot of high executives in France are driving old bangers (not all of course) whereas here there seems to be a lot of pressure to show the right car. Even in rather poor areas the cars are v recent (car finance helping a lot I guess, and actually the prevalence of credit/being being in debt was also surprising here).

The MOTs here (inspections). They are woefully lacking and lots of places will pass your car even if it's falling apart.

That you dont have to have an MOT if your car is over a certain age. That's fucking insane to me. It's more likely to be dangerous!!!!

Brit in the USA.

I was surprised at how overtly religious (Christian) this country is compared to Europe and people are much more verbal about it here.

The Liptons teabag nightmare! Liptons is still the default brand of tea on offer in many casual restaurants/on airplanes/business hotels etc... It's horrifically terrible stuff, fortunately decent coffee is always on hand.

Very friendly people who will happily start chatting with you while you're waiting in a queue. The downside of that is getting grilled about every last detail of my life by complete strangers when they hear my accent.

If someone says, as a greeting just the one word, "alright", then you can respond with "alright" or "hello". If they say "are you alright" then your response should/could be "yes, fine thank you, and you?" Oh, that's good! I've been getting it right. I'm used to getting things wrong.

I went to Texas once and we went to Pottery Barn and the cafe in the Mall and restaurants and bars, and I thought I would be annoyed with the " have a nice day" tweeness that I was expecting. In fact my whole experience was of genuinely lovely people who cared about giving good service and who were REALLY interested by my English accent and wanted to know how I came to be there. They could all have been brilliant actors of course but I did not sense it. I went on to NY where no-one gave a shit :-)

Worked in Germany over 30 years ago. When I first arrived arrangements were made for me to stay with a local family while I found my feet. I was only 19, and on my arrival my hostess (a very kind middle aged woman who spoke no English) showed me my room and the bathroom. The bathroom was huge, with 2 big sinks, massive shower, bath tub, toilet and bidet. She informed me that there was no shame in her family (parents plus teenage kids) and that they all used the bathroom together in the morning....and that I was very welcome to join them!!! I was completely horrified, and got up before dawn the next morning to ensure I could have a shower without sharing the bathroom with a naked German family. Of course, as I got to know Germany better I began to understand that they like to get naked in parks, on tennis courts etc. Still friends with the lovely family, we have learnt a lot about each other's cultures over the years and sometimes have a chuckle over the dilemma they unwittingly made me face all those years ago!

Todamhottoday and bluebells1 I spent 18 months in India and totally recognise your experiences. It is a country I both loved and hated living in, in equal measures.

I will add to that...

• having to sign a permission slip for my maid to leave the complex while I was back in the UK for a visit (don't judge me for having a maid: it was the result of a bit of guilt and naivety that I ended up with one!!!)

• having to wear a swimming cap even if I kept my head above water. I recall having an hilarious argument with the pool guy that the other person in the pool had more back-hair in the pool than I did head-hair and no one was making HIM cover it up

• having to give my father's name on so many official documents, such as my lease agreement or for my gas connection. I eventually got to writing celebrity names to keep myself amused because there was no way it was ever going to matter.

• cows eating garbage from rubbish piles in the street

• the street dentist who laid out all his dentures on a blanket on the floor while his customers 'tried them out' to see if they would fit before buying them

• how everyone in the office was always, always up for a joke and a laugh and how keenly all the men would jump to the dance floor should the chance arise

• the man who hung my curtain rail with a drill with no plug, just the bare wires pushed into the socket on the wall