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“Not Sure If It Was A Joke, A Statement, Or What”: 40 Biggest Cultural Shocks, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community
Traveling is a great way to learn and really soak up all the cultures, customs, traditions, etc. that differ from one country to another. It broadens one's horizons and teaches us more about the world we live in. However, sometimes what one experiences in a new place can cause a mild shock due to too much of a difference from their home.
I got curious about what our pandas found surprising while traveling, so I asked our community to share some cultural shocks they've had when visiting another country, and oh boy, they delivered. Scroll down to read all those answers! What cultural shocks have you experienced?
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The first time I visited Ireland with my wife to visit her family, I was surprised that in Irish culture, it's accepted that family and friends can just drop by without any advance notice. And they are sooo hospitable. Unless they have terribly urgent, pressing business, they will go out of their way to be welcoming.
A great example is that we visited her uncle in Dublin. We drove clear across Ireland to go see him - without calling. We surprised him and his wife early in the morning. He took the day off from work, and drove us around to several local points of interest, and we stayed the night.
Ireland is a beautiful country, and their people are just as wonderful.
Final score:
313points
RELATED:
#2
Went to Quebec, Canada. Everything was so quiet!
Here in Mexico we've got so damn much noise pollution (from vehicles, street vendors, people talking loudly, stores and homes blasting music so freaking loud), everything seems to scream at you!
I absolutely loved the silence, more than anything!
Final score:
232points
Margaret Weaver 3 years ago
I feel this to my BONES. All the world is screaming when I go out of the house. Quebec sounds marvelous. Maybe a quiet Vancouver suburb otherwise. Close enough to humans to have fiber internet, but off in a quiet corner close to nature. The cottage from Twilight for example.
#3
I am German and live in the French speaking part of Switzerland. Both countries are typically considered rather orderly and clean, but I was completely smitten with the Japanese trash culture. The streets are super clean, and there are no trash bins anywhere except at the train/metro stations and at the hotel (not on the street, not in a museum, not at a department store). Everybody just carries their trash with them. Once in the town of Uji I went past three small pearly white truck serviced by white-clad gentlemen—that was the garbage collection for the neighborhood, without any noise, smell, or dirt. First thing I noticed after I landed in Frankfurt: trash bins in the middle of the walkway every 5 meters, it was strangely disturbing to look at all that prominently displayed garbage.
Final score:
203points
#4
Children in Cairo playing in the dirtiest water in the Nile but waving and smiling like crazy at the tourist buses going by, not for money but they were just so excited to see people waving back.
Final score:
192points
#5
In the Gambia, if your husband dies, you are supposed to marry his brother. Found this out the day after my Gambian husband died. Luckily it turned out not to be mandatory but to help widows who have no means of survival without a husband.
Final score:
181points
#6
Went to Mexico and the moment I left the tourist area the prices went down, like really down. My dad and I got a meal with tacos and drinks for $3.50 US dollars for the both of us. For a broke teenager it was heaven!!
Final score:
174points
#7
The lack of billboards when I visited Wales. It was wonderful to view the gorgeous countryside without obstruction. Billboards are everywhere in the U.S.
Final score:
173points
#8
USA - everything is HUGE. You have to drive 9 hours to get from one side of Texas and still end up in Texas. Do you know how many countries I could drive through in Europe in that time? Food portions, buildings, roads...your nature is awesome btw and also huge
Final score:
164points
Niall Mac Iomera 3 years ago
I live in western Australia. We drove for 16 hours and only went about halfway up the state.
#9
As a little child, my parents took the family to Jamaica. Apparently, it's normal there for shopkeepers to grab your child (in this case, my sister) and run off into their store as a ploy to get you inside their store. I guess you get your child back and then decide to buy something?
Final score:
147points
#10
I haven't been to any countries abroad but i had friends coming to Turkey from other countries and they are usually surprised with how much we insist on nearly everything. Like, eat this try that, buy this buy that, go this place or never go that place.. We are trying to be kind and helpful but i see that other people may find it overwhelming
Final score:
142points
Margaret Weaver 3 years ago
I could imagine it would feel bothersome and intrusive to have personal decisionmaking constantly overwritten by well meaning busyboddies.
#11
Went to rural India for three months. Discovered that a LOT of people have never seen a white person and wanted to touch me and talk to me. It was very weird to be the foreigner for once. I learned a lot.
Final score:
142points
#12
Egyptians don't usually form lines. I found this out at a government building, where my host family started encouraging me to "push, push!" As I was slowly being squeezed out by adamant lil old ladies.
Final score:
137points
#13
The hot chocolates in Italy are thick. Almost as if they got some chocolate shoved it in the microwave and put it in a glass along with some sweet butter (the thick cream). But hey I’m not complaining it was delicious
Final score:
135points
#14
People in Denmark find it rude to tip the waiter because they actually get paid well unlike in America where waiters have to depend on strangers to pay rent
Final score:
129points
#15
Lived on the island of Malta for a bit over 2 years. Lovely place but far too noisy! A typical thing there is for people to just shout at each other through their balconies. Oh its 7 am on a Saturday? I don't care, "Ma! HEY MAAA, I FORGOT MY KEYS!..Forgot whaaat?..MY KEEEEYSS!". Yes, there are doorbells and phones, but what fun is that.
Also the fireworks. Wonderful sight if you just arrived, but when you get woken up by an explosion at 8 am every...single....day, it gets to you. Also every evening for several months there are fireworks until midnight, due to most villages celebrating their patron saints on different days. It becomes maddening after a month or so, just pray that you have proper doors/windows and AC so you can close yourself inside.
Final score:
127points
#16
Had a fry up in America. There was sugar in the sausages!
Final score:
115points
#17
I visited India twice in the 1990s. And both times my culture shock happened when I returned to the US. In the US, I missed the sound of people singing at all times of the day. I missed the amazing smells of food, incense, etc in the streets. I missed the openness of people toward one another. I missed the proliferation of bright colors in clothing and decorations everywhere.
Final score:
114points
#18
I was really surprised at all the trash/litter along the rural coastal highways of Peru.
Final score:
106points
#19
When I came to the UK I was absolutely shocked to find out people refuse to drink their tea without milk, I've had people ask me what kind of tea is green tea and why would you drink it without milk.
Final score:
104points
Eunice Probert 3 years ago
My daughter drinks green tea without milk. It is not a universal thing in the UK to want milk in everything.
#20
In Tokyo, I saw a Christmas tree decorated with crucifixes.
Final score:
100points
#21
I went to the USA. I was surprised how loud people are, in the restaurants, on the street, in the hotels, everybody is always shouting.
Final score:
99points
#22
Visiting Aruba for the summer. Found out they keep their milk outside of refrigerators. Which is strange for my family and myself.
Final score:
92points
#23
Clean air! I live in the US near the mills. Spent like 2 weeks in Costa Rica. 2 weeks it took to get used to the clean air. Get home n step outside the air port and broke into a fit of coughing n gagging from the air. And had bad allergy flare ups for a week.
Final score:
88points
Donkey boi 3 years ago
When my wife and I arrived in Costa Rica and got to our Hotel to check-in, the guy behind the counter said (after finding out we live near London) said, 'You will snore heavily tonight!... But tomorrow, you will snore not once!'. He was right, my wife didn't snore past the first night!
#24
Not another country but a different part of the U.S. . I'm a city girl from the southwest. When I married (my now ex husband) he had just gotten out of the military and wanted to move back to his home state in the rural upper midwest. Nothing prepared me for the culture shock. I come from not only a very diverse family, but a very diverse area, where people are simply people. Up there though wow...I honestly didn't know racism still existed in America until we moved there. There were a lot of wannabe skinheads who just had so much hate for everyone who wasn't just like them. Needless to say I didn't fit in (I made a few good friends 3 total) but other than that it was the worst 7 years of my life. I finally packed up and left and I couldn't be happier.
Final score:
87points
#25
Went to one of the Mayan sites in Belize, near the border with Guatamala. At first glance it looked similar any Canadian national park as far as washrooms and signs went. Then I saw the armed soldiers standing guard everywhere. That was a bit of a shock.
Final score:
85points
#26
The big gaps around toilet cubicle doors in the US so that people can see you having a wee! Us Brits tend to prefer a bit more privacy. (Absolutely love America though)
Final score:
80points
#27
Seeing a Santa Claus figure attached to a cross at a store in Japan. Not sure if it was a joke, a statement about the commercialization of Christmas, or what. I thought it was hilarious.
Final score:
74points
#28
I live in Spain now, so my biggest culture shock going home to the US is and has always been the hugging, as a greeting and goodbye to people you don’t know well or have just met. So weird to me now. I do miss the friendliness of Americans, just not that friendly bit.
Final score:
71points
#29
England, 20 years ago, in a hostel: two faucets, one with scorching hot water, other with really cold. Bed with sort of sewn up sheet instead of a single cover with a really scratchy and heavy blanket on top. Bread for breakfast so SOFT it had to be toasted to be able to smear butter on it. Saying "hello" instead of "good morning" in a shop. Tube being so unbelievably small inside. It was a time when most information about the country were given by my teachers, internet was not that common. So yes, I was shocked in many ways.
Final score:
69points
James Game 3 years ago
In the UK scorching hot water has been common since outbreaks of Legionnaires disease in the mid 1980's, the water is kept that hot to kill bacteria
#30
Love hotels in Japan, they rent rooms by the hour, I thought I was staying in a rough part of Tokyo. Turns out they're everywhere and it's a pretty normal thing in Japan.
Final score:
60points
#31
Married a Peruvian, so I have been there often...love the country, epecially the
Andes but Lima is not my favorite place. It reminds me of LA but dirtier, people litter all the time, the roads are torn up with no safety cones and the people drive like lunatics. We were being driven on one of the few freeways in Lima when the driver passed the exit we needed. They stopped in the lane and backed up to get back to the exit. We were sure we were dead... Also, its frowned upon to burp in public yet, walking in the financial district and a well
dressed man walking down the sidewalk stops, whips it out and pees on the wall of the building we were walking by. The disparity between those with money and the poor is saddening. My American friend married a well to do Peruvian and had an amazing home in a gated community, with guards with machine guns at the gates. She loved her home but felt like she had a target on her back every time she left home. There are also guards with machine guns outside banks...its just a little unnerving.
Final score:
50points
2x4b523p 3 years ago
I have never seen such a dirty city as Lima. Did not notice too much trash compared to other big cities, but the grime and dust everywhere due to lack of rain. Inches of dust, grime and goop on everything, esp. around the main highway. Never realized how much good the rain does and I now appreciate we get so much of it in UK.
#32
Greece. Amazingly beautiful country with astonishing nature and historical sites but trash everywhere. Around roads, in the forests, seashore, even near archelogical monuments there was a trash dump. Like seriously, Greece, whats the matter? No recycling, everything goes to the same dumpster.
Also you have to throw toilet paper into the the trash can and not to the toilet.
And the traffic... abyssmal.
Otherwise really nice place with friendly and warm people, and the sea is surprisingly clean taken how much trash is everywhere else.
Final score:
50points
Eglė Bukauskaitė 2 years ago
My similar experience to Sicily. Paid roads, flowers arte trimmed, a painting of the view almost anywhere on the road. Yet it's a dumpster, literally.
#33
Soweto, South Africa. Under the bridge there were men cooking the donated food for the poor in barrels and such. Also the difference between the housing in Soweto, I never realized that there could be million dollar villas in Soweto smack bang next to a shack. I loved it there though, the people are fantastic.
Final score:
47points
OhBlahDi OhBlahDa 3 years ago
First time I visited Soweto as well I was astonished to learn that it's a whole city on its own. The media depicts it as a homogenous slum, but no, it has very affluent suburbs as well as less well off areas.
#34
I'm french and i've recently gone to Guadeloupe, which is also french. But i had the feeling to be in Africa. And i found it full of charm personnally. lot of things were cooler than in the metropolis. like people selling coco water right in the middle of the road, or chicken roaming the town centers. it was really cool
Final score:
46points
#35
UK: I was surprised that you can have breakfast, lunch or dinner in the pubs and there are even those specialized in pizza. In the country where I am from pubs are just places to drink and maybe have some nibbles such as crisps, nuts. Maybe if smoking wouldn't be allowed then it would be possible in "our" pubs too.
Final score:
39points
Ivy la Sangrienta 3 years ago
The pubs in the UK have always served food, even when smoking was permitted.
#36
Had been in Rishikesh, India. It’s not aloud to eat meat there and forbidden to use plastic bags and straws.
I was really surprised by it because the common expactation is that Indias Environment ist the worst.
Final score:
39points
Whawhawhatsis 3 years ago
My parents lived in South India (Madurai in Tamil Nadu State) for five years in the 1950s, and in those days there was almost no refrigeration, so they became vegetarians by choice so they wouldn't get poisoned by bad meat!
#37
When I went to Germany if there were three tellers people would wait in 3 lines instead of one common line for the first available teller
Final score:
34points
Marnie 3 years ago
In Minnesota, USA, we actually call having just one line a "bank line". That's how banks always were. (And it's the best way to prevent someone having to wait a really long time.)
Load More Replies...
Claudia Schmid 3 years ago
Yes, and the other line is always faster!! It was an eye opener when I first went to the US and saw people forming one single line - much better!
Vivian Orr 3 years ago (edited)
Used to be that way in the US and in many businesses still is. But more and more it’s become one line and when a teller/cashier finishes with their customer the next person in the one line goes forward. Really much more fair this way.
Roman Hans 3 years ago (edited)
Also in Germany — where people are usually generous and fair — if there’s a long line at the store and a new cashier opens up, people just randomly run over to be first. In America the clerk will ask who’s next and the people moving over will try to stay in order.
Tina B 3 years ago
Never seen that in the US. They usually rope off for one line.
Load More Replies...
fandomprincess (he/she/they) 2 years ago
Yeah it's the same where I'm from, regardless whether it's bank tellers, cashiers at a clothing store, customer service, etc, it's always just one line and you wait for the first one that becomes available. The only exception I can think of is grocery store cashier's, but I'm pretty sure that's the same everywhere
Glynn Reid 2 years ago
British. Perfectly normal in a bank or post office to have only one queue with the person at the front, going to the first available employee when called. Wouldn't work in a supermarket or somewhere busier, but I don't expect that works in the OP's country either.
Taylor Carroll 2 years ago
Um... same principle for the grocery store, multiple check stands open means multiple lines...
Concept-Peter Roosdorp 3 years ago
In sweden, this depends mostly on the layout of the shop. Most checkouts have their own line, but in some cases a single line, because there isnt' space for more than one.
Victoria Woodhull 3 years ago
Ive seen it in Washington, DC once at a bank. Twas strange. Havent seen it since. I live in DC.
Miss Frankfurter 3 years ago
Used to be this way in Canada but I haven't seen this in a long time.
#38
Prague. 14 yeas ago quite well dressed retired loving people wandering along would casually look into even bin. I assume to see if anything worth selling for recycling
Final score:
33points
#39
Visiting Rome, Italy and discovering that you can actually get a pizza with Nutella (chocolate spread).
What do you think ?
Caro Caro 3 years ago
I have to say that a lot are not really culture "shocks" just differences and quirky funny things.
Deutschland Mädchen (Post author) 3 years ago
Yeah the title was kind of a hyperbole, now that I look back on it.
Load More Replies...
Carrie Whitaker 2 years ago
Why has this popped back up, marked an hour ago, when it still has comments from nearly a year ago? Find new content, srsly.
Megan Curl 2 years ago
Hey BP, if you think we didn’t notice that you just recycled a 10 month old post, your wrong! We can see that the comments are either less than 24 hours old, or 10 months old. Lazy much?
Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
Within the US? The Midwest. Once the corn/soy belt is entered, it's terrifyingly insular, parochial, find a word ----- and I was assumed to be part n-word b/c, and I quote that old bat, "You have SUCH DARK EYES!"... The state I was in had KKK rallies on the stat capitol's lawn annually and *nobody even blinked*. WTF?! I expected lawsuits, rallies, protests, b/c that's what happened where I grew up, and we were mostly white too. Weird AF vibe. Just... no.
anarkzie 3 years ago
Going to Thailand, I was suppressed how prominently featured their monarch was in everyday life.
Freya the Wanderer 3 years ago
In Thailand it's illegal to insult royalty.
Load More Replies...
Don't Look 3 years ago
For the foreseeable future I’m done traveling outside the US. But I’m looking forward to going back to HK…
Caro Caro 3 years ago
I have to say that a lot are not really culture "shocks" just differences and quirky funny things.
Deutschland Mädchen (Post author) 3 years ago
Yeah the title was kind of a hyperbole, now that I look back on it.
Load More Replies... Carrie Whitaker 2 years ago
Why has this popped back up, marked an hour ago, when it still has comments from nearly a year ago? Find new content, srsly.
Megan Curl 2 years ago
Hey BP, if you think we didn’t notice that you just recycled a 10 month old post, your wrong! We can see that the comments are either less than 24 hours old, or 10 months old. Lazy much?
Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
Within the US? The Midwest. Once the corn/soy belt is entered, it's terrifyingly insular, parochial, find a word ----- and I was assumed to be part n-word b/c, and I quote that old bat, "You have SUCH DARK EYES!"... The state I was in had KKK rallies on the stat capitol's lawn annually and *nobody even blinked*. WTF?! I expected lawsuits, rallies, protests, b/c that's what happened where I grew up, and we were mostly white too. Weird AF vibe. Just... no.
anarkzie 3 years ago
Going to Thailand, I was suppressed how prominently featured their monarch was in everyday life.
Freya the Wanderer 3 years ago
In Thailand it's illegal to insult royalty.
Load More Replies... Don't Look 3 years ago
For the foreseeable future I’m done traveling outside the US. But I’m looking forward to going back to HK…
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