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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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.
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.
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.
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???