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.

Well seeing as I got mugged several times and once nearly killed me in the UK and I've never felt even slightly unsafe in the States....

And I'd hugely agree that having lived all over Britain and all over the States, Britain as a whole wears way more make up and much more badly applied.

Maybe you should have said pepper spray. You stated you come from the US, and mention carrying a weapon. Most of us are going to think guns, unfortunately.

Find this thread fascinating.

When I lived abroad the stand out thing was when driving people would sometimes quite literally stop their car to have a chat with a mate they had spotted. Just stop it. Right then and there to have a chat. Queue behind etc. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

And you not feeling a need to carry pepper spray has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel.

Actually, it really does.

Americans have a very ingrained culture, whereby they think everyone - including their own Government - is out to get them. See: the 2nd amendment.

On the other hand, most other countries don't feel the desperate need to arm themselves every time they leave the house. Because we don't think our fellow-countrymen are all out to hurt/maim/slaughter us.

It just doesn't occur to us.

Meant to say my expat experience was in a small place near the South of Spain.

Also Boston. Didn't live there permanently but was there for a fair time. Received some hostility when our British accents were noted which surprised me as, you know, the Boston tea party was a long time ago but when later I commented on my Irish ancestry got a far warmer reception (!).

Some decent Irish bars there though.

LucreziaBoredYa
Yup, that chatting to mates thing is hilarious. Usually one of those really narrow streets that's not really wide enough for a single car so not a chance of passing em!

Of course, has to be a narrow street.

When you're in a hurry and have to get to school and want to kill someone .

I'm not expat anymore but oh god so many - the smell of the country, norms, sunrise/sunset at the same time every day, missing old stone and church bells. It took me a few weeks to realise but then it struck me one day when I hestitated on a street corner waiting to cross the road that I couldn't hear a church chiming.

Earthquakes mosquitoes cockroaches typhoons.

Re not rinsing the dishes - a lot of folk I know do this - I think it’s horrible-puting dishes still dripping with washing up bubbles on the draining board

I know what you mean about make up in Uk - when I come back I am shocked by how much a lot of the teen to early thirties bracket wear these days. Almost like stage make up - and the amount of huge false eyelashes!!

Interesting about not moving out of the way for ambulances etc. in Korea and Hong Kong - that's something that IS done in Japan.

What car drivers DON'T do is automatically stop at pedestrian/zebra crossings, which is annoying. They also jump red lights, and are also very lax about child/baby carseats. You still see people driving with their kids bouncing around in the backseat, or even with a baby on their lap .
Again, it amazes me, because usually the Japanese are sooo law-abiding in many ways...

Oh and mums on bicycles with two seats attached - one kid in front, one on the back...and then a baby on mum's back!

Another thing that freaks out family and friends back home is the very matter-of-fact way we deal with earthquakes - usually they are only minor, but its such a way of life here, that we don't think very much about it.
Except for the major ones like 3.11.

Gennz18

You nee to get out of London.

Bugger is not a swear word in the north, and pants are trousers in some parts of the UK.

trust me there are cockroaches...

Not like there are in Oz. I can happily leave a loaf of bread on the worktop, I wouldn't i Oz.

I've moved to Britain and I find the national hard on for the NHS impossible to understand-do you just not understand how shockingly bad the service it provides is?

Well lets compare what you get in the UK without private insurance with what you would get in the US.

The NZ roof shout sounds a bit like the Richtfest in Germany - except that comes complete with the master builder dressed up in a fancy traditional outfit giving a rhyming* speech and a flowery wreath thing being hung up over the roof. Germans are very into building their own houses - basically you acquire property (if you do at all - no stigma attached to renting here, thank goodness) in one of two ways, inheriting or building, and then you tend to stay in that house for life. The British house-buying and -selling culture looks insanely stressful from here.

*The rhyming is a big one I haven't mentioned. All sorts of occasions are marked with awful rhymes. People write dreadful non-scanning doggerel for big birthdays and present it to the birthday person, who usually looks genuinely delighted, over Kaffee und Kuchen. Or stuff for children making an educational point is written in rhyme of the kind found in a 1960s UK public information film. It's almost as cringe as the clapping.

On the handshaking, we had a classmate of ds2's, who I'd met but hadn't had here before, over to work on a presentation this week and he very formally gave me his hand, which I wasn't anticipating at all. And he called me Sie, which I put a stop to straight away (except he then forgot). Can't be doing with excessive Sie-ing. Dc's friends are all first-name and 'du' terms with us, usually without it having to be explicitly established.
One thing I will never, ever, ever get used to is being referred to by someone as (my children's) 'Mutti'. It makes me feel about 70. It's traditional in this region (in the east of Germany generally), but I had thought the younger generation had moved over to Mama.

New Zealander who spent 5 years in the UK.

• So hard to find a good coffee.
• Having to specify not just your name but also your title on forms, being given a list of title options as long as your arm, and wondering every time if I should pick "Marquess" just for the hell of it
• Women's clothing stores having a "holiday shop" on their websites. Apparently holidays have their own dress code!
• Summer being an Occasion with a capital O. See above point on holiday shops. Ready to eat picnic food. Everyone suddenly wearing summer clothing the minute the sun even peeps out. Obsession with sun holidays.
• Clotted cream on scones. So delicious.
• Supermarkets closing early on Sunday's.
• Standing to one side on escalators. Wish we did that here.

I forgot another 'rhyming' thing. In Germany someone at some point supplied the Pink Panther cartoons with a rhyming voiceover commentary Quite a funny one, tbf.

“Apparently holidays have their own dress code!”

Well, yes... pretty much everywhere is warmer and/or drier than here (Scotland) most years here I can avoid being too hot by just not wearing my big jacket...I mean ok other parts of the UK do actually get sun and warmth, but still not so much as places that people tend to go on holiday to.

The holiday clothes sections aren’t because you’re off on a UK holiday, they’re for places that are hot.

Well lets compare what you get in the UK without private insurance with what you would get in the US.

why? lots of different systems around. like the i surance based one in germany which is highly regulated. it's mandatory so very very hard to not have cover. not perfect, but where is it perfect.

Yes I agree that it's hard to get good coffee in the UK. In NZ you can get great coffee just about anywhere.

The ease of buying and selling houses in NZ was so refreshing after the hell that was trying to sell our house in England. Why can't the law be changed around this? It's bonkers.

Also schools admissions. In England we were unable to choose the local school we wanted our DC to attend. Here in NZ, we visited a few schools, chose the one we liked best and enrolled the kids. Job done.

Cafes don't seem to be a thing in the UK. Here, chain cafes have been historically unsuccessful (Starbucks failed), but independent cafes are every third shop.

I noticed the make up more in America. Maybe were just noticing a different make up. In Texas and in other areas it seemed everyone was very made up.

A professional culture where women were expected to be in tights, heels, make up - but I'm v aware America is a large place and it could just be what I encountered!

Church flyers, estate agent flyers etc all had women who to me were very made up. I assumed culture difference!
I don't wear make up at all in England and never felt the need to. My friends tend to be natural."

I'd love for building houses to be more common here - that sounds brilliant. If you stay in a house for life tho ugh don't people move for work? Or do you tend to find a job near home and stay in it for life?

Ah, yes, chains!

I was really struck by that when I arrived in the UK.

Seemingly all high street cafes, bars, pubs and restaurants are part of a chain.

Quirky, interesting, independent cafes and restaurants seemed to be really hard to come by.

The only people who go to Starbucks here are tourists - blissfully unaware that they can get their hands on infinitely better coffee anywhere else but there.

From Scandinavia, in the UK:

• going to a birthday party/wedding and having to pay for your own drinks and/or food: unthinkable in my culture
• kissing on cheeks when meeting people: I feel very uncomfortable with this, a massive invasion of my personal space.
• small talk and general chattiness: people being super friendly and talkative with colleagues etc., then once someone is out of sight a Brit would roll their eyes and start moaning about the person they just had a friendly conversation with. If you dislike someone then why pretend and have a friendly chat with them? Just ignore them
• make-up: cakey faces and spider-leg eyelashes are really scary.
• I think the card-sending tradition is lovely and Brits are probably the most polite pedestrians in Europe.

- kissing on cheeks when meeting people:

Are you sure you were/are in the UK, or do people assume you're from "Europe" and think you want the kiss greeting?