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What’s the biggest culture shock you’ve ever experienced?

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Mitsy56 The Coolest Artist Around! from MoonPieTown (The New Guy) Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
The Coolest Artist Around!
#1: Jul 1st 2024 at 11:03:38 AM

I went to London back in December for something my school’s band was invited to, and it inspired me to make this thread. These are my 2 examples:

  • American lemonade isn’t really a thing in the UK. I asked for it at a pub I ate at, and they gave me a Sprite with a lemon wedge shoved in it.
  • London will have pride flags up even when it’s not pride month.

“Now get out there and make someone smile!”
BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#2: Jul 5th 2024 at 7:04:34 AM

This is a weird example, but I rented Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon in Japanese before it was confirmed it would get an English translation. I played it in Japanese, and was enjoying it. The game takes place in ancient Japan and has traditional Japanese instruments, some of which I'd never heard before, used in its music.

At one point, in Zazen Town, I suddenly had this physical sensation wash over my entire body. I was totally freaked out, and I couldn't explain it, other than the sheer "foreignness" of what I was playing. The game was in a language I couldn't read. It took place in an ancient version of a country whose modern form bears no resemblance to its ancient form. The music was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. The houses even had doors that looked like windows and were difficult to recognize as doors. The whole thing just felt so... foreign to me that I truly experienced culture shock for the first time ever in a big way, a literal physical sensation I could feel in my body.

Edited by BonsaiForest on Jul 5th 2024 at 7:05:23 AM

Mitsy56 The Coolest Artist Around! from MoonPieTown (The New Guy) Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
The Coolest Artist Around!
#3: Jul 6th 2024 at 6:40:20 AM

An example involving American states: I’ve lived in Florida almost my whole life, rarely going to a north state. For those that have never been to Florida, there’s a major lack of hills/mountains here, so in the rare occasion where I go up north, I’m usually surprised by the amount of hills that they have.

“Now get out there and make someone smile!”
J99908 It’s your BATH time! from A bathtub Since: Jun, 2023 Relationship Status: It's not my fault I'm not popular!
It’s your BATH time!
#4: Jul 6th 2024 at 6:47:47 AM

[up] Here in Pennsylvania, at least southwest, we got plenty of hills. But anyway, in Peru, it’s rude to call workers Señora or Señor, as you’re basically calling them old.

Edited by J99908 on Jul 6th 2024 at 9:48:05 AM

It builds character.
Mara999 International Man of Mystery from Grim Up North Since: Sep, 2020 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
International Man of Mystery
#5: Jul 7th 2024 at 1:38:47 AM

Nothing too major, but I am often surprised about many things that are commonplace in the Nordic countries, but almost nowhere else in the world. Things like cheese slicers and dish drying cabinets. But most of all I am surprised by impractical practices for waste sorting, when an otherwise very advanced and prosperous city has an everpresent smell of urine wherever you go.

Mitsy56 The Coolest Artist Around! from MoonPieTown (The New Guy) Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
The Coolest Artist Around!
#6: Dec 7th 2024 at 6:35:03 AM

Another thing I noticed In London was how much British people loved mayonnaise. The Five Guys there even had a mayonnaise dispenser that was a MAJOR case of Accidental Innuendo. https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_8228_7.jpeg

“Now get out there and make someone smile!”
Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#7: Dec 7th 2024 at 6:45:30 AM

> American lemonade isn’t really a thing in the UK. I asked for it at a pub I ate at, and they gave me a Sprite with a lemon wedge shoved in it.

I got a good laugh out of this!

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Travsam The Reconqueror from The Spanish side of Europe Since: Sep, 2023 Relationship Status: My elf kissing days are over
The Reconqueror
#8: Dec 8th 2024 at 11:41:30 PM

The first culture shock I got when I moved to Spain is to learn that Gazpacho was not a drink but a cold soup.. the husband of my sister-in-law was shocked!!!

ChicoTheParakeet Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#9: Dec 9th 2024 at 4:57:52 AM

The Japanese aren't fond of putting soy sauce on rice. I don't do it since it makes it difficult to pick up the rice with chopsticks. My brother and father soak their rice in it. I can't help but look at them awkwardly, I keep my mouth shut.

Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Dec 9th 2024 at 7:59:10 AM

HaloBlues (Private) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#10: Dec 28th 2024 at 7:28:52 AM

As a Scottish guy, you’d think the time I lived in Thailand would have been the most, but I actually acclimated to that pretty fast (though I’d still forget a lot of unspoken social rules - one being that it’s considered rude to sit with your feet pointing towards another person). But it was actually the time I stayed in America for a few weeks to visit my then-girlfriend - I remember being driven to her house (on the opposite side of the road) and passing all these billboards along the side of the roads advertising guns and weed or talking about gun suicide and it was all so bizarre to me. Walking into Walmart and seeing people walking around with guns in their pockets was terrifying - I’d seen a single gun in my life before that, and it was my dad’s old hunting rifle which was always kept tightly locked away.

Also, the culture in America is so casually rude from the perspective of an outsider. Everyone was constantly giving other people dirty looks or speaking very bluntly, and overhearing customers insulting workers was almost constant. I’d hear my girlfriend on the phone to people and I’d be so surprised at how mean they were being, only for her to not even notice because it’s so normal. On the other hand, though, everyone talks to strangers way more there. If you talk to a stranger in a store in Scotland, it’s weird enough that you’ll probably get a very startled look and a polite but rushed exit, but in America I basically couldn’t go anywhere without someone striking up a conversation.

AegisP Kindhearted SSSSSNAKE Man Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
Kindhearted SSSSSNAKE Man
#11: May 27th 2025 at 2:45:58 PM

I see guns on the regular where I live, because security guards have to be packing.

Edit: I dont ever get out of my home country. What happened to me was that I responded to a Seiyuu in a Youtube comment, I adressed her as Miss First Name, but then remembered Japanese people are private and First-Name Basis is rude so I quickly corrected it to Miss Last Name. I got so scared she got offended, but She thanked me and everything (I had responded by giving her some information she was asking her). Highlight of my day.

Edited by AegisP on May 27th 2025 at 2:49:24 AM

As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.
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