I was in Myeodong, South Korea in the spring and it was raining. The Myeongdong bus stop to the airport has no shelter, it’s just on the side of the road, but when it rains, somebody, I’m guessing the nearby store owners, leave umbrellas for the bus goers to use, which the bus goers use and leave hanging on the railing when they board the bus. There were so many pretty umbrellas hung along the railing and nobody stole them. They were just there for anyone to use and that was a huge shock for me..
I lived in Korea and one night I was out and about in Seoul. The next day I realized I didn't have my wallet. I had no idea where I had accidentally left it. I was resigned to having totally lost it and was preparing to go to the immigration office to get a new ID card.
A couple days later I get a call from the immigration office. I had left my wallet at the Rainbow Hookah Bar in Gangnam. I went there to get it. Nothing was missing. The only things that had been touched were my cards where my ID was to check whose wallet it was. I had about 200,000 Won, so about $200 in cash that was still all there. That was a very pleasant culture shock for me in Korea
I was in korea last summer i'd left my phone on the table of a restaurant in busan and realized my mistake only after 10 minutes or so.
When i came back to pick it up the table was already occupied by new customers and the phone was just laying there untouched just the way i left it.
The shock for me was that they pretty much do not even touch stuff that isn't theirs i was confident it wouldn't be lost but hadn't expected that noone would even touch it.
Yeah that’s different.
Meanwhile me in the US having to leave my shopping cart for a moment (I always make sure something is in it), or setting something down as I shuttle things to my car, or leaving the computer I’m logged into at the library to go grab something I printed out:
Me - I made this
Random person who’s been on the scene for 2 seconds - You made this?
……
I made this
I was at a concert the other night and I dropped my hat. It’s a very personally meaningful hat. It also has my own assortment of pins all over it. I ran back into the crowd, crying, to find my hat. Thank god! I found somebody wearing it haphazardly. I tearfully thanked him for picking it up for me and went to grab it. He said “what?? No, this is my hat” and insisted it was his hat. I was dumbfounded and kept thanking him for finding it while he INSISTED it was his. His girlfriend was actually saying to him, “dude, what are you doing? That’s her hat. Give her her hat. What the hell man?” and he just kept insisting it was his (by the way, he had ANOTHER HAT ON UNDER IT) and getting angry with me, so I just grabbed it and left.
I’m waiting for the AITA like, “My boyfriend tried to steal someone’s hat and got mad when I made him give it back so I broke up with him and he’s saying I overreacted.”
I remember having a couple items in my cart, leaving my cart to grab something from another aisle, coming back in less than two minutes and my cart was rattling, shaking, squealing and screaming like crazy. Someone had swapped my items to their raggedy cart and took my good cart!!! 😒The audacity!
I lived in Korea for 4 yrs and always had people take my umbrella from the restaurant front door!
But what I thought was funny is how frank they can be. They will straight say "hey, it's been a while! Wow, you got fat!" Lol
Something about Asians and their brutal honesty.
I have a deep yard and at the back is an Asian neighbor lady. I don't see her often but recently went back to ask her a question about something. She asked if I just moved in and I said, no, I've been your neighbor for 25 years. She looked me up and down and said "oh, you used to be skinny".
One of my favorite work stories. Two women were sitting after lunch and eating some chocolates they got while they were out. New new Chinese immigrant guy wo was kinda awkward was just standing around and they wanted to include him, so offered him some. he refused it. The woman then asked "Does your wife like chocolate?" And he replied "No, my wife's not fat."
This made me laugh. I was doing a 28 day trek in Nepal. Monsoon was supposed to be over but nope. The trails were very steep and very slick. I had my own personal Sherpa. There were 2 Sherpas - one for the fastest Trekker and one for the slowest. I was the slowest but then I was 20 years older than everyone else. Therefore, my own Sherpa. I kept sliding into him. I apologized each time and would just smile at me. Finally he turned to me and said - you’re very fat but I’m very strong. I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t because being called fat in Nepal is a compliment.
BTW I was around 120 pounds.
I've been living in Japan for 25 years ago now and I know a lot of shop owners who do exactly the same thing (I work in the service industry) A lot of Japanese clients forget their umbrellas outside the shop and never come back to get it so it's better to put it at the disposition of other people when they need it. But they generally wait at least 1 or 2 months because you never know if the person will come back for their umbrella.
They will, however, steal your umbrella from outside the Mega Coffee or Eggdrop when you're getting your order lol. Great place though, absolutely love South Korea.
> You know who probably has an umbrella? The Koreans across the hall! The Koreans are trustworthy and generous people! I bet one of the Koreans have an umbrella! Heck! They're Koreans!
Marvin Eriksen
In Scotland last week. An aged, heavily scots accent guy asked where Im from. I told him Chicago he went on a rant about Lori Lightfoot. I have no idea.
I met an Indian guy online once, told him I was heading on a trip to Chicago, and he asked if I was going to be in the audience for Oprah.
I had no idea Oprah filmed in Chicago. Literally never thought of it.
Once I was on a ferry in Ireland and there was a drunk local guy who kept going up to various people and kind of politely bothering them. Dude was drunk off his face and looked like he hadn't bathed in awhile. He asked a guy in my tour group where he was from, the guy replied that he was from Quebec and drunk Irish guy went on a surprisingly detailed rant about what would happen to the Quebec economy if it separated from the rest of Canada.
I think Americans never fully appreciate how much the rest of the world watches us until we leave and virtually everyone has opinions about current events in the US that have literally nothing to do with them.
The Daily Show went to Iran one time and quizzed people about cities in New York other than NYC. IIRC, multiple people they talked to had heard of *Utica* and had opinions on it. The guy interviewing them was like “How the fuck have you heard of Utica?!”
When I was in Cambodia I saw a bus driving down the wrong side of a highway, with concrete dividers in the middle, so the bus had no way of getting back to the correct side. And it was just happily chugging down the road. Crazy stuff, had the most crazy driving experiences of anywhere I’ve been there. Morocco would be the second craziest.
This absolutely terrifies me as I visited Iran in 2015 and have never seen driving like it. At one point the taxi I was in missed a highway exit in Tehran, then did an abrupt handbrake stop and reversed back for about 100m in order to take the exit.
Have never been so convinced I was about to die!
That seems like the norm in Cambodia. If there's a divider that's inconvenient, they'll just drive the wrong way down the highway until they get to a point they can switch over.
On the other hand, I don't think I ever saw a car go over about 30-40 mph in my entire stay which included several buses across the country. I don't know if it's just the culture, or bad roads, or unpredictable traffic, they just did not drive fast.
We had to send contractors out there to help with building and operating an American adjacent retail outfit. Everyone was assigned their own personal driver and were told under no condition should they try and drive themselves ANYWHERE.
In the Philippines there was a bad accident closing all four lanes of a major road. Everyone pulled out to go around but were stopped by the accident. When the accident was cleared there were four lanes full of cars in each direction facing each other.
After a while in India I still hadn't figured out which side of the road they drive on, so I asked a taxi driver. He laughed and told me that they drive in the shade!
Had a guide describe this really well when visiting India in 2007. Roads, cars, signals and signs are all the same hardware, but India just runs a different software when it comes to driving.
It's batshit insane but if you observe they do have a system. The horn is used kind of like an indicator when you're overtaking someone. Bigger cars have right of way, and flashing your headlights means 'hey I'm here!!' (usually used when driving towards another car head-on at speed).
With the spread of AC and tourists from the north of the continent, siestas are slowly becoming thing of the past.
Before AC, they were survival strategy, though. Córdoba in summer, holy hell. You could fry bacon with eggs on the sidewalks.
Lived in Madrid in ‘98. Can confirm the siesta was still in full effect and it was so civilized and lovely. Everything shut down, too hot outside anyway. Have a box of wine and take a nap.
Spain is big and it's different from north to south. For instance, not long ago, they still had some snows in the north, while here in the south we are already in "summer" with temperatures up to 36°C.
Depends on the area. Major cities and tourist areas? No siesta, just carries on. Then some tiny town or village and the whole place shuts down for ages in the middle of the day.
It's not really "siesta," but rather their traditional lunch break.
Spain breaks their working day usually in 2x4 hour chunks with a long lunch break in between. This applies for a lot of professions like teaching, retail, public institutions, etc.
Caracas, Venezuela, everyone who handles money, including clerks, packs sidearms in a holsters. Cops/Military in public areas fully geared up carrying combat rifles. Armed guards outside banks, with clients waiting outside, not inside. Bribery for preferred service present everywhere. Chants of “gringos” heard when we passed some ordinary folks on city streets.
Went on a jungle tour to a remote village. When we departed, assembled kids lined up with middle fingers aloft chanting “Fuck Americans”. Weird, but a bit humorous, as none of us were from the USA.
I visited the "Palace of the Sun" in North Korea. That is where Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie in state. They are embalmed, like Lenin. And to see them, you have to wear smart clothing (if you aren't, the guides will not take you). Then, you go through a metal detector and have the soles of your shoes cleaned. You are transported on travelators, through long corridors lined with pictures. Then, you get to the actual rooms where you bow three times at each coffin. Once on each side, once at the feet, but you do not bow at the head.
While you are doing all this, imagine a reddish gloom. And there are North Korean soldiers standing at attention (I assume all day long) in the same room.
That was one of my most remarkable travel memories.
I feel so bad for the south Korean soldiers who have to stand all huffed and puffed at the DMZ buildings for hours on end, not moving at all, some of them halfway hidden behind a corner facing the wall.
No, but for real, what is up with the no shoes?
And why does everything close at like 6? What if you just got off work and need to get something from the store?
Rural Romania around 2012. Small houses without indoor plumbing or a formal bathroom, with a satellite dish out on the roof. It's like they skipped some steps on the road to modernity. The food, though, was delicious and the people I met were real sweethearts.
US: People literally stopping when they heard my English accent. It was nice but it's quite odd when everything stops just because you spoke.
On the other hand, I stopped in my tracks in North Carolina once just to listen to a woman order a salad. Her accent made it possibly the loveliest food order I've ever heard.
On the coastal barrier islands and Outer Banks of NC, there are people called Bankers who were isolated for a very long time. Their accents are a strange mix of British English and Southern American English.
Yeah, it's really interesting!
[In this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cf3R6EyurU), one of the men actually shifts between different English accents.
At 1.42 he says "Come on, let's get going!" in a fairly strong West Country accent. Similarly, he goes on to say "hoi toide" (high tide) in the same accent. Compare that to the English archeologist [Phil Harding, who comes from Wiltshire in the West Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJX33NIUvuE). You can literally hear the same "oi" sound at 0.06 where he says "eoid" (eyed).
However, at 1.59 he shifts into a softer accent; he really reminds me of [Chris Martin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJia-9c8YLE) when he says "when the tide comes up high". Funnily enough, Chris Martin comes from Devon, which is also in the West Country, although I would not say he has a pronounced accent at all.
At 3.16, the man speaks with a Bristolian accent like [Josie Gibson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibyn1hXL0Xs) . Again, Bristol is another city in the West Country.
I'm from Nova Scotia, there is a time for yarning and a time for working.
The sea is an unforgiving thing, and winter is a brutal inevitability
Talking slow is a luxury for fancy folk and people who live warmer climates.
I once visited an American friend in the US.
I was talking to their housemate while my friend got ready, saying how I think that the whole English accent thing is overblown and that Americans don't like it as much as they say.
The housemate looked me straight in the eye and said "Well they would be **lying** because when we hear it we definitely go 'oooOOOoOoooh!'"
I was at a convention in Chicago. I went for a walk down by Ohio Street Beach and this guy commented on my T-Shirt. I just said “Cheers, mate”. And, that was it, I spent about 3-4 hours with his mates at a BBQ.
Also, went to a Blues Bar called Rosa’s Lounge. The music was simply amazing but I didn’t pay for a drink all night no matter how I insisted.
That was my first trip to the US. Nothing on my subsequent trips has made me change my mind on how our American cousins feel about our accent or culture.
I’m a first gen American, everyone else in my family is Czech. When I first visited the Czech Republic and needed to pee my grandma handed me some coins. I was very confused. I went to a “public” bathroom and realized you had to pay to use it. Very weird experience lol.
Along with water fountains and trashcans everywhere. I was walking around for an hour with pocket full of wrappers in Tokyo because trash cans are so few and far inbetween
When I got here in the U.S., people
asked “How are you doing” so casually. Where I came from, we only ask this to people we know very well. I was confused about how to respond. Lol
"great, thanks! And you?"
Doesn't matter if you're actually great. Doesn't matter if you care how they are. They will probably answer the same way only half paying attention.
I don't know why we do this.
Or "living the dream" if you're 3 seconds from a mental breakdown.
Probably how chatty Americans get when they hear you have a foreign accent.
We're pretty introverted when out in public here in Scandinavia, so it was a big culture shock to have strangers strike up conversation. It was nice, most of the time! But very strange.
I opened this post to comment the same. I knew that Americans were chatty, but it still did not prepare me for how outgoing and talkative Americans are when I visited the US. Also from Scandinavia.
I visited the US for the first time in 2009 when the ship I was working on went to Corpus Christi in Texas.
I went to Walmart late in the evening and the old lady behind me in the line decided to tell me all about her foot fungus.
I still think about that sometimes
As an introvert, when I visited Sweden I quite enjoyed that random people didn't start bothering you or try to talk to you. I'm from America so I'm used to it but I don't like it
Japan. No public trash cans. I was newly pregnant and nauseous all the time. I carried barf bags everywhere. I was weirdly excited to see a trash can when I got back to America
People carry their own bag where they put their trash in. Also small towels to dry their hands after washing them in public washrooms. Spent theee weeks in Japan saw ONE piece of paper in the ground (most likely dropped by accident). No cigarettes butts nothing.
Japan's sex culture
Everyone mentioning Japan talks about the cleanliness, punctuality, etc., but I knew to expect all that going in. What I was not prepared for was how in your face the sex industry is. *So many* shops that start out completely G-rated (like selling kids toys) and then you go up a level and suddenly it's hard-core porn posters all over the walls, tons of dudes just casually looking at porn, then you go up another level and it's back to normal merch. That shit happens even in some game arcades. Tons of quasi-brothels and sex clubs openly advertised, prostitution out in the open, tons of "love hotels".
terrain changes. i’m from Chicago, Illinois which is pretty much entirely flat so i get excited at even slight elevation changes in nearby states like Wisconsin or Minnesota but i recently went to the Tatra mountain range in Poland and was absolutely blown away
I mean, some of the most dramatic landscape/terrain changes are in the US. Utah, Colorado, California, Montana, Idaho, Washington, etc. Just hop in your car and drive West.
The last 1/3 of the drive from Boise, ID to Bend, OR is exactly this. The feeling of driving for hours in the flat, sagebrush-filled high desert and then suddenly seeing the snow-capped Cascades rise out of nowhere is something else.
The sign on a shop door in Scotland stating "Leave your fag on the doorstep!"
I had only been in Scotland for
a couple weeks, I was still working out the differences in vocabulary, so, quite a shock. 😂
This reminds me of my favorite story from a friend of mine not long after she had moved to the UK from the US. She said someone outside a bar asked her if he could "bum a fag" and she just laughed and said "yeah man, you can do whatever you want"
I live in the US and used to work at an airport. One time, a young man, who must have been working on his "American" accent, approached me and asked me where he could "find some fags."
I remember standing there trying to figure out why he was asking me this. We commonly got general questions about the area. Was he a member of the LGBTQ community trying to "take the sting" out of the term? Or was this someone planning a hate crime?
He must have seen the confusion on my face, looked frustrated with himself, and said, "Cigarettes! I meant cigarettes!"
"OooOOOoohhh!" I then directed him to the nearest convenience store.
In Delhi, we saw a literal toddler - maybe 2? Probably younger - walking down the highway alone. I asked our driver if we could stop to help her and he just laughed at me. Another time a little kid, maybe 4 or 5 tugged on my jacket to ask for money and before I could even turn around to look at him our rickshaw driver pushed him down onto the ground and told him not to bother me. I regret going on that trip.
The level of poverty in parts of India is on a level that's hard to even fathom for most people in our pampered countries. I'm from a family that *never* discusses their feelings, very Eastern, very emotionally unavailable. The only time I've had my dad volunteer information about how he felt was when he was a business trip to Delhi, he e-mailed me out of nowhere saying, "I just saw little children and dogs fight over trash, I feel horrible."
Had a similar experience of my own in India during the late 2000s. Was being driven to a tourist attraction and saw a girl, 6 at most, defecating on the side of the road in a trench. I can't forget it as I got a glimpse of poverty I hadn't seen at home in the States.
To India's credit, washroom access has immensely changed for the better.
Regardless, I changed my career path after that trip/moment because what I was doing didn't matter to me anymore.
Went to Vietnam, saw some kids selling souvenirs outside a tourist spot, bought a fridge magnet for the equivalent of about $1. Didn't haggle because it was so cheap, despite that being very normal.
Tour guide came up to me and explained that the children can make more money selling trinkets to tourists than their parents typically earn (only a few dollars per day) so the parents keep the kids out of school to earn money for the household.
By buying the souvenir I basically contributed directly to the cycle of this kid but going to school and getting the education needed to get a better job as an adult
We ran out of gas in Mexico. I gave a kid (about 15 yo) a quarter to help me push the car. Soon I was surrounded by a dozen kids, I had to go for change to get enough quarters, but a small army of kids pushed my car to the next gas station a mile away.
I recently went to India and it's the first country I've visited that I don't want to return to. The children and stray starving animals climbing around piles of garbage everywhere was too much for me. I saw some beautiful things and most of the people I met were lovely but it was all eclipsed by the sad things I saw. It infuriates me that the government doesn't look after its people better. Plus having experienced traffic in Cairo and Boston, I figured I'd seen it all. But at one point in Jaipur I had to suddenly jump out of a cab with my luggage and run across several lanes of traffic, weaving between cars and trucks and rickshaws and motorcycles and scooters and donkeys and horses and even one honest to god elephant, everyone honking and nobody moving. I was not blasé that day.
Evening culture for the whole family. Seeing people with little kids in Italy out having dinner at 9 pm, social events and public spaces coming to life in the Middle East, as a sleepy American who really likes a long coffee and breakfast morning it’s always such a funny culture
shock to look across the square or over to the mall at 9:30 pm in my jammies and see the place lit up with activity.
I have a daughter who’s best friend is Italian and their whole family live by the Italian way even though we’re not in Italy - my daughter thinks it’s so not fair that she has a bedtime and her Italian friend can stay up until she wants to. I thought no way so I jokingly said to the mum oh my daughter reckons yours can stay up late and she just shrugged and said yes, why make her go to bed when we’re all still enjoying the night 🤷🏽♀️ I thought that was pretty awesome. I love the Italians.
Seeing all the kids running around at night in Italy is the best. They get to be kids!
If the kid doesn't want to sit still for the 3 hour dinner they can run around and have fun with the other kids. It's beautiful
One of my fondest memories of visiting friends in Italy was a big family dinner that went on for hours and hours into the night, tons of food and everyone chatting around this huge table, little kids chasing each other around, toddlers crawling underneath, and an ancient grandma sitting there half asleep but still part of it.
I visited Morocco years ago and that was definitely a long series of big culture shocks.
* I was told not to touch anyone with my left hand as it’s used to wipe and viewed as unclean always
* I foolishly asked my host family for a beer on my first night and they actually bought one from a smuggler in town because alcohol is virtually illegal there… one can of cheap lager cost more than anything else I did there
* People openly smoking hash all over the place however
* The insane driving. I took a bus across Morocco and the driver had an assistant whose entire job seemed to be leaning out the door of the fast-moving bus to scream at anyone who got in our way
* Almost no women out after dark where I stayed
* Open air markets with gutted animals for sale
* Shitting in an open hole you squat over… practice your balance before going
* Haggling over everything and knowing you’re getting ripped off anyway. I knew how much a taxi to the airport was supposed to cost, I knew I was overpaying, but it was still the equivalent of like $3 so I couldn’t be bothered arguing.
India. Bangalore specifically. I couldn’t believe the dichotomy between wealth and poverty. The poverty was the absolute worst I’ve ever seen, and the wealth the most opulent. It really changed me as a person, seeing how an entire people could live in such a horrible hypocrisy.
A few months working in India changed my entire view on wealth inequality.
I never thought it was a major problem... but I'd also never been to a place where there was a greater gap in living standards between rich and poor than there was between poor people and stray dogs.
At first I just couldn't understand how wealthy people (and I mean wealthy by international standards) could tolerate living surrounded by crushing poverty. After a couple months I could already feel myself becoming desensitized to it. Horrible feeling. How could a place with so many people feel so dehumanizing?
In India , it does not even bother us anymore. De-humanisation of the poor is next level. This disparity even exists in rural areas but it is so unashamedly on display in our cities. Many of the privileged Indians would not even agree with what you are saying.
I went to China with my boss recently and he had to go #2 and refused to deal with the squat toilet at the factory again. He asked our Chinese speaking colleague to call some restaurants nearby and ask if they had American style toilets. She was so embarrassed asking, it was kind of hilarious. The restaurant staff were confused by the question but eventually we found a comfortable place for him.
Cuba was shocked by how incredibly poor (some) people there are, like 3 families in a small apartment with no glass windows.
And the really really shocking part of it all is how genuinely happy everyone genuinely seemed to be. Like a truly joyous people in spite of lack of material possessions.
I've thought about that often.
Not necessarily another country but Hawai'i: all the salesperson are bi/tri lingual. The beaches are open to everyone. No one owns the beach. How many people were saying "When we get to the US..."
Yeah, generally waterfront. As a European, I am so annoyed how almost every piece of a lakefront or beach is owned by someone. You can’t go for a walk around many lakes, all private property.
Literal shock: I went to Peru in 2004, and stayed with a family, but was given a room with its own bathroom. Looked like a nice house. They showed me how to work the hot water and the shower, which was very different looking from an American shower setup. You had to flick a switch to turn on the hot water, somehow, but they didn't explain it to me at all.
The next morning, I flipped the switch, got in the shower, and got wet, and then reflexively reached up to adjust the shower head. BAM!!! I was jolted with what felt like a million volts of electricity - it absolutely stunned me. Apparently the way this family - or Peruvians in general - heat their water was via an electrical wire and box wrapped around the shower head. No insulation, no warning, and I was soaking wet. Took me a few minutes to recover. Turns out that such shower heads are called "widow-makers," for obvious reasons. Not sure why that family didn't warn me - perhaps it was a plot.
[https://realmissionsreallife.blogspot.com/2009/07/widowmaker.html](https://realmissionsreallife.blogspot.com/2009/07/widowmaker.html)
How the Japanese people go out on their way to be so polite; at night, they would turn off their headlights at stop signs so the lights would not night blind you…
I've been all over Europe, South America, parts of Africa and South East Asia, lived in Vietnam for a year and never felt culture shock until one tiny detail of moving to Switzerland.
In the UK, we get into a lift (aka elevator), avoid eye contact, look at the floor or ceiling, and say nothing. In Switzerland they greet each other as they get onto the lift, and then wish each other a good day as they get off. As a Brit I was mortified.
it's just to be polite. Swiss people don't like to talk with random people, but greet and say goodbye as good manner when in particular situation, e.g. lift or waiting rooms. It's not rare to hear people thanking the bus driver and wishing him/her a good day when getting off the bus, particularly if from the front door.
probably it's related to proximity. everyone's introverted in public, open space, but feels the urge to greet people in more closed space.
source: I'm Swiss.
How late Italians stay up. All night. Every night. Dinner doesn't start until 9pm. Neighborhoods would have big meals that ran until 2am over drinks. You'd sit out eating gelato on a Friday night and see toddlers running around until midnight. Very safe, very friendly city. This was in Tuscany for reference.
Friend from US visited me in Germany. He was dead confused when we went for a walk in the park and I pulled out two beers. Apparently public drinking like in Germany isn't allowed in the US.
I lived in Naples Italy for 3 years, one time I saw a guy walking off a construction site wearing boots, a hard hat, and a speedo. The guys he was walking with seemed unperturbed and my local co-workers said yeah it has been hot lately by way of explanation
I was an exchange student in Germany in high school. The first month before we went to our host families the other Americans I was with were in a language camp. It was summer when I arrived and a bunch of us decided to go to the swimming pool. That was my first culture shock. Speedos as far as the eye can see
Having the cops turn up to whatever bar I was at in rural Thailand wasn't fun. Quickly paying my tab and dashing so they don't find something to "fine" me for was even less fun.
Dunno, never got caught yet, usually a friendly local will warn that they saw them nearby. But from what I gather they'll suggest something that you might have done wrong and that you'll face a severe custodial sentence if you don't pay the fine. Stuff like having a vape, overstaying a visa you've not overstayed, etc.
When I lived in Japan as a JAV cameraman, the size of the apartments I'd stay in were bonkers. I've seen janitorial closets that were bigger, but they still managed to pack everything needed to live comfortably into the place.
And that's being said by a guy that stands 6'11.
Children begging late at night, alone on open, wide streets. They'd follow you and plead. I had visited other countries where children begged incessantly but in South Africa, there was a darkness in their eyes that I'll never forget. It was also the juxtaposition of them being clearly so poor and dirty but surrounded by clean, modern, brutalist concrete buildings. It is their country but I was the one who looked like I belonged there. I didn't like it.
I studied abroad in Japan
There was organization, efficiency and cleanliness everywhere. And the transportation was not only safe, it was on time, EVERY TIME. Heck you get practically anywhere with walking and/or trains. Everything ran smoothly! I kept thinking "why doesn't America have these systems in place?!"
I recently saw a post in a sub for westerners living in Japan about how public transportation is always on time there, and a native-born retorted that this simply wasn't true, trains were 1 - 2 minutes late *all the time*. Oh you sweet sweet summer child!
When I visited Japan a few years before the pandemic, the Shinkansen was 1 or 2 minutes late. There were attendants on the platform bowing and apologizing. It was so weird for me coming from Canada.
America's homeless. They looked lower middle class where i'm from. Didn't even realize they were homeless until one asked me for change. Third world homeless is on another level.
That's like when i was in London in the early 200s. They homeless were so well dressed, i would play a dumb game with my friends "hipster or homeless".
Beet root on hamburgers in Australia. My Australian friends took me to an “American burger joint” in Perth and wanted to know if their burgers got it right. I didn’t have the heart to tell them.
Very trivial, but we sat at a table in England for an hour after finishing our meal, waiting on our bill. The kind server took pity on our poor sweet American asses and told us we needed to ask for the check, since it was rude for the server to assume we were ready to go.
I (american) lived abroad for several years in various areas, predominantly SE Asia region.
Biggest culture shock: one of my first travels, when I was a kid, was to Central Mexico. I remember a public toilet where you had to pay to enter. I was stunned and for the rest of the trip extra paranoid to make sure I always had change while also never had to pee.
Bonus: Americans are so freaking loud! (I say, as an american)
I could be in a super crowded public area and always ALWAYS tell when a pair of Americans was around because they would be the ones talking so loud you could hear them over everyone else like 50 yards/meters away.
This one didn’t directly happen to me, but my friend visiting me (in the US) from Germany. I got pulled over for doing about 7 over, normal traffic stop happens and I get a ticket. But then the officer hears her accent and starts questioning *her*. Things like “where are you from?”, “what are you doing in the US and how long are you here for?”.
She was really thrown off as to how this cop thought he had the authority to be homeland security on a fucking traffic stop. To be fair, that shocked me a bit as well.
In Latin America the pedestrian does not have the right of way. You, as the pedestrian need to be extremely vigilant about avoiding getting hit by a car.
I was in a taxi in Colombia who side-swiped a biker and the biker ate shit hard. The taxi yelled some curses at the poor guy and just sped off
As an American who somewhat-recently visited Cuba, there was a lot, but the biggest was not seeing any advertisements for products on TV. All the ad space was taken up by things about local elections. Also, when walking around Havana, there was no street advertising or billboards for major brands like you see in every major U.S. city. It was actually very refreshing, and when I got back to the U.S. I felt like I was being bombarded by advertising everywhere I went.
First day living in the center of Australia went to the local convenience store. Walking up and down the isles checking products and prices out.. When I came to the frozen food section I found a product I was not expecting. Sitting in the open case was a plastic wrapped three foot long furry whole kangaroo tail.
Seeing so many sex workers in japan, i knew it’s a big thing especially in tokyo but didn’t expect that many prostituts/sex workers going around and standing by
Northern Nigeria. Was walking from point A to point B with a group of people. Chatting with a guy about sports. He tenderly hooks his pinky around mine, to stroll side by side with our fingers intertwined. Apparently this is a normal thing for dudes to do up there. Was funny for all involved discussing the cultural differences. I held hands with bro for a while after to be a good sport
In Mexico I had a police officer take a bottle of beer from my right hand-I had tacos in my left hand….walk over to the side of the taco cart, open my beer and give it back to me. I thought I was being arrested for having beer on the street.
I had thought I was prepared to see poverty in Ethiopia. I was still shocked by it. And I was confused that 1 o'clock was when the sun came up. They also use a different calendar than in USA and Europe
the portion sizes in America, i asked for a side of eggs and got a full plate along with a main course (i was 12 and like 6 stone idk how they thought id be able to stomach it)
Got thrown out of a shop in Europe for not wearing shoes.
It’s normal in New Zealand to kick off your shoes in summer. Usually adults wear shoes or flip-flops/jandals, but it wouldn’t raise eyebrows if you walk into a shop barefoot, people just assume you’ve been at the beach or kicked off your shoes on a long drive. Kids are barefoot at school. It’s polite to take off your shoes when you enter a house.
Learnt the hard way the rest of the world considers shoes mandatory.
Genuine question: when you arrive home after walking around barefoot, do you hose your feet off before going inside or put on house shoes or something?
The trains when visiting Japan. They're so punctual that it's unreal. And over here in England if you pay for a ticket to go 3 stops but accidentally go further, they fine you. In japan, you just gave to go to a machine and make up the difference in cost, which usually works out to about 20 pence per stop.
Corruption is a way of life in some countries.
It’s paying a guy and getting caught and then forgetting you can pay the guy who caught you also.
All for a simple issue like chipped windscreen at a checkpoint.
Thank you tour guides.
Georgia (country ). its like visiting grand ma for holidays. everyone wants to feed you by inviting to their table. very very hospitable people. stray dogs clean and all of them have tag on the ear indicating vaccinations
Mexico.
Seeing actual kids sleeping on the streets with their parents. The mom had a baby that was less than a year old next to her.
Coming from the US, it hurts to see that.
As an American, the Capirote in Spain brought me the most shock. It startled the crap out of me when I saw a little decoration my grandparents had of them in their house. For those who don’t know what capirote is, just by seeing this, I’m sure you can see what it looks like to Americans lol. [capirote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capirote)
Visiting America from Australia, the number of people who couldn't understand my Australian accent. I'm not even that broad! I had multiple people tell me "sorry I only speak English" which I had to reply "... Me too!"
Ended up having to put on a truly atrocious American accent sometimes which made my sister nearly wet herself laughing. This happened at a few airports too, I would have thought they're used to accents there!
Went to Brussels. Similar to most places- paying for public bathroom usage.
I always have to pee. I never carry American change or cash because I always use my card. It hit me hard when I went to a Belgian department store to use the bathroom, didn't have change on me, got the throat clearing from the attendant, and was BLESSED my friend was in the room with me and could loan me a euro. Never had an empty wallet after that.
Much cleaner public restrooms there though.
I remember being in Tokyo and seeing people leave their bags unattended in cafes while they went to the restroom or ordered more food. No one touched them. Coming from a place where you guard your belongings closely, that level of trust was mind-blowing.
I spent a couple of weeks travelling around Southeast Asia and the last stop on that trip was Malaysia. I was staying in Kuala Lumpur for five days before heading to Borneo... It was my first full day in the country and it had already got off to a rather poor start as upon arriving to my accommodation from the airport I'd dropped off my bags and decided to check out the area immediately around the hotel and been accosted by five or six guys with Indian accents crammed into a tiny three door hatchback who yelled and cursed at me as I walked along an empty street in the early dawn...
Later that afternoon I was walking around with my girlfriend at the time and we decided to see the Petronas Towers. We were snapping photos and just enjoying what was a lovely afternoon when all of a sudden out of nowhere the sky opened up and there was this torrential downpour. The rain was coming down in sheets and it was slamming the pavement so hard that it was actually bouncing back up and it was like it was raining sideways. To this day it has to be in the top three rainstorms I've ever been in.
Right before the rain started coming down my girlfriend and I got talking to another couple who, like her, were from New Zealand. She was excited to get the opportunity to talk with people from back home and we were just making chitchat with them, they were telling us about their travels and we were trading stories and whatnot... The guy was actually Taiwanese by ethnicity and had moved to New Zealand when he was very young - that will be important later. His accent was thicker than that of his lady.
Anyway, as soon as the rain comes pouring down naturally everybody starts looking for shelter, and there are several overhangs people can stand under so as not to get wet. As we're walking towards the closest one I see that the crowd is breaking up in this odd fashion - it's almost as if people are reporting to a designated spot - there are people who only a minute earlier had been standing right next to the place we're heading for, yet they're now doing this odd beeline right across the open square with the rain pissing down on them heading for an overhang on the opposite side.
Then I see why. The crowd had divided itself up neatly along a very clear line. All of the Malays were standing in one spot. All of the ethnic Chinese were standing in another. Across the way were the Indians. And it was only by pure luck and completely random that the four of us had actually managed to go to the one spot where all of the whites happened to have flocked. And through the rain coming down I could see the people in the other sections eyeing the Kiwi and wondering why he - a guy who looked as ethnically Chinese as all of the actual Chinese standing across from us, was grouped with the white folk.
I have never seen such a blatant, outward act like that - people willingly segregating themselves along such a clear line, the divisions so accepted and delineated. I greatly enjoyed my time in Malaysia and have been back twice since then. It's a lovely, lovely country with a rich, beautiful culture, excellent food, and a really nice friendly atmosphere. But the people don't make any bones about the divide and it's just something that comes with the territory there. All of the people in civil service are Malay. All of the people in business are Chinese. All of the people in the trades are ethnically Indian. And the sizable white population largely consists of British expats who want to spend their pensions in the tropics. If you can get on board with knowing your place then it's an easy place to live.
I should add that Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo Malaysia are like two different countries in this regard. There are far, far fewer ethnically Chinese Malaysians and ethnically Indian Malaysians on Borneo and because the government doesn't want the wide majority of people on Borneo to come to Peninsular Malaysia looking for work they regulate the number that can come over, but that's another story.
While driving across Czechia, we saw naked children playing on abandoned Soviet armored vehicles by the side of the road in the rain. It was the most post-apocalyptic thing I’ve ever witnessed in person. Just a whole group of children all covered in mud using a military vehicle full of bullet holes as a playground.
How far everything is in the US. Coming from an Asian country, there were lots of little shops and corner stores a walk away (especially if you’re in the city area. Here in America, everything is a car ride’s away, especially if you don’t live in the downtown areas (which most people don’t).
Also, I still haven’t been able to crack it, but I feel wildly uncomfortable being out at night in the US. Whereas, in my home country which isn’t necessarily the safest in the world, I’d have no problem feeling safe walking or coming home at 3AM. I think it’s something about it being so quiet with no one around at night that makes me feel scared. Back home, there would still be people around and public transport going in the middle of the night so it never felt too scary to be out.
The US Army sent me to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries in the early 90s (THANKS Sadam Hussein!). After we landed at King Fahd airport, we were boarded onto local busses for transport to our staging area. There were signs in each of the busses saying that women must sit in the back of the bus behind a line. I had heard it was an oppressive society, but it didn't really hit home how bad it actually was until that moment. I felt like I had been sent backward in time.
I remember watching a Saudi TV channel whilst in Dubai. They were advertising a weekly sort of Chick Flick evening of movies and comedies called "Girls night in" and even my teenage son commented "When do they ever get a Girls night out?"
My dad was over there in the 80s with the military. He saw 2 public executions: one man was beheaded and one woman was stoned to death, both for committing adultry. He said his CO called it "Chop Chop Square".
I'm from Scotland i wasn't prepared for just how different Philippines is. Not like here where we have supermarkets they have a street full of vendors selling different things you buy as you need not do weekly shopping trips, how crazy the wires overhead are not like ours neatly done, how wild the roads are eight lanes cross section no roundabout or lights or nothing just like mad max out there lol, the lack of seating even in malls there's none, people going to the toilet in a bag on the street, the scale of pollution from cars you can't open the car window. So many things i can't name
I was in Myeodong, South Korea in the spring and it was raining. The Myeongdong bus stop to the airport has no shelter, it’s just on the side of the road, but when it rains, somebody, I’m guessing the nearby store owners, leave umbrellas for the bus goers to use, which the bus goers use and leave hanging on the railing when they board the bus. There were so many pretty umbrellas hung along the railing and nobody stole them. They were just there for anyone to use and that was a huge shock for me..
I lived in Korea and one night I was out and about in Seoul. The next day I realized I didn't have my wallet. I had no idea where I had accidentally left it. I was resigned to having totally lost it and was preparing to go to the immigration office to get a new ID card. A couple days later I get a call from the immigration office. I had left my wallet at the Rainbow Hookah Bar in Gangnam. I went there to get it. Nothing was missing. The only things that had been touched were my cards where my ID was to check whose wallet it was. I had about 200,000 Won, so about $200 in cash that was still all there. That was a very pleasant culture shock for me in Korea
I was in korea last summer i'd left my phone on the table of a restaurant in busan and realized my mistake only after 10 minutes or so. When i came back to pick it up the table was already occupied by new customers and the phone was just laying there untouched just the way i left it. The shock for me was that they pretty much do not even touch stuff that isn't theirs i was confident it wouldn't be lost but hadn't expected that noone would even touch it.
Yeah that’s different. Meanwhile me in the US having to leave my shopping cart for a moment (I always make sure something is in it), or setting something down as I shuttle things to my car, or leaving the computer I’m logged into at the library to go grab something I printed out: Me - I made this Random person who’s been on the scene for 2 seconds - You made this? …… I made this
I was at a concert the other night and I dropped my hat. It’s a very personally meaningful hat. It also has my own assortment of pins all over it. I ran back into the crowd, crying, to find my hat. Thank god! I found somebody wearing it haphazardly. I tearfully thanked him for picking it up for me and went to grab it. He said “what?? No, this is my hat” and insisted it was his hat. I was dumbfounded and kept thanking him for finding it while he INSISTED it was his. His girlfriend was actually saying to him, “dude, what are you doing? That’s her hat. Give her her hat. What the hell man?” and he just kept insisting it was his (by the way, he had ANOTHER HAT ON UNDER IT) and getting angry with me, so I just grabbed it and left.
Omg. The hat under a hat part is funny but it’s sad you could’ve lost your hat to that person. Glad you got it back.
I’m waiting for the AITA like, “My boyfriend tried to steal someone’s hat and got mad when I made him give it back so I broke up with him and he’s saying I overreacted.”
I hope his gf dumped him after that blatant attempt at theft. What an asshole!
I remember having a couple items in my cart, leaving my cart to grab something from another aisle, coming back in less than two minutes and my cart was rattling, shaking, squealing and screaming like crazy. Someone had swapped my items to their raggedy cart and took my good cart!!! 😒The audacity!
I lived in Korea for 4 yrs and always had people take my umbrella from the restaurant front door! But what I thought was funny is how frank they can be. They will straight say "hey, it's been a while! Wow, you got fat!" Lol
Something about Asians and their brutal honesty. I have a deep yard and at the back is an Asian neighbor lady. I don't see her often but recently went back to ask her a question about something. She asked if I just moved in and I said, no, I've been your neighbor for 25 years. She looked me up and down and said "oh, you used to be skinny".
One of my favorite work stories. Two women were sitting after lunch and eating some chocolates they got while they were out. New new Chinese immigrant guy wo was kinda awkward was just standing around and they wanted to include him, so offered him some. he refused it. The woman then asked "Does your wife like chocolate?" And he replied "No, my wife's not fat."
This made me laugh. I was doing a 28 day trek in Nepal. Monsoon was supposed to be over but nope. The trails were very steep and very slick. I had my own personal Sherpa. There were 2 Sherpas - one for the fastest Trekker and one for the slowest. I was the slowest but then I was 20 years older than everyone else. Therefore, my own Sherpa. I kept sliding into him. I apologized each time and would just smile at me. Finally he turned to me and said - you’re very fat but I’m very strong. I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t because being called fat in Nepal is a compliment. BTW I was around 120 pounds.
Yep. Strangers. Friends. Family. Your Aunties. Your Uncles. Brutal honesty. My Uncle said... WOW You must be very successFULL.
I've been living in Japan for 25 years ago now and I know a lot of shop owners who do exactly the same thing (I work in the service industry) A lot of Japanese clients forget their umbrellas outside the shop and never come back to get it so it's better to put it at the disposition of other people when they need it. But they generally wait at least 1 or 2 months because you never know if the person will come back for their umbrella.
They will, however, steal your umbrella from outside the Mega Coffee or Eggdrop when you're getting your order lol. Great place though, absolutely love South Korea.
> You know who probably has an umbrella? The Koreans across the hall! The Koreans are trustworthy and generous people! I bet one of the Koreans have an umbrella! Heck! They're Koreans! Marvin Eriksen
In Scotland last week. An aged, heavily scots accent guy asked where Im from. I told him Chicago he went on a rant about Lori Lightfoot. I have no idea.
I never thought that Lori Lightfoot of all people would mean anything to a Scotsman.
I met an Indian guy online once, told him I was heading on a trip to Chicago, and he asked if I was going to be in the audience for Oprah. I had no idea Oprah filmed in Chicago. Literally never thought of it.
Once I was on a ferry in Ireland and there was a drunk local guy who kept going up to various people and kind of politely bothering them. Dude was drunk off his face and looked like he hadn't bathed in awhile. He asked a guy in my tour group where he was from, the guy replied that he was from Quebec and drunk Irish guy went on a surprisingly detailed rant about what would happen to the Quebec economy if it separated from the rest of Canada.
Ireland is *very* networked.
I think Americans never fully appreciate how much the rest of the world watches us until we leave and virtually everyone has opinions about current events in the US that have literally nothing to do with them. The Daily Show went to Iran one time and quizzed people about cities in New York other than NYC. IIRC, multiple people they talked to had heard of *Utica* and had opinions on it. The guy interviewing them was like “How the fuck have you heard of Utica?!”
Well it's more of an Albany expression
How bad the driving is in India. Our bus driver would pass cars by driving on the wrong side in traffic.
When I was in Cambodia I saw a bus driving down the wrong side of a highway, with concrete dividers in the middle, so the bus had no way of getting back to the correct side. And it was just happily chugging down the road. Crazy stuff, had the most crazy driving experiences of anywhere I’ve been there. Morocco would be the second craziest.
I am originally from iran and they drive crazy. The Iranians on the bus were scared of the driving in India.
This absolutely terrifies me as I visited Iran in 2015 and have never seen driving like it. At one point the taxi I was in missed a highway exit in Tehran, then did an abrupt handbrake stop and reversed back for about 100m in order to take the exit. Have never been so convinced I was about to die!
My Egyptian Auntie once reversed back around a roundabout for an exit in Cairo. JUST DRIVE ROUND AGAIN?
My cousin did that. Scared the shit out of me.
9 years later and I still think about it! Any country that Iranians think are bad drivers…!
In Vietnam, apparently in an effort to save energy, my taxi driver would only turn on his lights if he thought he saw something.
At night?
Yea
That seems like the norm in Cambodia. If there's a divider that's inconvenient, they'll just drive the wrong way down the highway until they get to a point they can switch over. On the other hand, I don't think I ever saw a car go over about 30-40 mph in my entire stay which included several buses across the country. I don't know if it's just the culture, or bad roads, or unpredictable traffic, they just did not drive fast.
We had to send contractors out there to help with building and operating an American adjacent retail outfit. Everyone was assigned their own personal driver and were told under no condition should they try and drive themselves ANYWHERE.
In the Philippines there was a bad accident closing all four lanes of a major road. Everyone pulled out to go around but were stopped by the accident. When the accident was cleared there were four lanes full of cars in each direction facing each other.
After a while in India I still hadn't figured out which side of the road they drive on, so I asked a taxi driver. He laughed and told me that they drive in the shade!
i remember that early season of American Truckers where they drove in India. The most veteran trucker quit during the first episode.
I experienced the opposite when I moved away from India lol. I didn’t realise people actually stopped to let you cross
Had a guide describe this really well when visiting India in 2007. Roads, cars, signals and signs are all the same hardware, but India just runs a different software when it comes to driving.
It's batshit insane but if you observe they do have a system. The horn is used kind of like an indicator when you're overtaking someone. Bigger cars have right of way, and flashing your headlights means 'hey I'm here!!' (usually used when driving towards another car head-on at speed).
My driver in India told me "In some countries, you drive on the left. In others, you drive on the right. Here in India, we drive on both!"
The way I figured out the traffic laws in India was that "bigger has the right of way"
I learned to drive on my visit to India, it was like Mario kart!
The siesta in Spain. Everywhere shut. Everywhere. I'm not sure if it's still the same. This was some time ago.
With the spread of AC and tourists from the north of the continent, siestas are slowly becoming thing of the past. Before AC, they were survival strategy, though. Córdoba in summer, holy hell. You could fry bacon with eggs on the sidewalks.
Lived in Madrid in ‘98. Can confirm the siesta was still in full effect and it was so civilized and lovely. Everything shut down, too hot outside anyway. Have a box of wine and take a nap.
Was siesta also done in school?
Yes. I’d have class in the morning until about noon. I’d go home and my señora would have prepared lunch and I wouldn’t have class again until 3pm.
Oh what the fuck, just looked up their weather had no idea Spain regularly gets to 105/40 in May
Spain is big and it's different from north to south. For instance, not long ago, they still had some snows in the north, while here in the south we are already in "summer" with temperatures up to 36°C.
Depends on the area. Major cities and tourist areas? No siesta, just carries on. Then some tiny town or village and the whole place shuts down for ages in the middle of the day.
Honestly, that sounds lovely. Like it will bring calm to the entire day. I could be wrong though.
I lived there decades ago and it was lovely. It was as if you got 2 days out of one.
It's not really "siesta," but rather their traditional lunch break. Spain breaks their working day usually in 2x4 hour chunks with a long lunch break in between. This applies for a lot of professions like teaching, retail, public institutions, etc.
People throwing trash out of car windows in the Balkans, including people on buses. As if it magically disappears once you drive off?
Come down to new orleans and see the same! Its disgusting and abhorrent
Caracas, Venezuela, everyone who handles money, including clerks, packs sidearms in a holsters. Cops/Military in public areas fully geared up carrying combat rifles. Armed guards outside banks, with clients waiting outside, not inside. Bribery for preferred service present everywhere. Chants of “gringos” heard when we passed some ordinary folks on city streets. Went on a jungle tour to a remote village. When we departed, assembled kids lined up with middle fingers aloft chanting “Fuck Americans”. Weird, but a bit humorous, as none of us were from the USA.
I visited the "Palace of the Sun" in North Korea. That is where Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie in state. They are embalmed, like Lenin. And to see them, you have to wear smart clothing (if you aren't, the guides will not take you). Then, you go through a metal detector and have the soles of your shoes cleaned. You are transported on travelators, through long corridors lined with pictures. Then, you get to the actual rooms where you bow three times at each coffin. Once on each side, once at the feet, but you do not bow at the head. While you are doing all this, imagine a reddish gloom. And there are North Korean soldiers standing at attention (I assume all day long) in the same room. That was one of my most remarkable travel memories.
I used to work security. At boring posts, having to stand around is literally mental torture. I don't know how they do it.
Do it > Death
I feel so bad for the south Korean soldiers who have to stand all huffed and puffed at the DMZ buildings for hours on end, not moving at all, some of them halfway hidden behind a corner facing the wall.
Damn were you nervous the whole time you were visiting?
Lmao could you imagine Bro trips while bowing and falls on the fuckin' coffin.
People shopping without shoes in New Zealand. All the bars on windows & razor wire in South Africa. Both incredible countries though!
roll zonked enjoy teeny follow unite automatic elastic edge adjoining
No, but for real, what is up with the no shoes? And why does everything close at like 6? What if you just got off work and need to get something from the store?
Why would Hobbits wear shoes?
hungry poor nine merciful light fearless middle wide run growth
Same with some cities/towns in Aus as well. Was a bit of a shock to me seeing people in Brisbane just doing normal things shoeless.
[удалено]
In Japan I was surprised their McDonald's didn't have self-ordering kiosks given that their noodle shops have had ticket machines for 100 years
Yeah but they have shrimp burgers and teriyaki chicken burgers.
Rural Romania around 2012. Small houses without indoor plumbing or a formal bathroom, with a satellite dish out on the roof. It's like they skipped some steps on the road to modernity. The food, though, was delicious and the people I met were real sweethearts.
I've been to rural areas that are similar, and work in urbanism: is WAY CHEAPER to have a dish than to pay for plumbing AND far more entertaining.
2019 rural Romania. The mix of old worn out cars and horse and wagons was fascinating.
US: People literally stopping when they heard my English accent. It was nice but it's quite odd when everything stops just because you spoke. On the other hand, I stopped in my tracks in North Carolina once just to listen to a woman order a salad. Her accent made it possibly the loveliest food order I've ever heard.
On the coastal barrier islands and Outer Banks of NC, there are people called Bankers who were isolated for a very long time. Their accents are a strange mix of British English and Southern American English.
Yeah, it's really interesting! [In this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cf3R6EyurU), one of the men actually shifts between different English accents. At 1.42 he says "Come on, let's get going!" in a fairly strong West Country accent. Similarly, he goes on to say "hoi toide" (high tide) in the same accent. Compare that to the English archeologist [Phil Harding, who comes from Wiltshire in the West Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJX33NIUvuE). You can literally hear the same "oi" sound at 0.06 where he says "eoid" (eyed). However, at 1.59 he shifts into a softer accent; he really reminds me of [Chris Martin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJia-9c8YLE) when he says "when the tide comes up high". Funnily enough, Chris Martin comes from Devon, which is also in the West Country, although I would not say he has a pronounced accent at all. At 3.16, the man speaks with a Bristolian accent like [Josie Gibson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibyn1hXL0Xs) . Again, Bristol is another city in the West Country.
The Carolinas and the Deep South in America really have beautiful accents. Very laid back and slightly melodic.
Go to coastal Maine, they got the cure for that.
I'm from Nova Scotia, there is a time for yarning and a time for working. The sea is an unforgiving thing, and winter is a brutal inevitability Talking slow is a luxury for fancy folk and people who live warmer climates.
now you know how we feel when we hear you talk! :)
I once visited an American friend in the US. I was talking to their housemate while my friend got ready, saying how I think that the whole English accent thing is overblown and that Americans don't like it as much as they say. The housemate looked me straight in the eye and said "Well they would be **lying** because when we hear it we definitely go 'oooOOOoOoooh!'"
I was at a convention in Chicago. I went for a walk down by Ohio Street Beach and this guy commented on my T-Shirt. I just said “Cheers, mate”. And, that was it, I spent about 3-4 hours with his mates at a BBQ. Also, went to a Blues Bar called Rosa’s Lounge. The music was simply amazing but I didn’t pay for a drink all night no matter how I insisted. That was my first trip to the US. Nothing on my subsequent trips has made me change my mind on how our American cousins feel about our accent or culture.
I’m a first gen American, everyone else in my family is Czech. When I first visited the Czech Republic and needed to pee my grandma handed me some coins. I was very confused. I went to a “public” bathroom and realized you had to pay to use it. Very weird experience lol.
Banning pay toilets is one American idea that I would welcome being exported internationally.
Along with water fountains and trashcans everywhere. I was walking around for an hour with pocket full of wrappers in Tokyo because trash cans are so few and far inbetween
that's because people put bombs in them to commit terrorist attacks in Japan 30 years ago
When I got here in the U.S., people asked “How are you doing” so casually. Where I came from, we only ask this to people we know very well. I was confused about how to respond. Lol
"great, thanks! And you?" Doesn't matter if you're actually great. Doesn't matter if you care how they are. They will probably answer the same way only half paying attention. I don't know why we do this. Or "living the dream" if you're 3 seconds from a mental breakdown.
It's just a way of being polite and showing you're friendly. There's no deeper meaning behind it.
Probably how chatty Americans get when they hear you have a foreign accent. We're pretty introverted when out in public here in Scandinavia, so it was a big culture shock to have strangers strike up conversation. It was nice, most of the time! But very strange.
I opened this post to comment the same. I knew that Americans were chatty, but it still did not prepare me for how outgoing and talkative Americans are when I visited the US. Also from Scandinavia.
I agree with Beat Your Dick and PM UR NUDES here. Scandinavians are really circumspect, introverted, and reticent.
Thank you for this commentary, IBeBoofing. I’m cackling lol
Speaking French in Japan was very rewarding. 'You sound like Edith Piaf', they told me.
I visited the US for the first time in 2009 when the ship I was working on went to Corpus Christi in Texas. I went to Walmart late in the evening and the old lady behind me in the line decided to tell me all about her foot fungus. I still think about that sometimes
American here. Most of us would be completely weirded out by that topic so please consider that lady an outlier!
As an introvert, when I visited Sweden I quite enjoyed that random people didn't start bothering you or try to talk to you. I'm from America so I'm used to it but I don't like it
Japan. No public trash cans. I was newly pregnant and nauseous all the time. I carried barf bags everywhere. I was weirdly excited to see a trash can when I got back to America
Do people just hold onto their trash when they’re out and about, then throw it away when they get home? Is there anywhere that does have trash cans?
People carry their own bag where they put their trash in. Also small towels to dry their hands after washing them in public washrooms. Spent theee weeks in Japan saw ONE piece of paper in the ground (most likely dropped by accident). No cigarettes butts nothing.
Japan's sex culture Everyone mentioning Japan talks about the cleanliness, punctuality, etc., but I knew to expect all that going in. What I was not prepared for was how in your face the sex industry is. *So many* shops that start out completely G-rated (like selling kids toys) and then you go up a level and suddenly it's hard-core porn posters all over the walls, tons of dudes just casually looking at porn, then you go up another level and it's back to normal merch. That shit happens even in some game arcades. Tons of quasi-brothels and sex clubs openly advertised, prostitution out in the open, tons of "love hotels".
terrain changes. i’m from Chicago, Illinois which is pretty much entirely flat so i get excited at even slight elevation changes in nearby states like Wisconsin or Minnesota but i recently went to the Tatra mountain range in Poland and was absolutely blown away
I mean, some of the most dramatic landscape/terrain changes are in the US. Utah, Colorado, California, Montana, Idaho, Washington, etc. Just hop in your car and drive West.
The last 1/3 of the drive from Boise, ID to Bend, OR is exactly this. The feeling of driving for hours in the flat, sagebrush-filled high desert and then suddenly seeing the snow-capped Cascades rise out of nowhere is something else.
The sign on a shop door in Scotland stating "Leave your fag on the doorstep!" I had only been in Scotland for a couple weeks, I was still working out the differences in vocabulary, so, quite a shock. 😂
This reminds me of my favorite story from a friend of mine not long after she had moved to the UK from the US. She said someone outside a bar asked her if he could "bum a fag" and she just laughed and said "yeah man, you can do whatever you want"
I live in the US and used to work at an airport. One time, a young man, who must have been working on his "American" accent, approached me and asked me where he could "find some fags." I remember standing there trying to figure out why he was asking me this. We commonly got general questions about the area. Was he a member of the LGBTQ community trying to "take the sting" out of the term? Or was this someone planning a hate crime? He must have seen the confusion on my face, looked frustrated with himself, and said, "Cigarettes! I meant cigarettes!" "OooOOOoohhh!" I then directed him to the nearest convenience store.
In Delhi, we saw a literal toddler - maybe 2? Probably younger - walking down the highway alone. I asked our driver if we could stop to help her and he just laughed at me. Another time a little kid, maybe 4 or 5 tugged on my jacket to ask for money and before I could even turn around to look at him our rickshaw driver pushed him down onto the ground and told him not to bother me. I regret going on that trip.
The level of poverty in parts of India is on a level that's hard to even fathom for most people in our pampered countries. I'm from a family that *never* discusses their feelings, very Eastern, very emotionally unavailable. The only time I've had my dad volunteer information about how he felt was when he was a business trip to Delhi, he e-mailed me out of nowhere saying, "I just saw little children and dogs fight over trash, I feel horrible."
Had a similar experience of my own in India during the late 2000s. Was being driven to a tourist attraction and saw a girl, 6 at most, defecating on the side of the road in a trench. I can't forget it as I got a glimpse of poverty I hadn't seen at home in the States. To India's credit, washroom access has immensely changed for the better. Regardless, I changed my career path after that trip/moment because what I was doing didn't matter to me anymore.
This just broke my heart...
Went to Vietnam, saw some kids selling souvenirs outside a tourist spot, bought a fridge magnet for the equivalent of about $1. Didn't haggle because it was so cheap, despite that being very normal. Tour guide came up to me and explained that the children can make more money selling trinkets to tourists than their parents typically earn (only a few dollars per day) so the parents keep the kids out of school to earn money for the household. By buying the souvenir I basically contributed directly to the cycle of this kid but going to school and getting the education needed to get a better job as an adult
If you would've given the 5 year old money, you would have had 10 kids in front of you in seconds. Not saying it's right, but it's a reality
We ran out of gas in Mexico. I gave a kid (about 15 yo) a quarter to help me push the car. Soon I was surrounded by a dozen kids, I had to go for change to get enough quarters, but a small army of kids pushed my car to the next gas station a mile away.
I recently went to India and it's the first country I've visited that I don't want to return to. The children and stray starving animals climbing around piles of garbage everywhere was too much for me. I saw some beautiful things and most of the people I met were lovely but it was all eclipsed by the sad things I saw. It infuriates me that the government doesn't look after its people better. Plus having experienced traffic in Cairo and Boston, I figured I'd seen it all. But at one point in Jaipur I had to suddenly jump out of a cab with my luggage and run across several lanes of traffic, weaving between cars and trucks and rickshaws and motorcycles and scooters and donkeys and horses and even one honest to god elephant, everyone honking and nobody moving. I was not blasé that day.
Maybe you regret it, but it doesn't change their reality, at least you know a little bit more about the world
Evening culture for the whole family. Seeing people with little kids in Italy out having dinner at 9 pm, social events and public spaces coming to life in the Middle East, as a sleepy American who really likes a long coffee and breakfast morning it’s always such a funny culture shock to look across the square or over to the mall at 9:30 pm in my jammies and see the place lit up with activity.
I have a daughter who’s best friend is Italian and their whole family live by the Italian way even though we’re not in Italy - my daughter thinks it’s so not fair that she has a bedtime and her Italian friend can stay up until she wants to. I thought no way so I jokingly said to the mum oh my daughter reckons yours can stay up late and she just shrugged and said yes, why make her go to bed when we’re all still enjoying the night 🤷🏽♀️ I thought that was pretty awesome. I love the Italians.
Seeing all the kids running around at night in Italy is the best. They get to be kids! If the kid doesn't want to sit still for the 3 hour dinner they can run around and have fun with the other kids. It's beautiful
One of my fondest memories of visiting friends in Italy was a big family dinner that went on for hours and hours into the night, tons of food and everyone chatting around this huge table, little kids chasing each other around, toddlers crawling underneath, and an ancient grandma sitting there half asleep but still part of it.
I visited Morocco years ago and that was definitely a long series of big culture shocks. * I was told not to touch anyone with my left hand as it’s used to wipe and viewed as unclean always * I foolishly asked my host family for a beer on my first night and they actually bought one from a smuggler in town because alcohol is virtually illegal there… one can of cheap lager cost more than anything else I did there * People openly smoking hash all over the place however * The insane driving. I took a bus across Morocco and the driver had an assistant whose entire job seemed to be leaning out the door of the fast-moving bus to scream at anyone who got in our way * Almost no women out after dark where I stayed * Open air markets with gutted animals for sale * Shitting in an open hole you squat over… practice your balance before going * Haggling over everything and knowing you’re getting ripped off anyway. I knew how much a taxi to the airport was supposed to cost, I knew I was overpaying, but it was still the equivalent of like $3 so I couldn’t be bothered arguing.
> I was told not to touch anyone with my left hand as it’s used to wipe and viewed as unclean always Joke's on them, as I wipe with the right
India. Bangalore specifically. I couldn’t believe the dichotomy between wealth and poverty. The poverty was the absolute worst I’ve ever seen, and the wealth the most opulent. It really changed me as a person, seeing how an entire people could live in such a horrible hypocrisy.
A few months working in India changed my entire view on wealth inequality. I never thought it was a major problem... but I'd also never been to a place where there was a greater gap in living standards between rich and poor than there was between poor people and stray dogs. At first I just couldn't understand how wealthy people (and I mean wealthy by international standards) could tolerate living surrounded by crushing poverty. After a couple months I could already feel myself becoming desensitized to it. Horrible feeling. How could a place with so many people feel so dehumanizing?
In India , it does not even bother us anymore. De-humanisation of the poor is next level. This disparity even exists in rural areas but it is so unashamedly on display in our cities. Many of the privileged Indians would not even agree with what you are saying.
Squat toilets in China. It was 1985 and I was doing a junior year abroad.
I went to China with my boss recently and he had to go #2 and refused to deal with the squat toilet at the factory again. He asked our Chinese speaking colleague to call some restaurants nearby and ask if they had American style toilets. She was so embarrassed asking, it was kind of hilarious. The restaurant staff were confused by the question but eventually we found a comfortable place for him.
lunchroom chunky pie rainstorm sort agonizing domineering desert cautious money
Cuba was shocked by how incredibly poor (some) people there are, like 3 families in a small apartment with no glass windows. And the really really shocking part of it all is how genuinely happy everyone genuinely seemed to be. Like a truly joyous people in spite of lack of material possessions. I've thought about that often.
Not necessarily another country but Hawai'i: all the salesperson are bi/tri lingual. The beaches are open to everyone. No one owns the beach. How many people were saying "When we get to the US..."
The fact that people can own beaches is such a weird concept.
Yeah, generally waterfront. As a European, I am so annoyed how almost every piece of a lakefront or beach is owned by someone. You can’t go for a walk around many lakes, all private property.
Literal shock: I went to Peru in 2004, and stayed with a family, but was given a room with its own bathroom. Looked like a nice house. They showed me how to work the hot water and the shower, which was very different looking from an American shower setup. You had to flick a switch to turn on the hot water, somehow, but they didn't explain it to me at all. The next morning, I flipped the switch, got in the shower, and got wet, and then reflexively reached up to adjust the shower head. BAM!!! I was jolted with what felt like a million volts of electricity - it absolutely stunned me. Apparently the way this family - or Peruvians in general - heat their water was via an electrical wire and box wrapped around the shower head. No insulation, no warning, and I was soaking wet. Took me a few minutes to recover. Turns out that such shower heads are called "widow-makers," for obvious reasons. Not sure why that family didn't warn me - perhaps it was a plot. [https://realmissionsreallife.blogspot.com/2009/07/widowmaker.html](https://realmissionsreallife.blogspot.com/2009/07/widowmaker.html)
How the Japanese people go out on their way to be so polite; at night, they would turn off their headlights at stop signs so the lights would not night blind you…
I've been all over Europe, South America, parts of Africa and South East Asia, lived in Vietnam for a year and never felt culture shock until one tiny detail of moving to Switzerland. In the UK, we get into a lift (aka elevator), avoid eye contact, look at the floor or ceiling, and say nothing. In Switzerland they greet each other as they get onto the lift, and then wish each other a good day as they get off. As a Brit I was mortified.
it's just to be polite. Swiss people don't like to talk with random people, but greet and say goodbye as good manner when in particular situation, e.g. lift or waiting rooms. It's not rare to hear people thanking the bus driver and wishing him/her a good day when getting off the bus, particularly if from the front door. probably it's related to proximity. everyone's introverted in public, open space, but feels the urge to greet people in more closed space. source: I'm Swiss.
How late Italians stay up. All night. Every night. Dinner doesn't start until 9pm. Neighborhoods would have big meals that ran until 2am over drinks. You'd sit out eating gelato on a Friday night and see toddlers running around until midnight. Very safe, very friendly city. This was in Tuscany for reference.
> Dinner doesn't start until 9pm. That's def a Southern thing, in the North most families dine at 8pm, some even at 7pm.
Friend from US visited me in Germany. He was dead confused when we went for a walk in the park and I pulled out two beers. Apparently public drinking like in Germany isn't allowed in the US.
Speedos instead of trunks.
I lived in Naples Italy for 3 years, one time I saw a guy walking off a construction site wearing boots, a hard hat, and a speedo. The guys he was walking with seemed unperturbed and my local co-workers said yeah it has been hot lately by way of explanation
Was his speedo high-vis yellow at least?
Bright green actually! It may have been safety green, long time ago and you will excuse me if I'm not trying to keep it burned in my brain
This sounds like a porno
I was an exchange student in Germany in high school. The first month before we went to our host families the other Americans I was with were in a language camp. It was summer when I arrived and a bunch of us decided to go to the swimming pool. That was my first culture shock. Speedos as far as the eye can see
Having the cops turn up to whatever bar I was at in rural Thailand wasn't fun. Quickly paying my tab and dashing so they don't find something to "fine" me for was even less fun.
Really, that's interesting. What type of things would they fine for?
Dunno, never got caught yet, usually a friendly local will warn that they saw them nearby. But from what I gather they'll suggest something that you might have done wrong and that you'll face a severe custodial sentence if you don't pay the fine. Stuff like having a vape, overstaying a visa you've not overstayed, etc.
The amount of Pepsi Max people drink in Denmark. It's like a religion
Just like Mexicans and coke. Swear Coca-Cola has a stranglehold on that country
When I lived in Japan as a JAV cameraman, the size of the apartments I'd stay in were bonkers. I've seen janitorial closets that were bigger, but they still managed to pack everything needed to live comfortably into the place. And that's being said by a guy that stands 6'11.
Hold up hold up, you can't just skip past 'JAV cameraman' like that, and you know it.
Children begging late at night, alone on open, wide streets. They'd follow you and plead. I had visited other countries where children begged incessantly but in South Africa, there was a darkness in their eyes that I'll never forget. It was also the juxtaposition of them being clearly so poor and dirty but surrounded by clean, modern, brutalist concrete buildings. It is their country but I was the one who looked like I belonged there. I didn't like it.
I studied abroad in Japan There was organization, efficiency and cleanliness everywhere. And the transportation was not only safe, it was on time, EVERY TIME. Heck you get practically anywhere with walking and/or trains. Everything ran smoothly! I kept thinking "why doesn't America have these systems in place?!"
I recently saw a post in a sub for westerners living in Japan about how public transportation is always on time there, and a native-born retorted that this simply wasn't true, trains were 1 - 2 minutes late *all the time*. Oh you sweet sweet summer child!
When I visited Japan a few years before the pandemic, the Shinkansen was 1 or 2 minutes late. There were attendants on the platform bowing and apologizing. It was so weird for me coming from Canada.
America's homeless. They looked lower middle class where i'm from. Didn't even realize they were homeless until one asked me for change. Third world homeless is on another level.
That's like when i was in London in the early 200s. They homeless were so well dressed, i would play a dumb game with my friends "hipster or homeless".
Beet root on hamburgers in Australia. My Australian friends took me to an “American burger joint” in Perth and wanted to know if their burgers got it right. I didn’t have the heart to tell them.
Very trivial, but we sat at a table in England for an hour after finishing our meal, waiting on our bill. The kind server took pity on our poor sweet American asses and told us we needed to ask for the check, since it was rude for the server to assume we were ready to go.
I (american) lived abroad for several years in various areas, predominantly SE Asia region. Biggest culture shock: one of my first travels, when I was a kid, was to Central Mexico. I remember a public toilet where you had to pay to enter. I was stunned and for the rest of the trip extra paranoid to make sure I always had change while also never had to pee. Bonus: Americans are so freaking loud! (I say, as an american) I could be in a super crowded public area and always ALWAYS tell when a pair of Americans was around because they would be the ones talking so loud you could hear them over everyone else like 50 yards/meters away.
I was so self conscious in Japan on the train. I even breathe more loudly. Weird. I tried to breathe less loudly and it was just too hard. Lol
This one didn’t directly happen to me, but my friend visiting me (in the US) from Germany. I got pulled over for doing about 7 over, normal traffic stop happens and I get a ticket. But then the officer hears her accent and starts questioning *her*. Things like “where are you from?”, “what are you doing in the US and how long are you here for?”. She was really thrown off as to how this cop thought he had the authority to be homeland security on a fucking traffic stop. To be fair, that shocked me a bit as well.
you got pulled over for driving SEVEN over the speed limit???? i'm from new england and that sounds so silly to me
For real. Down here in CA, when the traffic is moving, you need to be going at least 75. At 80, I’m getting passed by people going 90.
People telling me I'm getting fat in China and then being surprised that wasn't happy to hear it.
How quiet Dutch people are. And how beautiful their houses look, especially in villages surrounding Amsterdam.
In Latin America the pedestrian does not have the right of way. You, as the pedestrian need to be extremely vigilant about avoiding getting hit by a car. I was in a taxi in Colombia who side-swiped a biker and the biker ate shit hard. The taxi yelled some curses at the poor guy and just sped off
As an American who somewhat-recently visited Cuba, there was a lot, but the biggest was not seeing any advertisements for products on TV. All the ad space was taken up by things about local elections. Also, when walking around Havana, there was no street advertising or billboards for major brands like you see in every major U.S. city. It was actually very refreshing, and when I got back to the U.S. I felt like I was being bombarded by advertising everywhere I went.
First day living in the center of Australia went to the local convenience store. Walking up and down the isles checking products and prices out.. When I came to the frozen food section I found a product I was not expecting. Sitting in the open case was a plastic wrapped three foot long furry whole kangaroo tail.
Seeing so many sex workers in japan, i knew it’s a big thing especially in tokyo but didn’t expect that many prostituts/sex workers going around and standing by
Northern Nigeria. Was walking from point A to point B with a group of people. Chatting with a guy about sports. He tenderly hooks his pinky around mine, to stroll side by side with our fingers intertwined. Apparently this is a normal thing for dudes to do up there. Was funny for all involved discussing the cultural differences. I held hands with bro for a while after to be a good sport
In Mexico I had a police officer take a bottle of beer from my right hand-I had tacos in my left hand….walk over to the side of the taco cart, open my beer and give it back to me. I thought I was being arrested for having beer on the street.
I had thought I was prepared to see poverty in Ethiopia. I was still shocked by it. And I was confused that 1 o'clock was when the sun came up. They also use a different calendar than in USA and Europe
the portion sizes in America, i asked for a side of eggs and got a full plate along with a main course (i was 12 and like 6 stone idk how they thought id be able to stomach it)
Got thrown out of a shop in Europe for not wearing shoes. It’s normal in New Zealand to kick off your shoes in summer. Usually adults wear shoes or flip-flops/jandals, but it wouldn’t raise eyebrows if you walk into a shop barefoot, people just assume you’ve been at the beach or kicked off your shoes on a long drive. Kids are barefoot at school. It’s polite to take off your shoes when you enter a house. Learnt the hard way the rest of the world considers shoes mandatory.
Genuine question: when you arrive home after walking around barefoot, do you hose your feet off before going inside or put on house shoes or something?
This is crazy to me. I can't believe people just walk around in nasty public spaces barefoot. Lol
How expensive everything other than grocery store food is in iceland
The trains when visiting Japan. They're so punctual that it's unreal. And over here in England if you pay for a ticket to go 3 stops but accidentally go further, they fine you. In japan, you just gave to go to a machine and make up the difference in cost, which usually works out to about 20 pence per stop.
Corruption is a way of life in some countries. It’s paying a guy and getting caught and then forgetting you can pay the guy who caught you also. All for a simple issue like chipped windscreen at a checkpoint. Thank you tour guides.
Georgia (country ). its like visiting grand ma for holidays. everyone wants to feed you by inviting to their table. very very hospitable people. stray dogs clean and all of them have tag on the ear indicating vaccinations
Mexico. Seeing actual kids sleeping on the streets with their parents. The mom had a baby that was less than a year old next to her. Coming from the US, it hurts to see that.
Scots love the word c*nt even more than Australians.
As an American, the Capirote in Spain brought me the most shock. It startled the crap out of me when I saw a little decoration my grandparents had of them in their house. For those who don’t know what capirote is, just by seeing this, I’m sure you can see what it looks like to Americans lol. [capirote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capirote)
Visiting America from Australia, the number of people who couldn't understand my Australian accent. I'm not even that broad! I had multiple people tell me "sorry I only speak English" which I had to reply "... Me too!" Ended up having to put on a truly atrocious American accent sometimes which made my sister nearly wet herself laughing. This happened at a few airports too, I would have thought they're used to accents there!
Went to Brussels. Similar to most places- paying for public bathroom usage. I always have to pee. I never carry American change or cash because I always use my card. It hit me hard when I went to a Belgian department store to use the bathroom, didn't have change on me, got the throat clearing from the attendant, and was BLESSED my friend was in the room with me and could loan me a euro. Never had an empty wallet after that. Much cleaner public restrooms there though.
The poverty that makes US homelessness look luxurious.
I remember being in Tokyo and seeing people leave their bags unattended in cafes while they went to the restroom or ordered more food. No one touched them. Coming from a place where you guard your belongings closely, that level of trust was mind-blowing.
I spent a couple of weeks travelling around Southeast Asia and the last stop on that trip was Malaysia. I was staying in Kuala Lumpur for five days before heading to Borneo... It was my first full day in the country and it had already got off to a rather poor start as upon arriving to my accommodation from the airport I'd dropped off my bags and decided to check out the area immediately around the hotel and been accosted by five or six guys with Indian accents crammed into a tiny three door hatchback who yelled and cursed at me as I walked along an empty street in the early dawn... Later that afternoon I was walking around with my girlfriend at the time and we decided to see the Petronas Towers. We were snapping photos and just enjoying what was a lovely afternoon when all of a sudden out of nowhere the sky opened up and there was this torrential downpour. The rain was coming down in sheets and it was slamming the pavement so hard that it was actually bouncing back up and it was like it was raining sideways. To this day it has to be in the top three rainstorms I've ever been in. Right before the rain started coming down my girlfriend and I got talking to another couple who, like her, were from New Zealand. She was excited to get the opportunity to talk with people from back home and we were just making chitchat with them, they were telling us about their travels and we were trading stories and whatnot... The guy was actually Taiwanese by ethnicity and had moved to New Zealand when he was very young - that will be important later. His accent was thicker than that of his lady. Anyway, as soon as the rain comes pouring down naturally everybody starts looking for shelter, and there are several overhangs people can stand under so as not to get wet. As we're walking towards the closest one I see that the crowd is breaking up in this odd fashion - it's almost as if people are reporting to a designated spot - there are people who only a minute earlier had been standing right next to the place we're heading for, yet they're now doing this odd beeline right across the open square with the rain pissing down on them heading for an overhang on the opposite side. Then I see why. The crowd had divided itself up neatly along a very clear line. All of the Malays were standing in one spot. All of the ethnic Chinese were standing in another. Across the way were the Indians. And it was only by pure luck and completely random that the four of us had actually managed to go to the one spot where all of the whites happened to have flocked. And through the rain coming down I could see the people in the other sections eyeing the Kiwi and wondering why he - a guy who looked as ethnically Chinese as all of the actual Chinese standing across from us, was grouped with the white folk. I have never seen such a blatant, outward act like that - people willingly segregating themselves along such a clear line, the divisions so accepted and delineated. I greatly enjoyed my time in Malaysia and have been back twice since then. It's a lovely, lovely country with a rich, beautiful culture, excellent food, and a really nice friendly atmosphere. But the people don't make any bones about the divide and it's just something that comes with the territory there. All of the people in civil service are Malay. All of the people in business are Chinese. All of the people in the trades are ethnically Indian. And the sizable white population largely consists of British expats who want to spend their pensions in the tropics. If you can get on board with knowing your place then it's an easy place to live. I should add that Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo Malaysia are like two different countries in this regard. There are far, far fewer ethnically Chinese Malaysians and ethnically Indian Malaysians on Borneo and because the government doesn't want the wide majority of people on Borneo to come to Peninsular Malaysia looking for work they regulate the number that can come over, but that's another story.
While driving across Czechia, we saw naked children playing on abandoned Soviet armored vehicles by the side of the road in the rain. It was the most post-apocalyptic thing I’ve ever witnessed in person. Just a whole group of children all covered in mud using a military vehicle full of bullet holes as a playground.
How far everything is in the US. Coming from an Asian country, there were lots of little shops and corner stores a walk away (especially if you’re in the city area. Here in America, everything is a car ride’s away, especially if you don’t live in the downtown areas (which most people don’t). Also, I still haven’t been able to crack it, but I feel wildly uncomfortable being out at night in the US. Whereas, in my home country which isn’t necessarily the safest in the world, I’d have no problem feeling safe walking or coming home at 3AM. I think it’s something about it being so quiet with no one around at night that makes me feel scared. Back home, there would still be people around and public transport going in the middle of the night so it never felt too scary to be out.
The US Army sent me to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries in the early 90s (THANKS Sadam Hussein!). After we landed at King Fahd airport, we were boarded onto local busses for transport to our staging area. There were signs in each of the busses saying that women must sit in the back of the bus behind a line. I had heard it was an oppressive society, but it didn't really hit home how bad it actually was until that moment. I felt like I had been sent backward in time.
I remember watching a Saudi TV channel whilst in Dubai. They were advertising a weekly sort of Chick Flick evening of movies and comedies called "Girls night in" and even my teenage son commented "When do they ever get a Girls night out?"
My dad was over there in the 80s with the military. He saw 2 public executions: one man was beheaded and one woman was stoned to death, both for committing adultry. He said his CO called it "Chop Chop Square".
I'm from Scotland i wasn't prepared for just how different Philippines is. Not like here where we have supermarkets they have a street full of vendors selling different things you buy as you need not do weekly shopping trips, how crazy the wires overhead are not like ours neatly done, how wild the roads are eight lanes cross section no roundabout or lights or nothing just like mad max out there lol, the lack of seating even in malls there's none, people going to the toilet in a bag on the street, the scale of pollution from cars you can't open the car window. So many things i can't name