Ask Lemmy

UK

Proper fish and chips. I've seen American fish and chips and it's nowhere close

Easy: school shootings, together with politician denial about the causes of this, guns, and lack of regulation for who owns them, make owning guns easier than getting a driver's license.

Super sad, but here we are.

Losing a ground war against flightless birds.

Bagged milk

Tipping as a social obligation when eating at dine in restaurants which in turn allows the waiter to be paid less by the employer and theoretically lowers menu prices.

Italy: always offering (and accepting) food or drinks while visiting. It’s impossible and/or incredibly rude to pass by a friend’s house without getting at least a coffee or a glass of water.

Netherlands: cold lunch. Traditionally, you’d have only one hot meal a day, and lunch would be sandwiches. I don’t mean to say that sandwiches don’t happen in other countries, but that hot lunches are basically unheard of in NL.

US: everyone has one or multiple cars. Walking to the grocery store means you are basically destitute. (That was quite the culture shock!)

In Canada, people do not run from the rain... if they are out and about and it starts raining, they just ignore it, they don't walk faster, rarely improvise coverage, etc

In Venezuela, my country of origin, people run from the rain like it's lava falling from the sky

Apparently Germany is one of the few (the only? Who knows) country to prefer carbonated water.

Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion.He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up, Just as the founding fathers intended.

France.

You're at the grocery store and want to buy a single bottle of milk or coke, but they're only sold in packs of 6? Just tear open a pack and take one bottle.

I haven't seen anyone using parasols/umbrellas when it's too sunny in UK, but it's pretty common in Korea. I don't think I've seen them in Europe in general either. No idea for anywhere else to be honest.

In Germany people seem to like opening windows when entering a room, even in the middle of the winter. Or maybe I only know weird Germans.

A few central/northern European countries also don't believe in curtains.

Hospital bills. I guess some of y'all have some kinda universal health care? Wild. Here, illnesses can lead to bankruptcy. Cool. Yeah.

Crippling medical debt and outrageous student loans.

Mass shootings in the US. It's become so common here that most if not all are desensitized.

Yellow school buses, apparently.

Well, you don't wear shoes indoors in any of the Nordic countries.

We have pineapple and banana and kebab and salad on pizza¹. Apparently it is considered weird.

¹ not the same pizza, obviously. That would be weird.

Our scientific branch of government telling people paracetamol (acetaminophen) can cause autism and leucovorin (a anti cancer treatment regimen) may cure autism. Also legelise ivermectin (worm pills) over the counter for COVID

Our government endorses them.

It's absolutely acceptable to go to a university lecture at 8 am, and sit in the front row with a beer. The professors won't mind. You can buy beer in the cafeteria as well as in a vending machine at the library.

Pulling out a bottle of hard liquor is frowned upon tho.

The societal problems if the US has been covered by others, but here are some culture shock ones I've experienced, in no particular order:

• still use personal checks
• put down knife after cutting your food, move fork to dominant hand
• drive through everything, including alcohol purchases
• horse and buggy on highway
• doorknobs instead of handles
• almost everyone has air conditioning, so doors and windows stay closed in summer
• double hung windows
• carry water bottles everywhere
• gas stoves and ovens are by far more popular than electric by a good margin
• in sink garbage disposals

Large-scale evacuations because of unexploded WW2 ordinance.

Germany: public benches are specifically placed to be full view of the sun for as long as possible, a wild proportion of people have bread slicing machines, and you’re not allowed to prevent someone from using even a private toilet if they really need it.

Cheating on your spouse with someone at the company julefrokost (christmas work thing).

Denmark 🫤

https://cphpost.dk/2016-12-07/news/a-shocking-affair-danes-lead-european-infidelity-charts/

Being able to go basically anywhere by bike, foot, or public transport. And just our bike infrastructure in general. I honestly don't know how I could live in most other countries because it seems like basically everything happens by car or foot. Being able to bike anywhere is so much nicer and gives a lot of freedom from an early age.

Strangely we Dutch people also seem to be quite alone in our view that helmets on normal bikes are not really necessary. They make bikes more prevalent imo, because you don't have to drag a helmet along everywhere. You just park you bike and the only thing you have with you because of it is a key, no special clothes, helmets, etc. I think that's also possible because of our bicycle infrastructure and culture.

Kids learn to bike from a young age, in traffic. You see very young kids just cycle on their smol little bike with a parent on the outside sort of shielding them from traffic. Safely on bike roads, but also just on shared roads with cars. In general kids are quite free to just play outside. I live close to a school and I see plenty of kids all across the neighborhood, just playing without parental supervision. It's what we did back in the day too, without mobile phones or anything. We'd usually be home on time for dinner or our parents would find us somewhere in the neighborhood and tell us it was time to get home.

Monoculture. I live in Canada, and it's pretty rare for a person, and especially a group, to have only one culture they draw from to firm their habits and identity. Even immigrants have their home and whatever mishmash of a culture their work ends up with. Its somewhat easy to tell travelers apart from residents by them having a discernible accent. If I can tell your accent is Irish, and not just some combination of Irish, British and Ukrainian, then your not here permanently.

Large, pristine pickups

Wearing thongs (flip flops) in a grocery store.

Kangaroos littering the side of the road (they have about 4 neurones and all of then are suicidal)

The only place I have seen young kids (think 6 years old) swear similarly to here in Australia is in Scotland, and they are just as feral as we are.

Walking down the street at night. In the UK and USA it was apparently just not a thing you did. Here I will walk home at 2am no worries, and tonnes of people walk home from the pub drunk enough to not always make it home and sometimes just pass out on the footpath. Never had a problem, never been mugged or similar in that situation, and after living in the UK and visiting the USA I can definitely say I would never do that there.

Wearing swimmers (bikini or budgie smugglers) and going for food and drink on the same trip. The number of times I've gotten coffee, had lunch, or jumped into the bank while dressed for the beach is uncountable, but never ever outside Australia.

Hitting your kids is rare here. Spanking is not really normal and is definitely not common in public compared to my visit to the USA or my time in the UK. In both of those people would cuff their kids or slap their hand when they were being unruly. That is uncommon here and I have seen people intervene when someone was hitting their kid in public on more than one occasion. The same goes for animals, people don't like you hitting your dog either. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it is not considered OK.

Healthcare. We have it. We love it. In the UK the NHS was OK, not great, and the USA is terrifying. My meds would cost me about $310 per month but end up costing a max of $38, unless I spend $1200 in the year at which point the rest are free. As in, no cost, just pick them up, zero dollars. Mine are half medically necessary and half for better function, but for some people they are way more necessary and I am so happy they can just go get them, no risk of rationing meds.

People do talk about politics and religion here, but not with random people and not in public. If someone isn't interested you are generally going to back off quickly and leave it be. Religion and politics are mostly private and the few people who do talk tend to not be too intense about it. Certainly most don't become a registered Labor or Liberal party member with the group identity associated. It is much more loosely held and less culturally relevant.

Poutine.

Thanking the bus drivers when exiting the bus.