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.

Indicating a lane change here means "I AM COMING OVER NOW!" and not "may I come over please?".

It's.... terrifying.

As a trailing spouse in East Africa.

Never being called by my first name by DH's local colleagues. I was addressed as Mama Husband's first name. So eg, Mama John, Mama David. It was a sign of respect but not just reserved for expats. I did rail against it for a while but then one day I found myself referring to myself as Mama John. When in Rome ...

Also realising that you have to ask the right question. In the UK if you ring someone at their work and someone else answers the phone, you may say 'oh is John there?' and you’ll get transferred to John.

I rang DH at work one day and the secretary answered, when I asked if Mr John was there, she replied that yes he was, said good bye and hung up😀.

Most conversations started with a long list of How Is? Ah Mama John, how are you? And how is the house? How is the garden? Is it windy there? And how is the kitchen? And the Swahili? What can you say in Swahili now?

And then to top it off I’d be asked how come Mama John was so skinny and I should be fat! Mr John was lovely and fat and I need to eat more so that I can be as fat as Mr John. And I don’t look well as I was not fat. 😀

The coloured plastic eggs on the bushes in people's gardens from weeks before Easter.

I bought a set of these when we lived in Leipzig and brought them back to the UK with me. I put them in our magnolia tree the week before Easter and the little boy from next door thought they’d grown overnight!

Used to live in Spain and now spend half my time there.

Double cheek kissing for everyone you meet/say goodbye to, including men to men
Friendliness of neighbours. Never turn down an offer of home produced wine/olive oil/oranges/flowers etc or it will be classed as an insult especially if you say you have plenty already because another neighbour gave you some.
Neighbours asking personal questions - how much was this house? How much do you earn?
Shops closing in the afternoon -still drives me mad. Especially when you have gone on a day trip somewhere and have to prioritise visiting the shops there before having a coffee or lunch as they will be closing in an hour!
Saying hello to everyone as you enter a doctors waiting room and asking who you'll be behind so you don't queue jump
Drinking and driving, likewise no seat belts or indicating. Often have a baby on their lap while actually driving around small towns, even on motorbikes
School having a "if you want to learn we'll teach you and if you don't we don't care" attitude. Being kept back and repeating the year if you didn't pass your end of year exams.
No after school clubs or activities
Children out until all hours and knowing they're safe
All menus WILL contain dishes based on about half a dozen key ingredients
The plethora of Fiestas and public holidays, all of them celebrate with gusto!

Also the East Germans were crazy with fireworks. DH and I were out on New Year’s Eve and someone threw a firework at him for a laugh. It went up the sleeve of his coat! How we laughed

Thailand - general stupidity.

Singapore - Racism

Philippines - nosiness / not being worried about asking questions British people would.

China - looking out for #1 at all costs.

Doctors waiting rooms in Spain are awesome
When you arrive you simply establish who the last person to arrive was and then you know you go in after them, the Receptionist doesn’t get involved at all.
Mind you, it’s all largely unnecessary because by the time you go in everyone will have asked lots of personal questions ( thankfully I was in paediatrics so questions not about me) and will tell the Doctor what the problem and cure is anyway

I've lived/worked in a few counties over the last decade:

South Africa:

• learning what "now now" meant as in "I'll do it now now" ... it basically means I'll do it soon as opposed to "I'll do it now" which is more likely to be never!
• taking enough alcohol to parties/meals etc so that you don't have to drink any of the host's stash (although this might be my OH's family's weird thing!)

Switzerland

• having to make eye contact when you cheers your drink (again, this could be my weird inlaws?)

India

• the inability of anyone to say they weren't going to do something ... instead they say yes whilst shaking their head so you never knew if they were saying yes or not!
• being very set in their roles at work e.g. only the person employed to make tea makes tea (you can't make your own or offer to make someone else as that could be seen to threaten their role ... and when you are in such a huge population they want to protect their employment)

Dubai

• how men are addressed for everything first
• no queuing etiquette whatsoever!
• how fabulously dressed and made up all the Arabic women were under their abaya's!

To the poster who said in Ireland you are supposed to refuse a drink 3 times before you say yes, this is fascinating! Why is it considered rude to say yes first time (for future reference if it comes up!)

Because it’s perceived as rude to put someone to the bother of making you a cup of tea, even though they’ve offered it!
I don’t get it myself.

If I’m offered and want it, I say “I’d love a cup, if you’re having one”. If I don’t want one, I say “I’m fine thanks- I’ve just had a cup before I arrived” and that usually puts a stop to it. It’s like a very intricate dance

If I have a visitor and the visit is dragging on, I find asking them if they’d like another cup of tea a great way of making them get a move on!

Would you like another cup of tea?
Oh no, I’m grand.
Are you sure?
Yeah, sure I’m going soon anyway so wouldn’t get to drink it.

Italian in uk:
Cards for everything
People queuing at the bus stop with no one daring to seat on bus stop seats
Not rinsing dishes (bleurgh)
Asking how r u or alright when passing each other in the street without even stopping for answer
How once you have kids you can't possibly live in flat
Strong focus on social classes
How everything "great british" is supposedly better
How kids are followed in their every step even in playground
15 years old referred to as children
25 degrees Celsius is a heatwave
How hard is it to strike conversation ( e.g. at the park u ask how olds your baby and person just answer , no asking back and no try on continuing the conversation)
Constant greyness
How kids HAVE to be in bed by 7.30 or you r a bad parent
Starting school at 4
GPS are useless
Very little thinking "out of the box"
Carpet in toilets !
Love of processed food

Another one is - when hiking or walking, having so much equipment. I was used to a hat, sunscreen and a bottle of water.

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.

We Brits know that, which is why we carry a rucksack with a jumper or fleece, a set of waterproofs and a flask of something hot to drink. That in turn means it's likely to get really hot, so we have to take a hat, a bottle of water and sunscreen as well.

It's one of the curses of living somewhere with an unpredictable climate.

People queuing at the bus stop with no one daring to seat on bus stop seats

I found it the other way around.
I went from a city (Lisbon) where everyone queued religiously for buses and god forbid anyone would step in front, to London where queuing was much more relaxed.
These days people in Lisbon are more relaxed as well.

Londoner in The Netherlands

Mayonnaise on chips.
Cinnamon being the only spice and it being in everything sweet.
Buttermilk (Karnemelk) not used for cooking but for drinking.
Washing machines in bathrooms.
Tiled living room floors.
Horizontal blinds in residential properties.
Stating the bloody obvious on home makeover television programmes, homeowners will show you their living or eating areas and then they will go on to describe the things they eat and in do these spaces.

Crates of beer being sold in supermarkets.
The ubiquitousness of whipped cream, cinnamon, fruit teas, deep fat fryers.

Fireworks for personal use, big organised displays are more common than before but are still a rarity.

Londoner in Caribbean

Nobody is EVER on time. Caribbean time is a real thing. Went to a birthday party for a kid that started at 3pm. The birthday child didn't turn up until sometime after 4pm.

Also there is no Sunday trading here and off licenses used to close around 7pm. After about 5 years of living here this increased to 10pm. Stores are closed Sundays and come Good Friday all shops will be shut and even restaurants aren't allowed to serve alcohol, it's against the law.

Daughter of Aussie now in UK.

My mum said when she came to Britain (early 1970's), she wanted Durex and thongs.

She said she was when she realised Durex were condoms (it was a brand of sellotape in Oz) and thongs are/were flip flops

Canada - lane changing or emerging in traffic causes problems. In the UK people let you in and it's normal to move across traffic. In Canada generally it's just different here they don't seem to like it. You can literally sit in a lane waiting to move across with traffic whizzing by and you have to wait for 20+ cars to all go pass and wait till it's clear and then you can move across. So I'm just not use to it. Or quickly nipping in and out of traffic too is often frowned upon, even though it's normal to me. It's just different. Roads are bigger in Canada and people just go about their own business and I think it doesn't include thinking about road sharing. Life is easier in Canada, so driving in a hurry and shifting lanes isn't in the agenda and it doesn't happen much, everyone just knows where they are going and take their time I suppose.
Cream in tea and coffee. I'm used to it now and really like it.

I am English and lived in Scotland for several years. The funniest exchange is when a friend asked if I wanted a piece of cheese. I like cheese though it was odd to be offered a piece of cheese. I accepted the offer.
Friend then gives me a cheese sandwich.
I say oh! It’s a cheese sandwich. She replies “aye it’s a piece of cheese”
I finally work out that a piece is Scottish for sandwich

I also lived and worked in Hong Kong, I once phoned someone, his secreatary answered and when I asked to speak to him she replied: “he’s not here he’s gone for shit”.

I'm Irish living in the US.

People turning up on time for events. Like you invite people for dinner at 7 and they show up at 7 on the dot, not 7.30.

Eating dinner so early. Most people seem to have it at 6 at the latest. We eat at 7 or 8 and our kids' friends think we are weird

Not parking on the wrong side of the street

How sweet so much of the food was

Decorating for various holidays (think this may be from the German influence based on this thread). People decorate graves for the holidays too.

Eating in the street/on public transportation. This was absolutely shocking to me 20 years ago when I arrived. Now it is exactly the same in Ireland.

Once had a very bonding experience with a colleague from Taiwan about how weird it was if you said "ah no I wouldn't put you to the trouble" to the offer of a cup of tea, it might't be offered again.

When I arrived every american who had ever spent time in Ireland staying in a family home had only one question for me --- why did we not rinse the dishes after washing them? :)

Kiwi (obvs) in UK.

• children starting school in one block, not on their 5th birthday (or new term if their birthday was in the holidays).
• children starting school at 4.
• school starting in September, not the actual beginning of the year.
• school catchment areas.

Seems I find UK schools weird.

Also:

• the obsession with class, and how MC people are faintly embarrassed of being so.
• agree with PPs on the words "pants" and "alright". DH pretends to be confused when I talk about which pants the children will wear today.
• people crying over sport.
• the tiny, narrow, terrifying, crowded roads. Took me 10 years to be brave enough to get my UK driving licence.
• not having to sell your first-born child to afford dental treatment.

Brit who lived in Bavaria for a while.
Gruß Gott!
Nudity. In Bavaria, getting naked in public either outdoors in summer or at the Therme (spa) is considered perfectly normal, unremarkable social behaviour.
Lederhosen and dirndl. People of all ages really do wear this stuff. It isn’t just in touristy beerhalls in Munich or during Oktoberfest.

I also lived in the southern US for a while.
In Britain, most people either aren’t religious or pay lip service to religion. It’s somewhat different in Georgia. Religion is ubiquitous, is taken very, very seriously and is a huge part of almost everyone’s life. Nice, well-meaning people would invite me to attend their church with them, and trying to politely explain that you are not religious without offending them was tricky.

OneDayIWillHaveAGreatUsername I have a set of those plastic eggs Never been invited to a bastel afternoon thank Christ, but I could've entered bakeoff with the number of cakes I've been required to produce since the kids started kindergarten...
I feel your pain regarding the tea. The only place in our town where you can get a decent cup of tea is at the McDonald's because it's almost exclusively staffed by Afghan and Syrian refugees, who all know how to make a decent strong cup of tea

You have Swiss in-laws? I have Swiss in-laws! I like the three kisses on the cheek thing, and also the fact that they look at me funny if I use the German word for anything that they use the French word for (trottoir, sanitaire, velo) and also the insistence that there is a massive gulf of difference between south German dialects and Swiss German.

Curlyshabtree I'm Scottish and a piece is indeed a sandwich but in my case, if you asked me for a piece of cheese I'd have given you exactly that, some cheese, but a piece and cheese would get you a cheese sandwich.

I find it strange that people go to a new country and see one thing done one way and assume that everyone in the country does it that way!

I've worked in England for 20 years in at least 5 different organisations and never once been part of a tea round.

Lived in the midwest for a while and don't recall anything that everyone did over there that nobody in the UK would do, except perhaps enjoy root beer floats!