There are tons of things that unite us no matter what corner of the globe we might live in—like forgetting if you locked the door immediately after doing so. At the same time, the closer you look, the more you realize that everyone has their own quirks. All of that individual uniqueness and weirdness adds up with everyone else’s, until you zoom out and you realize that it becomes part of a country’s culture, heritage, and traditions.
This post is all about the small differences that make people’s countries unique, like rolling cheeses down hills for the heck of it, having saunas literally everywhere, and serving hot chocolate with slices of salted cheese, as shared by folks on r/AskReddit in these two delightfully informative threads.
Remember to upvote the posts that you found insightful or that made you laugh as you scroll down, Pandas. And when you’re all done enjoying this list, we’d love to hear about the things that happen only in your country.
Oh, and in case you need something great to read during your next coffee break, check out Bored Panda’s previous post about the peculiar things that seem normal in some countries but not in the rest of the world.
Bored Panda got in touch with author, investor, and mentor Rick Orford, who has traveled extensively around Europe. He told us about what Covid-related regulations look like right now in Italy and how certain inconsistencies have been causing him a lot of stress. After all, it's far harder to enjoy all the unique culture abroad when your travel opportunities are limited and there's a lot of anxiety in the air.
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#21
National Crate day! In NZ we have Crate day to celebrate the first day summer which is basically celebrated with a crate of local beer, a bbq and sports, usually at a mates flat or the beach.
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174points
#22
South Africa. Scheduled blackouts to reduce pressure on the electrical grid.
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171points
#23
United Kingdom.
Pantomimes at Christmas.
Real ale.
Separate hot and cold taps.
Mint sauce.
Brown sauce.
Thanking the bus driver (with a 'Cheers, drive' in my neck of the woods).
Apologising when someone else steps on your foot.
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168points
#24
In Colombia, hot chocolate is served with slices of salted cheese in it.
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159points
#25
South Africa. Calling traffic lights 'robots'. Caught myself doing this with foreign friends and being treated like an idiot.
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157points
#26
In Mexico we experience paranormal stuff very close. Even people like me, who doesn't believe in it, have parents, siblings, children or grandparents who have experienced ghosts or other entities very close.
Not in the "friend of my friend" kind of way. It is really really common to be in the same room, and someone just says: "I saw my great-grandfather coming out from the well" or stuff like that. And nobody makes a fuss about it. We just process it and move on. But really, I don't know anybody who hasn't experienced a close encounter with something paranormal in one way or another.
And again, I'm an atheist and a skeptic. I haven't experienced something at first hand. And that makes me an exception. Not the average.
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148points
#27
South Africa. Our constitutional court can rule that our president has broken the highest law of the land and stole tax payer money to make upgrades to his private home, and our parliament will still vote not to impeach him.
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145points
#28
Iceland here. We have a music festival held inside a glacier and deep inside a volcano. We also charge $1,000,000 for a ticket too
Bonus fact: This was the same festival where last year Bam Margera was knocked out.
135points
#29
In India, it's normal for your parents to find your life partner and there's a chance you could get killed if you love someone.
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121points
#30
As far as I know, this only happens in the Philippines. Correct me if I'm wrong.
We have a law here called number coding, known casually as color coding, for some reason, which makes vehicles with certain license plates unable to be run on certain hours of certain days.
If your plate number ends in a certain number, let's say 1, you can't drive your car (without a fine) on Mondays. 0 and 1 are Monday, 2 and 3 are tuesday, etc. You can only drive it on that day from 10am to 3pm. So, if your license number is ABC 123, then you can't drive on tuesdays from midnight to 9:59am, and 3pm to midnight the next day. If you're caught by the traffic cops, you need to pay a fine. (or bribe the dude, that's fine too, I guess)
It was the government's attempted solution to lessen traffic on roads, but what many people ended up doing was buying another car for the off day. So here, if you aren't commuting or carpooling, which you might not want to do, since many areas here are polluted and have some thieves running about, you're going to need to own two vehicles.
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118points