How bout positive cultural observation?

Living in Japan, I never locked my bike once and only locked my apartment if on week-long trips or something like that.

My bike was only ‘stolen’ once and it was returned that day with a note from my salaryman neighbor who needed it cause his car broke down.

He knew I could walk to work so it wasn’t a big deal and he left a six-pack on my porch that evening.

In many Southeast Asian countries, getting caught trying to scam someone doesn’t have too much a level of shame, it is just throw hands up and “oh, nice try, we’re still good”.

For example, you arrive in Hanoi and tell the taxi driver to take you to your hotel. He drives you while talking on the phone, you arrive somewhere that isn’t your hotel, and some nice guy who speaks some English comes out to explain that your hotel burned down last week, stay here instead.

If you refuse to pay the driver until he takes you to see your burned down hotel, everyone shrugs and laughs, then you get dropped off at your perfectly intact hotel that didn’t burn down after all, pay the cab, and all is good.

No hard feelings.

The copious amounts of sarcasm in Australia. American visitors here believe EVERYTHING Australians say because they say it with a straight face.

“Oh yeah, it was the 1938 winter Olympics I think… Yeah, they used white paint on plywood because there was no snow, and HD TV hadn’t been invented yet”.

I lived in Japan for a while. One of the less obvious cultural differences was when going to other people’s houses, they would leave out slippers to wear.

I have size 9 (US 11) feet, and they’d leave these dainty women’s slippers out for me. I would explain I was fine to just walk around in socks as they didn’t have slippers, but since this was rude, they would end up raiding their slipper supply to try and find a pair that fit just for me.

Every time.

That’s all good and well when you’re traveling here for a couple days. But man, it is so frustrating to get anything done.

I’ve been living here for over 4 months now and still don’t have my residency card, which means that every time I want to leave the country I have to go through 892734897 bureaucratic processes to get a permit to leave and come back, only for them to not ask for it at the border because they couldn’t care less.

Garbage trucks played “Für Elise” as they rode around, and it sounded like ice cream truck music when I was in Taiwan. I sort of miss hearing it in the distance.

Witnessing different funeral customs in India and Nepal …..what struck me is that death is so much more hidden away in North America.

In the south of India, a funeral procession came down the street carrying the body of a young woman tied to a big pink comfy-looking armchair hung with marigolds.

In the north of India, I saw open funeral pyres along the riverside ghats, and even saw bodies that had been placed in the Ganges floating by.

In Nepal I was invited to a funeral and watched as they built a wooden pyre beforehand. While my Nepali friends and I watched, they told me that it was considered good luck to see a body coming to a funeral.

It was just so out in the open. It was culture shock for me, but I liked that nobody was expected to hold back their tears or hide their grief discreetly away.

In fact, my friend says that even if you are not fond of the person who died, you should try to show some tears anyway out of respect.

Taught English in Mexico for a year.

I was shocked at how friendly and inviting everyone is and how simple life can be. Life is not easy for most folks but they make it work.

Their life hacks are crazy and the pace of life is great. I had a hard time when I got back to the States and had to adjust to speeding cars, 5 lane freeways and the feeling of always being in a rush.

When kids in Greece lose their teeth, they throw the teeth off a roof instead of leaving them for the tooth fairy.

In Brazil when entering a home they ask if you want to take a shower.

In Spain during the afternoon they close shops for 2 hours to have a break from work.

My favorite: In Italy they use a form of communication where they will call someone, let it ring once, and then hang up.

Usually the person they are calling knows what’s up and can tell what was the purpose of the phone call without even having to pick it up.

I’ve been living in Korea for five years. When I got here, I’d already done a fair amount of traveling, so I didn’t really expect much in the way of culture shock.

I was fine with the food and language and manners, so nothing really phased me.

Like three months into my first year, I was driving around with a Korean friend when he put on some music.

It was Pit Bull. We started talking about hip hop and what each of us liked. I mentioned Kanye. I’ll never forget what my Korean friend said.

“Kanye? Who’s that”?

That was the biggest, mind blowing thing that has happened to me in the entire five years I’ve been here.

Someone that was a proclaimed hip hop fan had never heard of Kanye West.

I just remember thinking, “What country am I in right now”?

Balinese funerals and how they celebrate death. I was sitting on the beach on my first day there and heard a crowd coming, carrying food and playing festive music.

I thought it was some kind of party or wedding until I realized they were carrying a corpse.

wel4real

Singapore still whips people with canes as punishment for crimes! And apparently people pass out from the pain.

DesertRebel

In Umbria, part of Italy, for hundreds of years they have refused to put salt in their bread because of a salt tax imposed when the Pope was fighting the Holy Roman Emperor.

They got so used to it, they never changed it, but I assure you, Italian bread tastes better with salt.

wjbc

When I went to Bangladesh with my girlfriend last year, we went to the city her father grew up in before he came to the States.

I remember at one point we walked past a station where we saw people climbing on the roof of a train due to the crowding.

It was quite an eye opener. After seeing that, I have never complained about riding the subway again.

[deleted]

Despite my parents being Argentinean, we eat dinner at around 7 or 8 p.

m. You should have seen my face when I went to visit family and found out it’s the norm to eat dinner there around 10 or 11 p.

m. Make sure you have a late lunch!

Radioactive-Sloth

I was chatting with a girl from London recently, and when she asked if I had visited the Grand Canyon before, I said I haven’t despite it being just a six hour drive. I believe her response was something along the lines of:

“Only six hours? If I drive for six hours I will be all the way in Spain”!

RIPGeorgeHarrison

You won’t believe how clean the bathrooms are in Germany.

I’ve frequently visited for business reasons, and I’ve hit up the rest of Europe too, but Germany takes the cake in terms of cleanliness in the bathrooms.

Every stay, I found my bathroom to be absolutely spotless. I found their bathrooms to be cleaner than the rooms.

AdClemson

We were traveling north in the Omo Valley region in Ethiopia, so we caught an already quite full bus with few spaces available.

I managed to accommodate half myself in a seat and a Norwegian friend sat above the tire. We were bumping along fairly nicely when suddenly a local guy wearing only a loincloth and holding a long stick came aboard.

All the seats were taken, so he stood next to my Norwegian friend.

We kind of expected something like this since this area is rural.

After a few miles, the driver stopped, cramped more people and 3 goats, two in the roof and one behind the last row of seats. We definitely did not expect this.

It was an incredibly funny, uncomfortable and surreal situation with my friend trying not to bump into the tribesman on every bump and the goats screaming like they were getting slaughtered… good old traveling times.

yo5hi

In Jordan, and I’m sure in most Arab countries, if you compliment something, it’s considered impolite for the person not to offer it to you.

I thought the warnings were an exaggeration until my friend complimented a waiter’s watch and the waiter had it literally unlatched, trying to push it into my friend’s hands.

Four is the appropriate amount of times to say no, and if you actually do want it, it’s rude to say yes after fewer than three.

[deleted]

In the Philippines, a dude with a shotgun held the door open for me and called me sir… at a convenience store in Quezon City.

That was new.

_fups_

I was deployed for two years to Afghanistan, and Kuwait. Due to my job, I was out in the local community, a lot.

I ate, worked, and interacted with a lot of locals. About the only things I did on base were to sleep and workout. In AFG, we wore issued PT uniforms at the gym, and when I was in Kuwait, you could wear gym shorts and a T-shirt, provided they weren’t skin tight and hit your knees.

When I moved BACK to the U.

S., I was crashing at my friend’s house, and got a day pass to the gym across the street. I was on the treadmill for ten mins or so and a woman walked in front of me, wearing a pair of spandex shorts and one of those scrappy halter tops popular for spin or exercise classes.

My first thought was “I can’t believe she’s wearing that in public! What a loose woman”.

That shocked me. I’m female, and consider myself a feminist. Even without living in the culture, I had totally picked up the judgement and social mores of the countries I had lived in.

I was shocked at being able to purchase a giant waffle the size of my head in the Netherlands. The internet tells you there are no large food portions outside the U.

S., but it’s not true.

neocommenter

Visiting China, it’s kind of jarring to see how aggressive and pushy people are.

Makes sense, since there are a billion people; if you are polite and wait your turn, you’ll be left behind. So everybody is pushy, cuts in line, shoving you out of the way, etc.

Of course, I just had come from Japan where it’s the total opposite…

cassiebt

In Spain, there’s no chitchat from the waiter. None of that “I’ll be serving you today” stuff that we hear in the U.

S. Just “Tell me what you want”. My introvert self loved it. I tell you, food arrives, I eat. Glorious.

whatawonderfulword

In Croatia, it’s a standard expectation that you’ll clean the street outside your house as part of cleaning your house (at least in the small towns I was in — not sure about the cities).

They have the cleanest streets I’ve ever seen and a real sense of communal civic pride.

Ech1n0idea

In the Netherlands, it’s pretty common for ground floor apartments to have huge unobscured windows looking into the living room, open for all to see, even in busy neighborhoods.

Inside you’ll see an immaculate IKEA-catalogue living room. Any people inside will just be doing things in their living room, unfazed by onlookers. I feel bad for looking in whilst passing, but I can’t look away.

[deleted]

23. Pizza Eating Etiquette

In Argentina, every slice of pizza, either purchased by itself or as a whole pie, is topped with a single, whole green olive right near the crust.

People consume said pizza, as well as French fries, with a knife and fork. It is incredibly uncouth to use your hands.

[deleted]

22. Family Friendly Sauna

I did the sauna thing when I was in Helsinki, with a local guide taking me to one.

It was weird just taking my clothes off and sitting there in a very hot room with other men. Especially when they tried to strike up a conversation with you, they feel they are going to the pub.

He told me that private family/friends saunas are not gender segregated so people hang out with their friends and family. For British people, this just wouldn’t happen!

[deleted]

21. Drinking While Driving

People riding bicycles in Finland when everything was completely frozen (it was February).

I asked a dude about it and he just said, “Yeah, it’s pretty dangerous. When I leave in the morning I’m almost certain I’ll fall but it’s faster than walking to school.

Your whole face freezes though”. It just seems like there are more cons than pros to it.

Asworengash

19. Sharing Food

I lived in Korea for a few years and one small cultural difference that takes getting used to is sharing food.

Most restaurants serve food family style so you’re all sharing plates/bowls/etc (Except for your rice)… Getting used to sharing plates is pretty easy as you’re picking food off with your chopsticks and don’t really touch the other food but to me sharing soup took a little longer.

Oax_Mike

Once I was at a 7-11 in Korea, trying to decide between the things that I think were Oreos and the bag of what was probably Doritos.

As I was deep in thought, I heard something come up next to me and start making a ton of noise. I look over, and it is a dude on a scooter inside the 7-11, and he is frantically waving at me to get out of the way.

In shock, I take a step back to clear a path and he goes full throttle through the aisle and out the back door.

I looked over to the cashier and he had his nose buried in a newspaper and couldn’t be bothered by the whole thing.

I’ve always wondered if that is a normal occurrence there or if I was the victim of a crazy prank.

6Red

I am an American who traveled to Ireland last summer.

Everywhere you go, be it a pub, restaurant, or shop, people would ask one thing:

“Are you okay”?

This phrase really threw me off. At first, I was like, “Why, do I look ill”?

For example, if someone in the U.S. were to ask, “are you okay”? it would be to inquire about one’s well-being. If I were to answer, “yes,” that would imply that I am fine and content and they would leave me be.

Were I to answer “no,” they would follow up with “what’s wrong”?, as the implication is that I am somehow not okay, ill, unwell, or otherwise disagreeable.

But I guess it’s their way of greeting, along the lines of “how may I help you”? So I just started going along with answering “yes” and immediately just give them my order.

I’m still not entirely sure what the etiquette is/was, and some of my servers looked at me like I was a space alien when struggling to come up with a response.

They were super friendly though! I have yet to meet anyone who can match the hospitality and friendliness of the Irish.

cxtx3

Men holding hands in the Middle East.

Despite the extreme social taboo against homosexuality in most parts of the Middle East (it’s also usually a capital offense), men holding hands is a perfectly normal and acceptable sign of friendship, rather than the signifier of a romantic relationship that it would be in the West.

[deleted]

From Great Lakes region of the US to Germany, Hesse specifically.

Roads are small. Everyone is excellent drivers and follows the rules.

People keep to themselves, but are friendly in conversation.

Eating out takes 3 to 4 times longer than I’m used to.

Apartments are much more common, nobody has yards or lots of property.

Drinking culture is very different, less casual drinking and more deliberate getting messed up until 6am.

But that could be specific to my friends.

The Autobahn. Miss it every day.

The Doners. Miss them every day.

In South Africa, they call traffic lights “robots”.

“How can I get to the grocery store”?

“Just drive straight until the next robot, turn right, and you’ll be there now-now”.

Many of them say robot with special emphasis on the ‘r’… ‘rrrrobot’.

First time I heard it, was rather surreal.

ny_mathguy

In the country of Samoa, in the evening time around 7:00 in most villages, dozens of men go out to stand out in the road in front of their homes and blow on conches to mark the “sa,” or a quiet prayer time.

It is illegal to be anywhere walking in the village, to be loud, etc., for the length of the 5-10 minute sa.

cra**enheimers

11. Brazilian State Of Mind

I spent a year in Brazil, coming from Switzerland.

The biggest things were:

The general state of paranoia. Despite my city being one of the safest ones in Brazil, everyone was always scared. Not even of anything specific, just of a vague notion of potential crime.

Fenced off houses, forcing students (aged ~18) to stay in school until their parents get them, being afraid to take a taxi alone. Stuff like that.

Disrespect of rules and lack of organization. Not waiting for people to cross a road was the one that affected me the most, but some other things include terribly slow bureaucracy (I still don’t have my health insurance… it’s been years since I was back home) and schools that just don’t work.

The classes are too big – teachers have no control over the class. They’d had at least 5 years of English classes and couldn’t say a simple sentence.

I confronted the English teacher about what the heck she was even doing and she just defended herself that those who wanted to learn English could go to private classes.

Adarain

When I visited Vietnam for the first time to see my family there, we took a taxi from Ha Long to Hanoi. In the middle of the ride, we stopped at a restaurant, and I expected the driver to drive off, but instead, we had a cozy family meal with the taxi driver at the same table!

Apparently, some hotels in the south will even give the taxi driver a free room if your group stays the night. It was kind of nice but also bizarre, especially if you tried to imagine that happening in the west.

Vinc3ntPh4m

United States:

Drivers not using turn signals.

TVs at bars and restaurants everywhere, even upscale places.

People with full-time jobs getting like 10 days off a year.

A majority of people eating out for lunch every day.

Apparently, it was common knowledge you should not rely on the bus to get anywhere, plus only very poor and homeless seem to ride it.

wasneusbeer

8. Friendly Beep

I went to American Samoa on a research trip and I was absolutely blown away by the kindness and warmth of the locals.

Basically, every car had a separate little horn, more of a chirp really, that they would use to get people’s attention on the sidewalk just so they could smile and wave.

Everyone just really wanted to interact and be kind to everyone else. Coming back to the US everyone looked at me like a freak when I would wave and smile to random strangers for the next week.

Phineus_rage

In a tuk-tuk on a highway in Cambodia. The tuk-tuk driver was crazy! He flew into the back of a moped with four people on it.

A girl of about 12 fell off the back, the moped stopped. Without giving it a second thought, the tuk-tuk driver kept driving (was actually waved on by traffic police).

The 12-year-old girl dusted herself off, hopped back on to the moped and they continued on their way. Absolutely crazy!

gdoyle90

Japan: The lack of public trash cans.

I come from Denmark, and there is a trash can at every bus stop, every street corner, everywhere. You rarely have to carry something around for more than a few minutes at most.

But in Japan, I found less than 3 public trash cans during the months I was staying there. The Japanese people are just like, “Oh … yeah, just put it in your bag or in your trash when you come home”.

And oh my God, the fake bird noises being played by speakers hiding in bushes and trees everywhere. I only really experienced this in Kyoto and nearby places, but all over Japan, there is some kind of tweeting/chirping sound coming from the pedestrian crossings.

Maybe to aid blind people?

People vacuuming the outside areas of train stations. Yes, it really is that clean some places.

[deleted]

I went to the cinema in Japan to see a Harry Potter film (in English with Japanese subtitles).

The film was good, I guess the humor didn’t translate well into Japanese which is fine, but at times I was the only person laughing in an every-seat-filled cinema.

Anyway, that wasn’t the weird thing. When the film finished and the credits rolled, no one moved. I started packing up my things and realized I was the only person in a room of at least 100 people making a move to leave.

So I sat down again.

I realized they were sitting and attentively watching the credits. All 5 minutes of them. Then, after they ended, everyone politely and quietly collected their things in a hushed silence.

I was flabbergasted – in the UK everyone stands up as soon as the end credits start!

umpteen

A clown at a baby shower. Living in Peru, I got invited to a friend’s baby shower (that’s a weird enough thing for me).

I arrived and there was a clown running around the room making everyone dress up like babies and doing weird things. I absolutely hate clowns, hardly spoke the language and I was the only foreigner.

Needless to say that when I left I spent the rest of the night in the pub!

WatchHimAsHeGoes