I know not everyone on this sub is from the US but what are things you have been surprised to learn are not a “standard” in other parts of the world (compared to where you grew up)?
I’ll add a few of mine
- Ice is not standard outside the US
- We went to Ireland and I had recently broken a part of my ankle, finding any ice was a wild endeavor
- US food portions are actually substantial
- this one is super easy mode but still, it shocked me seeing how and what we eat against other countries
- Major cities/countries can have power grid issues (looking at you South Africa)
- I had no idea that the grid was that unstable in SA until this most recent season of Other Way
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No tipping at restaurants.
Businesses closing in afternoon and on Sundays.
Americans are not necessarily liked. (But we think we are.)
Smiling can be be considered as untrustworthy.
Shaking hands with everyone when entering a room. As an American, I found that uncomfortable and preferred to just say “Hi!” to cover the whole group, but I got used to it and came to like it.
More relaxed at work. Lunch breaks and afternoon breaks are expected and are actually enjoyable - not a guilt trip.
Children are welcome in way more places than in USA. We think we’re a family-friendly country, but we could learn a lot from other cultures who actually spend time with different ages groups and are kind to all ages.
I don’t use ice for anything (I like drinks cold, but without ice - ice dilutes them) and I haven’t seen anyone use it (I’m not from America and I don’t live there). Except for people who drink whiskey daily.
I don’t like it as a product and I wouldn’t put something unnecessary in my fridge - just to take up space.
I will say this about portion sizes – ours are ridiculous! My vf and I have both started eating smaller portions, and I’ve lost almost 30 lbs. I don’t exercise, I work from home 10 hrs a day and never leave the house, I even drink Dr. Pepper daily!
Most of the obesity problem is due to portion sizes.
We can’t go to a restaurant and finish all of our food. Seriously. We wasted 100 bucks at Red Lobster and only finished half of our plates.
The first meal my husband and I had in the US (we’re from Canada) about 10 years ago, we ordered an appetizer to split and an entree each. I could not believe how much food came out. And one side was a sweet potato… with option to add marshmallows and caramel sauce. Whaaaaat. After that we ordered one meal between us.
I recently (6 months ago) went to a dietitian about 6 months ago and had several meetings through the summer to learn portions and “coping mechanisms” I am down 45 lbs!
I’m left handed. I never really understood how some countries feel about the LEFT HAND. I was in Syria about 10 years ago, and was eating fried chicken with my left hand, and a group of men were looking at me and called me a “dog”, in Arabic. I also had several older people in S E Asia, pissed off because I handed them money with my left hand.
Whoa that’s fascinating, I’m left handed and that’d be so jarring!
US has nearly eradicated smoking in public places. I was in Paris 35 years ago and it was a smoke fest everywhere? Do they still smoke that much in Europe?
I always do a double-take when I see a smoker in the US now…it’s just so unusual. I can only think of two of my friends, a married couple, who still smoke of people I know.
Just visit a county fair in the US. I forgot what it was like to be surrounded by a cloud of smoke until I attended one recently. And now you get both cigarette and vape smoke blown at you!
I’m an American who went to grad school in London and I could not believe there was no A/C in most buildings and public transportation. In the summer, everyone just sweat together and stunk up the city.
The standard of throwing poopy toilet paper away in a garbage can in Mexico is always unsettling.
The squat toilet on the moving train in S. Korea was 😳. You can see the tracks through the hole.
The hotel room in Poryong (S.Korea) that was completely unheated and freezing. There was a sleeping mat in a concrete floor and that was it. Super weird. It was $125/night and that was in 2001. There’s no way it would even be legal to offer that sort of accommodation in the US.
For sure. All of that. I didn’t like throwing the paper away when I was in China, Peru and Bolivia. I think though, that a great many countries in the world do this.
When I lived in Japan, I had a VERY hard time getting used to no heating outside of a space heater / air conditioner heater. I hated every single day I was cold.
Edit: PS, Happy cake day!
Every night in Japan, a reminder would come on over a loud speaker in the area to remind everyone to shut off their heaters lest they burn to death in their sleep. That was a super unnerving thought.
Omg you know what? I was staying in flimsy teacher housing with tatami rooms. I would drag my kerosene heater into my room and close the door because fucking… at that point, I didn’t care. At All. As you can see, luckily I survived.
All the countries I’ve traveled had terrible McD’s lol. Even the international people I was with complained at the ones in Japan!!
Absolutely try out the local restaurants. 👍
I’m from Eastern Europe but I worked in an English grocery store for a minute and we carried ice, I couldn’t understand why people would buy a bag of ice to keep in their freezer instead of just using ice trays lol, unless everyone was throwing big parties.
For me the absolute weirdest thing was learning that a lot of British people wash their dishes by filling up their sink with soapy water, dunking their dishes in that and then just letting them dry without ever rinsing them?? Even if you scrape off any food there’s still gonna be some bits left, not to mention the dish soap? And I don’t believe they all keep their sink clean enough for that to be hygienic either. I could maybe get used to people not immediately removing their shoes at home, but the dishes will haunt me forever.
My ex husband is from Wales, and he did that and so did his parents! Well, they didn’t just dunk the dishes–they actually scrubbed them clean–but then dunked them back in the soapy water and then placed them on the drying rack, suds and all. I always assumed it was just a quirk of his family. But, my best friend happened to marry a guy from England, and she told me that her husband and his family do the same! So now we wonder if it’s an “all of Britain” thing, or just a generational thing? I asked my ex once how he could stand, say, drinking tea out of a cup that had dried soap caked on it. And I received the most quintessential British response ever: “Well, sometimes the first cup tastes a bit soapy, but you get on with it.”
Toilet seat covers are not the norm. Gross.
Many women don’t sit on them anyway. It is disgusting to sit on the same toilet seat that unknown people have sat on - even in my work, where it is clean, these people are just my colleagues, we are not that close. I usually cover it with paper and be careful, but it’s slow and uses up a lot of paper (and yes, in my country, paper can be flushed down the toilet - at least in most places).
In other places you learn to do it from a semi-standing position (not pleasant). Obviously it’s not about a long stay or anything big - just make sure you don’t have to.
In Japan, a lot of places we visited just had holes in the ground. When we went to touristy places, they’d often have a single stall that had a sign that said “Western Toilet” (or something like that). That stall would have a commode in it. The hole situation was difficult for me because I clearly never developed the thigh strength to hover over them, lol. I wondered, but never asked, ho handicapped or frail people were able to use the hole. I didn’t see any stalls designated for handicapped individuals.
Japan… The elevator door didn’t automatically close. My husband and I stood there for a good moment waiting then finally hit the button. Lol
Also lack of a/c when I visited London Paris and Amsterdam last year. Luckily Amsterdam weather was good there was a terrible heat wave while in London and everything was just breaking down like the train we took to Paris 🤦♀️. They were not prepared for that. Our hotel room only had heat and the comforters were super thick which would’ve been great if it was cold. The hotel staff opened our hotel window and offered us a fan that was not helpful. We found a/c at the grocery store next to us but that was it. Such a hot trip
We in America lack actual reliable public transportation, so it is basically required to learn to drive in 99% of the country.
I am always baffled by this (but definitely understand it) we live in Chicagoland, and recently were in the city for 15 years, even our suburbs have decent commuter rail and whenever I try to explain it to a colleague who is not in IL they’re like What are you talking about???
It’s also hard when you live in an area with good public transport and you go to an area that isn’t.
How late people eat dinner. I moved to Argentina from the U.S., to be with my Argentinian boyfriend. The day that I arrived, he made dinner reservations for the “early seating”. I was surprised to learn that meant 9:30pm. I struggled with that for the longest time.
I had a hell of a time finding any condiment in London other than mustard.
Also, salted butter. Unsalted seems to be the norm outside the US.
No HP sauce??
In Curacao there are places where you can only flush your number ones so no number twos are allowed. At some other places on the island you can flush both, but not anything else at all, including toilet paper. There is a bucket provided where you deposit your used toilet paper. That all took some getting used to.