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30 Of The Good And The Bad Culture Shocks Non-Americans Experienced While In The US, As Shared In This Online Group
Isolation of nations, different climate and resources as well as other factors led to different customs in different places forming. But with globalization, we are able to know about those differences and prepare for them. However, some things are less talked about because people may not even realize that it could be different in other places, so there is always something that can surprise us.
The country that people like to talk about very often is the US. There are so many things they do differently, so visiting the country or living there might cause some culture shocks. Redditors were discussing this very topic when Miserablemermaid asked “Non-Americans of reddit, what was the biggest culture shock you experienced when you came to the US?” There were more than 30k answers given in just a day, so we collected the most interesting things redditors pointed out.
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Your sugar has very little food in it.
Seeing children of all different colors. It was beautiful.
The treatment of veterans. A lot of communication around the respect they deserve. Yet many of them are broke, homeless and in a generally bad position.
And (and I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this) unfortunately, I've seen and read about a lot of cases where veterans (and especially their spouses, for some reason) become extremely entitled. I completely agree with the quote from Bojack Horseman "Maybe some of the troops are heroes but not automatically" where he goes on to say that people can be jerks, and giving a jerk a gun and a title doesn't make them not a jerk. I respect the fact you fought for your country, but I'm not going to respect you if you're an entitled jerk. xP
Not really a shock but one thing that really surprised me was the sheer amount of flags.
It was like almost every building had an American flag. Here in Belgium, if I see a house with a national flag I assume there's some kind of sport event going on that I didn't know about.
And they "make" kids pledge their allegiance to it. Not to our country or fellow Americans, but a flag.
The toilet doors (or lack thereof). Not enough door!
Seriously, you're a wealthy enough country you don't need to leave an inch gap at the sides and a foot and a half at the top and bottom.
Could not walk anywhere, or take good public transport. Always had to take Ubers or hitch lifts.
Everything was also HUGE. Cities, buildings, regular houses, food portions. I'd say people but I did not see anybody who was hugely obese there at least.
There was an insane amount of space just...everywhere. As a European used to being crammed into every available nook, even in rural areas, the way that towns and cities just stretched out was unimaginable.
The air conditioning. Everywhere. And the literal temperature shock between the inside and the outside of any f**king building.
Everything being f**king huge. Literally. Road lanes, groceries, soda sizes. Especially distances: where i come from, 3 hours of driving are enough to cross half of the country, in the US it's just a small drive to go to see a relative or something.
In New England one can travel easily between States in three hours. Not Maine or New York but most of the other states are small. Here in the Western part of the U S it does take more than three hours to leave between Ststes.
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An Australian and an American were talking, and an echidna waddled by. The American saw it and said "is that the biggest your porcupine get? Our porcupine are HUGE! Then a dingo went by, and the American said "Is that the biggest your wolves get? Our wolves are HUGE! Just then a kangaroo went by and the American said "What was that?!" The Australian said "Don't you have grasshoppers?"
as an american its crazy talking to locals of small countries because they are not used to regularly traveling long distances. they'll be like "we haven't seen our uncle in 5 years because he lives 45 minutes away" & americans are like "that's our daily, 1 way commute to work!"
Yes. I drove 75 miles to my job in far SW Colorado, except on the days I needed to go to my office in SE Utah - that was just over 200 miles. I put 95,000 miles on my car in 10 months! (NO public transportation...)
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Try driving across the state of Western Australia and get back to me.
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I live in Texas. We actually live in a pretty good position, for we live fairly close to Austin and San Antonio, and it's the hill country so it's really beautiful and not just flat fields literally the size of the entire UK
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We are a land of plenty...Plenty of waste, plenty of corruption, plenty of denial, plenty of money in the hands of people who cause harm.
Yeah, tonight we had to choose between a 600g steak on special, or a smaller 200g one for 30% more... meh
The thing about America is that 100 years is a long time, but in the UK, 100 miles is a long way.
Hey, we can't help that our country is huge. You would probably complain if you paid airfare and didn't have a big place to explore
This is a big thing that no one realizes when they talk about US culture. Not many realize how big the region is and cultural difference between even parts of our own country.
A friend was too cheap to drive, too lazy to walk, so, he rode his bike everywhere.
Uhhh how the hell is biking MORE lazy than walking!? Biking is way more work than walking!
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I Can drive from my city in the middle of jutland, to Copenhagen our city Capital in 3 hours… also its the same time to go to Hamburg in germany. 😁
"In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance. In the US, 100 years is a long time."
Yep. 3 hours leaves me with 5 MORE hours to drive to get back home. And home is far more than 8 hours wide! Ah, Kansas!! 😊🌻🌾🌈🌾🌻 😊
I live in Houston Texas so yeah.... sometimes we have to drive 3 hours just to get to work in traffic 🤣
East coasters don't understand this either. I moved from New Jersey to California after high school. My friends wanted to visit and make a day trip from Sacramento to San Diego, a 10+ hour drive.
I have to drive 12 hours just to drive halfway up the east coast. Think again, idiot.
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Can't argue about the serving sizes, but from what I've seen it's more a case of extending limits, not a total scale increase, if you get my drift. That's why moderation is key. Regarding groceries, and road lanes: as per usual depends on the area. There are numerous narrow streets and 2-lane interstate highways. I assume you've never been to Washington, DC... As far as distances go, that's not an active choice, that's geography. Seriously, compare the size of Europe to the continental US. Also, driving distance varies by state. A long drive in Delaware is not a long drive in Texas. Inaccurate.
Uncle said the largest fat food portions in the US are absolutely massive.
The drive from Haarlem to South of France takes just as long as the drive across Idaho.
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Why is that a shock tho? People visiting here do realize our country is literally almost the entire continent of North america right? Like ofcourse its huge and 3 hrs of driving doesnt cover more than 1 or 2 states. Have these people not seen a map b4? Food items sure, but the actual size of the country... U can literally look at a globe and figure that 1 out at any time in ur life and understand how far 3 hrs of driving would get u in relation 2 the size of the country
Canada is bigger then the USA so how does that make sense?
Load More Replies... Sign of a small vocabulary: constant use of f**king to describe everything!
Try Canada bud. Takes over 3 weeks of solid driving to cross Canada lol (5,332 miles) America is 4 days haha
Lawyer commercials and "if this happened to you, you can sue them" commercials.
Absolutely! Lawyers billboards, TV ads, subway ads, bus ads incentivating people to sue everyone for every reason is simply disgusting. Let alone those advertising in spanish as your "abogado". Simply ridiculous. Easy to understand if someone says the US Legal system is overwhelmed.
Christianity everywhere. On your money, in the school, every Sunday, churches everywhere, in your pledge, in the Boy scouts, verses at the bottom of In&Out milkshakes
This depends on where in America you are. I remember going to an area in the "bible belt" for the first time and it was also a culture shock for me lol.
I was walking down the street and there were some road workers doing something a bit ahead. When I got near them, one of them approached me and super kindly asked me to cross to the other side, halted the traffic so I could cross and wished me a nice day as I went along.
In my country they would've probably heckled at me for not crossing, and I would've told them to go f**k themselves for not signaling things properly as I walked in the middle of the street potentially getting hit by a car
Turn right on red. Beautiful.
The only reason it works is because most of the USA is built in a grid system. So you come to a 90 degree angle crossroads and you can make a right on red. It does not and cannot work on older streets where roads do not meet at a right angle, or when there are more than four roads meeting at the junction.
The importance of the College/University you go to. For me it felt like the name, you can even call it brand, of the College is more important than your actual skills and knowledge as well as the quality of education you receive. So many times, people asked me which College/University I visit and told me about their College and the College their childrens are visiting. Totally different than what I am used to in Germany, where it is mainly focused on your skills and grades not the College/University your are visiting.
That only matters for a very few colleges, and I am in a position to say that the education you get at Ivy League colleges is NOT superior to the education at other universities. It's just that it will open doors for you by other people who are part of the elite club. If it's not one of these elite colleges, it really doesn't matter where you go.
Tipping. And not just tipping, but tipping so much that the entire thing I bought (e.g. a meal) is now in an entirely higher price bracket.
Tipping is really, really important, because US laws allow for servers to be paid around $2 an hour (which is just so wrong to begin with). So not only do they need the tips to stand a chance of making a living wage, but they are also taxed on those tips because it is ASSUMED that they will get them. So if you don't tip someone, they actually lose money. It's a really bad system, but while it exists, please plan to tip in the USA.
How early everything starts. School, work. 6am wake ups. That was hard.
then you've never worked in brisbane, australia. we don't have DLS, and most people like working from 4am when it's bright and light ;)
Advertisements in between the title credits of the show and the actual show. You guys have a LOT of advertisements.
Same in the UK for any channel that isn't BBC (Itv is the worst for adverts. xD)
No sidewalks, not everywhere, but outside of major cities, you often literally can't walk between places safely
This one is a catch 22. The reason usually given for not putting in sidewalks is that "nobody walks there." Well, no, not without sidewalks they don't!
The different kinds of flavors for beverages. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of options.
Just so you guys know,I enjoyed having multiple options, until I came to the US I had no idea I liked Blue Raspberry flavored soda and I found out that I liked to mix different kinds of sodas from the fountain and make a cocktail soda occasionally.
Also, I like how you guys have a s**t ton of flavors for your alcohol. I liked a lot of them but to be honest I didn't enjoy the whipped cream flavored stuff.
When I was a kid in the 70's/80's, at the roller skating rink, we used to get suicides. A suicide was every flavor of fountain soda mixed in a cup with ice. So tasty!
Sewers turtles aren't ninja turtles
When we first arrived, and I walked up to a soda machine. We never had those, and I think I drank 10-15 refills of coke before my parents started yelling at me. UNLIMITED SODA ARE YOU KIDDING ME WTF.
Even if it was sugar free soda/pop I'd feel a bit sick after 15 refills o.o
Billboards. They are everywhere. You can go hours in the UK driving without seeing one. In Florida, I saw one every few minutes.
Ads on TV, motherf**ker, just play the show, this is painful.
Traffic, how do people drive in the US, it's so easy to get caught in traffic, it's everywhere. F**KER JUST DRIVE, ITS PAINFUL, ADD A F**KING ROUND A BOUT
7/11s are magical places though.
People pay for their own food. As someone who came from China, where everyone fights for the bill without the intention to pay, this is very refreshing.
1.No walls around houses, or burglar bars by windows.
2.HOAs, i don't get why neighbours can have any say as to how long grass should be or what colour i can/cannot paint a house.
3. People walking around with their phones in hand freely and not worried about getting robbed.
4. Not all but how many know little about anything outside of the U.S.
5. How hard they go in advertising for any and everything.
My wife is from the Philippines and also worked in Singapore for over 10 years. When she came here she had many surprises but one big one was the ability to return items that she had purchased. She had never been able to do that before.
with our consumers right in australia, as long as you are able to show proof of purchase, you can return stuff for even after 12 months of use if unsatisfactory.
How non-physical Americans are. I’m Latina and every time I meet someone new it’s considered polite to hug and kiss their cheek as a greeting. Obvi with professionals it’s a no go but like if I’m introduced to a friend of a friend I would do a very light hug and kiss, it was mind blowing to me that Americans mostly did the half hearted wave or a handshake.
People really care about their teeth like whitening and straightening.
Drive through ATM. Very friendly people. How very obese so many Americans were. Water fountains in every public place. Heating system in every house. I was amazed by so many trees along the highways. Still am
Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Yippee. The same stupid list that is always posted on BP. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Try something new.
Yeah it must have been the 20th similar post in 2 months! I hope everyone complaining about Disney princesses is happy now!! I wish we could go back to that actually!! Not to mention that i haven't seen animal posts for a while and this is what we are here for!
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Tipping. Complete strangers sharing their view as you walk out of a changing room. Vicious political game playing. Bible bashing. Evangelist Tv. Trailer parks aplenty. Can't find a lettuce in the supermarket, but can find a rifle. And have to enter a separate shop to buy booze. Fireworks are illegal. Guns are not. Equally, nice to see patriotism (in moderation), friendly people, great food, awesome scenery, cheap fuel, great sport, amazing museums and galleries, affordable housing (from a Brits perspective). Good and bad everywhere. Heaven knows, we have our issues...
Ive lived in some super redneck places and Ive never seen a rifle in a supermarket for sale and not lettuce. Fireworks are restricted in SOME places due to fire dangers and dry seasons.
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I could add so much to this list. I think the things I still remember are: 1/ the overwhelming choices for every single type of food, like 50 different kinds of cereals. 2/ comparative advertising. So car company A would advertise their vehicle and tell you all the ways it was better than car company B. 3/ The outward friendliness of Americans, that just never went anywhere. It was all surface. 4/ The 1950s social world, where men and women still separated at parties and women are expected to be so pretty and men are expected to make money and pay for everything. 5/ The prevalence of the same companies and stores everywhere you go and very few small, independent shops. 6/ How cheap everything was compared to in Europe 7/ That the price on the label is not the final price. Sales tax is added when you check out!
your #5: at one point i wanted to visit all kinds of cities and take pics of the identical Walmarts and Home Depots, etc and just label them as the city name. in the end, i couldn't be arsed to do it :)
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Totally. My husband and I were at a dinner/burlesque type show in France. Everyone else at the table was English or French and an American couple were shown to the table and greeted us all individually and tried to start conversing. We were not very receptive, I’m sorry to say….
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Very interesting to see how other countries differ from the US. Thanks. Good read!
America bad rest of world good America Lazy America Works to much America too friendly America not friendly enough .... Try something new BP try pointing out the rest of the worlds faults .
Most if not all of these are normal in South Africa, Japan and Australia - speaking from living experience
Amazing article. I love it. Good choices & research. And wide variety of opinions. It was good as a US native to get to know about other places this way.
I'm saying this as a fat woman so everyone knows where this is going...The f**k! Spray cheese is still a thing. I'm disgusted. On the other hand, does anyone remember the cheese that came in the yellow submarine-shaped package and you squeezed it out of a star-shaped opening? Sometimes I think I hallucinated that very odd image that pops up every so often. And mustard in Lunchables in a weird squeezy tube.
Yeah, i guess you maybe didn't all know but the US is a big and multicultural place. It's entirely possible to be from one part of the US and go to at least four other places that will likely be a "culture shock". I say this as someone who has spent a day or more in around 40 of the 50 states (and solidly lived in at least five) and also been to at least 7 other countries (I know some of you EU folks are like "hah, seven countries" but realize I have easily covered more territory than the Europe and the Mediterranean nations combined). There certainly are places that match one or more parts of this list, and maybe your experience of a place is different than where you grew up, but none of these entries is either uniquely or universally part of US culture.
Just say that America is the greatest country to live in ever! Let’s go Brandon!
Why do you people think cheering for a guy named Brandon pisses us off?
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Let me be very honest... This whole idea of making a list For non americans to judge americans is a bad idea, as not every one understands why Specific "rules" are in place in usa... Specifically on the internet. Either way, the list could have been ten times better. Complaining about Loving your own country, rise of christianity in a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY. What really should have made the list is the amount of americans saying "Latinx", how far left the country has been since the 50s and 60s, the amount of Lefties who see Orange man bad as literally Hitler, yet know zero about politics and praise the O'biden bama democrat and old socialist Jew as the most important people in US History. Amount of people dismissing the founders and trying to rewrite the US constitution, so much and so forth. Why should "Latinx" have it been on the list, though? Simple, the writter is a latina. Nobody gets more annoyed at Latinx than Latinos and latinas.
Um, read the constitution, the USA is a secular country. I don't know what your thing with a particular word is but you seem to not actually know much about the USA. (Also, there's a huge difference between literally Hitler and definitely an anti-democracy fascist, maybe go read up on fascism before you start calling people names).
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Yippee. The same stupid list that is always posted on BP. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Try something new.
Yeah it must have been the 20th similar post in 2 months! I hope everyone complaining about Disney princesses is happy now!! I wish we could go back to that actually!! Not to mention that i haven't seen animal posts for a while and this is what we are here for!
Load More Replies... Tipping. Complete strangers sharing their view as you walk out of a changing room. Vicious political game playing. Bible bashing. Evangelist Tv. Trailer parks aplenty. Can't find a lettuce in the supermarket, but can find a rifle. And have to enter a separate shop to buy booze. Fireworks are illegal. Guns are not. Equally, nice to see patriotism (in moderation), friendly people, great food, awesome scenery, cheap fuel, great sport, amazing museums and galleries, affordable housing (from a Brits perspective). Good and bad everywhere. Heaven knows, we have our issues...
Ive lived in some super redneck places and Ive never seen a rifle in a supermarket for sale and not lettuce. Fireworks are restricted in SOME places due to fire dangers and dry seasons.
Load More Replies... I could add so much to this list. I think the things I still remember are: 1/ the overwhelming choices for every single type of food, like 50 different kinds of cereals. 2/ comparative advertising. So car company A would advertise their vehicle and tell you all the ways it was better than car company B. 3/ The outward friendliness of Americans, that just never went anywhere. It was all surface. 4/ The 1950s social world, where men and women still separated at parties and women are expected to be so pretty and men are expected to make money and pay for everything. 5/ The prevalence of the same companies and stores everywhere you go and very few small, independent shops. 6/ How cheap everything was compared to in Europe 7/ That the price on the label is not the final price. Sales tax is added when you check out!
your #5: at one point i wanted to visit all kinds of cities and take pics of the identical Walmarts and Home Depots, etc and just label them as the city name. in the end, i couldn't be arsed to do it :)
Load More Replies... Totally. My husband and I were at a dinner/burlesque type show in France. Everyone else at the table was English or French and an American couple were shown to the table and greeted us all individually and tried to start conversing. We were not very receptive, I’m sorry to say….
Load More Replies... Very interesting to see how other countries differ from the US. Thanks. Good read!
America bad rest of world good America Lazy America Works to much America too friendly America not friendly enough .... Try something new BP try pointing out the rest of the worlds faults .
Most if not all of these are normal in South Africa, Japan and Australia - speaking from living experience
Amazing article. I love it. Good choices & research. And wide variety of opinions. It was good as a US native to get to know about other places this way.
I'm saying this as a fat woman so everyone knows where this is going...The f**k! Spray cheese is still a thing. I'm disgusted. On the other hand, does anyone remember the cheese that came in the yellow submarine-shaped package and you squeezed it out of a star-shaped opening? Sometimes I think I hallucinated that very odd image that pops up every so often. And mustard in Lunchables in a weird squeezy tube.
Yeah, i guess you maybe didn't all know but the US is a big and multicultural place. It's entirely possible to be from one part of the US and go to at least four other places that will likely be a "culture shock". I say this as someone who has spent a day or more in around 40 of the 50 states (and solidly lived in at least five) and also been to at least 7 other countries (I know some of you EU folks are like "hah, seven countries" but realize I have easily covered more territory than the Europe and the Mediterranean nations combined). There certainly are places that match one or more parts of this list, and maybe your experience of a place is different than where you grew up, but none of these entries is either uniquely or universally part of US culture.
Just say that America is the greatest country to live in ever! Let’s go Brandon!
Why do you people think cheering for a guy named Brandon pisses us off?
Load More Replies... Let me be very honest... This whole idea of making a list For non americans to judge americans is a bad idea, as not every one understands why Specific "rules" are in place in usa... Specifically on the internet. Either way, the list could have been ten times better. Complaining about Loving your own country, rise of christianity in a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY. What really should have made the list is the amount of americans saying "Latinx", how far left the country has been since the 50s and 60s, the amount of Lefties who see Orange man bad as literally Hitler, yet know zero about politics and praise the O'biden bama democrat and old socialist Jew as the most important people in US History. Amount of people dismissing the founders and trying to rewrite the US constitution, so much and so forth. Why should "Latinx" have it been on the list, though? Simple, the writter is a latina. Nobody gets more annoyed at Latinx than Latinos and latinas.
Um, read the constitution, the USA is a secular country. I don't know what your thing with a particular word is but you seem to not actually know much about the USA. (Also, there's a huge difference between literally Hitler and definitely an anti-democracy fascist, maybe go read up on fascism before you start calling people names).
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