33 Cultural Differences People Were Shocked To See Abroad

In Spain, no chit chat from the waiter. None of that "I'll be serving you" stuff that we hear in the US. Just "tell me." My introvert self loved it. I tell you, food arrives, I eat.

Croatia: it's a standard expectation that you clean the street outside your house as part of cleaning your house (at least in the small towns i was in -not sure about the cities). The cleanest streets I've ever seen and a real sense of communal civic pride.

In Jordan, and I'm sure most Arab countries, if you compliment something, it's considered impolite for the person not to offer it to you. I thought the warnings were an exaggeration until my friend complimented a waiter's watch and the waiter had it literally unlatched, trying to push it into my friend's hands. Four is the appropriate amount of times to say no, and if you actually do want it, it's rude to say yes after fewer than three.

Visiting China and seeing how aggressive/pushy people are. Makes sense, there are 1+ billion people, if you are polite and wait your turn you'll be left behind. So everybody is pushy, cuts in line, shoving you out of the way, etc. Of course I just had come from Japan where it's the total opposite....

In parts of Ireland in my grandparents time it was considered rude to accept food or beverages from a host the first time it was offered.

The exchange was supposed to go something like: "will you have a cup of tea?" "no thank you, I won't, I won't trouble you" "ahh you will sure, go on" "ahh I will so, if you're making one for yourself"

When my parents first went to America, they were shocked to find that people didn't do this, so instead it went: "would you like a cup of coffee?" "no thank you, I won't trouble you" "okay!" "wait! I did actually want coffee!" "then why did you say no??"

One of my grandmothers was like this until she died, would get really snippy with you if you accepted a drink or a biscuit the first time she offered it.

Chile. "Tomorrow" means next week. "Next week" means never. "I'm already there" means "i'm thinking about starting to prepare to go out".
For a ten-minutes-early person that was jarring.

Balinese funerals and how they celebrate death. I was sitting on the beach on my first day there and heard a crowd coming, carrying food and playing festive music. I thought it was some kind of party or wedding until I realized they were carrying a corpse.

USA to South Korea for school. Eating lunch in the cafeteria for the first time on my second day, trying to eat ramen with chopsticks and realizing too late that I should've spent more time working with chopsticks before coming to a country with very few forks. Thankfully another girl nearby took pity on me and taught me through miming how to make it work.

In Armenia, cigarettes are communal because they're so cheap. If there's a pack on a table, anyone is welcome to take one.

My parents are Chinese but I grew up in Europe, therefore I'm considered a banana.

Some years ago, i was visiting my family in China. We were in a very rural area with lots of small cottages. We saw a family eating dinner and my grandma asked them if we could join so we paid a few bucks and ate a meal with a random family. Not really a shock but It felt really weird.

We had this akward conversation with a family in Venezuela who we had invited over for dinner. They just wouldn't leave! My dad was doing the polite Canadian thing and mentioning that "we were tired", that "usually we would be in bed by now", that "it's been a long night and they probably want to get home", walking them toward the front door. And then we were stuck just standing there staring at each other. My dad finally just blurts out "Why won't you leave?! We're tired and want to go to bed!" And in frusteration they reply "Why won't you just let us go?!"

Turns out that in Venezuelan culture it's rude to leave on your own as an invited guest. The polite thing to do is to wait for your host to open the door and guide you out, but in Canadian culture it's rude to ask your invited company to leave and you wait for them to open the door and go on their own.

I was in India earlier this year and their taxi drivers take you wherever they feel like before taking you to your requested destination. And would be deeply offended if you were like 'WTF, where are we going?'

So, that's how I ended up on a boat in the middle of the Arabian Sea when all I wanted to do was exchange money, and at a random zoo when I just wanted to go shopping. I eventually exchanged money and went shopping but had to go on field trips first to see the sites. Good times.

Nap-time is everything in Spain. Visited Barcelona a few months ago, and it was my first time in Spain. Couldn't believe when my friend told me that all the shops and businesses are closed because it's "siesta time".

Love my naps and all, but that just drove me crazy.

Edit: every siesta is a fiesta tbh

When I went to Bangladesh with my girlfriend last year we went to the city her father grew up in before he came to the States. I remember at one point we walked past a station and seeing people climbing on the roof of a train due to the crowding, some in business suits, was quite an eye opener. After seeing that I have never complained about riding the subway again.

Went to the Philippines.

On the trip from the airport a group of homeless children took control of a bridge and demanded payment for people crossing it. People actually paid too.

Example of culture shock in reverse - I'm an American who has spent the past 2 years living in China. After my first trip back to the US (after a full year abroad) I was just really shocked by how much grass there was everywhere. Space is such a luxury in Beijing that it was startling to see how much is devoted to your average front/back yard. I was also shocked by enormously wide the roads in my suburban section of the city felt!

When my wife and I went to France, it was really strange to me to find out that I was considered a lunatic for making eye contact and smiling/nodding at strangers as we passed them on the streets. I got the DIRTIEST looks from people for a few hours before my friend, who was living there at the time, told me that that was a no-no in their culture.

I was shocked at being able to purchase a giant waffle the size of my head in the Netherlands. The internet tells you there are no large food portions outside the US but it's not true.

Not sure it counts that much as cultural, but I was chatting with a girl from London recently, and when she asked if I visited the Grand Canyon before, I said I haven't despite it being just a six hour drive. I believe her response was something along the lines of "Only six hours? If I drive for six hours I will be all the way in Spain!"

In Japan. I'm an American. I guess I'm still in awe of how clean, orderly, and honest the Japanese are in daily life. I mean I'm not a business person so it's not like I'm engaging a lot of business deals so I wouldn't know about their business ethics.

But it just seems to be the kind of place where you really can just drop your wallet on the street and later that afternoon somebody will return it to you.

I love that you can walk down the street drinking a beer in Berlin. They've even got a word for it "Wegbier"

In vietnam i saw quite a few men who left just one or two strands of stubble to grow, but were otherwise clean shaved. It always freaked me out a little.

When in Italy, we asked for ice for our water, the waiter didn't understand and the manager came over very confused with a small bowl and a spoon with ice chips in it. Europe doesnt really believe in ice unless you are freezing things.

Let me clarify. Ice usually doesn't come automatically in drinks everywhere you go as it is custom in the U.S. I'm not saying people don't use ice in general, the place we were at just thought it was very strange, and I have had similar experiences in other parts of Europe. Try not to explode people.

Last year I spent 9 months in Ukraine. The women there are always dressed to the f*****g nines, even just going grocery shopping. One girl there explained to me that, since clothes are so expensive there (one pair of jeans can be two months salary, easily) the women only buy really nice clothes that will last them. They don't buy simple stuff that they can throw on and be casual, so they're always dressed up even in day to day activities. Even their casual jeans and t shirts are still things that I see girls here wear on nights out.

In Singapore, the laws are crazy. You can't chew gum, as it's illegal. Also, you can't sing or dance in public. I wasn't sure how strictly these laws were enforced until I was at Hard Rock Cafe on New Year's Eve, and I walked passed the bar to go to the bathroom when these really happy drunk guys started to try and dance with me as I passed. All of a sudden, a policeman popped up from behind a hidden platform blowing a whistle like crazy and I thought I was gonna die in a Southeast Asian prison because I had to pee at the wrong time.

USA to Korea, this time to teach English. You don't quite realize the tiger mom stereotype is real until you're surrounded by a pack of moms at a kindergarten parent-teacher conference, demanding to know why their five-year-old likes gym better than learning English.

There are virtually no driving laws in Lebanon - and if there are, nobody follows them and they aren't enforced. Everybody drives like a f*****g maniac. Traffic is awful, everybody speeds. When going up into the villages in the mountains, people zoom around the narrow roads like they're on the damn interstate. Like these are two-way streets; they literally have zero regard for any potential drivers going the opposite direction. It's like they drive as if they have a death wish. We were vacationing there once, and I got hit by a car when I was crossing the street from Burger King to get back to my hotel in Beirut. I was about 11 years old. The guy who hit me got out of the car and started b******g me out in Arabic. I'm like "M*********R YOU JUST STRUCK ME WITH YOUR VEHICLE." Thinking about it now is hilarious.

Philippines: Dude with a shotgun holding the door open for me and calling me sir... at a convenience store in Quezon City.

Germany: How f*****g clean are bathrooms. I've frequent to Germany for business reasons along with rest of Europe but Germany takes the cake in terms if cleanliness of the bathrooms. Every stay I had I found my bathroom to be absolutely spotless. I found their bathrooms to be cleaner than the rooms.

Coming from the US, when I went to Argentina and Greece as well: Dogs. Dogs everywhere. No leashes, just out there. In Argentina, in the a small town in the west called Tunuyan, a dog lust laying right in the center of a plaza in town, not a care in the world, no tags, no collar and not one s**t was given, by the dog or the people around. And in Greece, Athens mainly, just dogs roaming around, very similar to Argentina. And cats there as well. When I was in the ruins in Delphi there was a small cat just sitting there and had a bit of an infection and up north near Petralona just a cat hanging out near the cave, skinny but in better shape. Having volunteered at a humane society here in the US previously, and watching 20+ years of the Price is Right and Bob Barkers plea, it was kinda shocking to see all the semi-feral animals out there.

I'm from one of the most unequal countries in the world, but going to India still blew my mind. Delhi is a heaving, throbbing city, people sleeping in literal dirt next to mansions. Perhaps the pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal was the most eye-opening. By far the most beautiful, perhaps most opulent, man-made structure I've seen on earth, but its mired in the most saddening poverty imaginable.

The air pollution in major Chinese cities is so bad that your eyes water the second you step out of the airport. You also undergo a sort of acclimation sickness within the first couple weeks. The other thing about China, is that it's such an old country, that you have ancient temples and monuments, some 1000s of years old, right next to hyper modern 8 story shopping centers.

Intolerance to public drunkeness in America. I am British so you get used to public merryment and drunkeness but I was surprised that it was not tolerated in the US. After a while, I thought it was a great idea.

I once went to the Ole Cracker barrel and during the order I asked what kind of beers they had:

"This" the waitress stated quite forcefully "is a family restaurant."