"The Whole Place Smelled Like Hot Garbage": 50 People Reveal The Biggest Culture Shock They’ve Ever Encountered

We had this akward conversation with a family in Venezuela who we had invited over for dinner. They just wouldn't leave! My dad was doing the polite Canadian thing and mentioning that "we were tired", that "usually we would be in bed by now", that "it's been a long night and they probably want to get home", walking them toward the front door. And then we were stuck just standing there staring at each other. My dad finally just blurts out "Why won't you leave?! We're tired and want to go to bed!" And in frusteration they reply "Why won't you just let us go?!"

Turns out that in Venezuelan culture it's rude to leave on your own as an invited guest. The polite thing to do is to wait for your host to open the door and guide you out, but in Canadian culture it's rude to ask your invited company to leave and you wait for them to open the door and go on their own.

This is hard to admit, but as someone who grew up in the USA I was taught in a thousand ways that this country sets every standard and deserves deference from everyplace else on earth.

It was so ingrained that I didn't even know it was an assumption ... until I was outside the states and it was obvious that the USA is not the center of the universe. People are doing just fine all over the place without, you know, being us. What's more, the myth we tell ourselves is that everyone in the world would live here if they only could.

No, they wouldn't. A whole lot of people see us as a collection of fools, greedheads, and bumblers who happen to have been born in a place with a lot of natural resources. Since Trump, of course, the idea that our system of government is magically self-correcting is also under serious question.

Croatia: it's a standard expectation that you clean the street outside your house as part of cleaning your house (at least in the small towns i was in -not sure about the cities). The cleanest streets I've ever seen and a real sense of communal civic pride.

I moved to Australia when I was 20 and I thought people were going to be speaking English. I was wrong.

Me, "I'm going to McDonald's, you want me to get you a breakfast burrito?"

Shane, "Oi Maccas Fair Dinkum mate! Had to ruck up early for the physio and me ute was out of petrol so stopped at the servo and asked the Sheila if they had brekky but noooouaahho just lollies so ive been getting aggro"

None of the sounds that just fell out of your head were words. Do you want a burrito or not?

In Spain, no chit chat from the waiter. None of that "I'll be serving you" stuff that we hear in the US. Just "tell me." My introvert self loved it. I tell you, food arrives, I eat.

I was shocked by how friendly most people in the US are. When we're buying groceries, the cashier would make small talk with us about what we're buying. I bought KFC and was having trouble with american coins (they're all the same color ok!) and the nice cashier helped me (there was no one else at the store so he had time). My uncle was raised in the US and knew all his neighbors, he loves riding bikes so he knows everyone around the neighborhood who also rides. I'd walk his dog while I was there and people would just randomly stop and talk to me about the dog.

The friendliness makes my trips to the US very wholesome and nice.

The sheer awesomeness of Japanese convenience stores. My local 7-11 has sticky floors and doubtful looking packaged sandwiches. The 7-11s in Japan are clean, well-lit, have a great selection of lunch/dinner prepackaged meals, and not only do they have a cold drink section, they have a special heated unit for hot drinks. When I saw all the technological innovations in Japan, I felt like I came from a third world country.

Barefoot people EVERYWHERE in New Zealand. In Starbucks, in the mall, on public transit, walking down the street. No shoes, no socks, no f**ks to give.

Chile. "Tomorrow" means next week. "Next week" means never. "I'm already there" means "i'm thinking about starting to prepare to go out".

For a ten-minutes-early person that was jarring.

Indonesia. People just sit next to you in the train/bus. Ask personal questions immediately. Want to know why you don't have kids, or a husband. And why you're fat or that you should get a haircut because your hair is ugly.

It felt like Christmas at home, but then for months, from multiple people instead of my mum.

Go to some countries, like Germany or Britain, and tell the locals that you're going for a short 2-4 hour drive. Many will look at you like you grew a second head.

Here in Canada, people will do 2 hour drive for groceries. It takes 10 damn hours just get to the next province.

Not necessarily shocked, but dudes holding hands in India. Thought they were gay, turns out it's a normal custom.

I was in Germany a couple years ago with a friend of a friend who was born in the Soviet Union (and who still lives in a former Soviet satellite).

Someone tried to get us to sign a petition. After the guy left, I had to explain the concept of a petition and he said, "Oh. In my country if you want to change the government you just disappear."

In Thailand a little kid had never seen a white person as pale as i was and he put his little hand on my knee to see if it was real. Culture shock for both of us i guess.

In parts of Ireland in my grandparents time it was considered rude to accept food or beverages from a host the first time it was offered.

The exchange was supposed to go something like:
"will you have a cup of tea?"
"no thank you, I won't, I won't trouble you"
"ahh you will sure, go on"
"ahh I will so, if you're making one for yourself"

When my parents first went to America, they were shocked to find that people didn't do this, so instead it went:
"would you like a cup of coffee?"
"no thank you, I won't trouble you"
"okay!"
"wait! I did actually want coffee!"
"then why did you say no??"

One of my grandmothers was like this until she died, would get really snippy with you if you accepted a drink or a biscuit the first time she offered it.

Japanese discipline.

I was visiting the Hakone Outdoor Museum (a huge sculpture garden). At the end of the tour is a onsen foot bath where visitors can dip their feet in the nice hot water.

Tourists of every stripe gathered around the foot bath and the attendant instructed us on the rules. The rules were to be followed to the letter:

Remove shoes. Remove socks.

Place socks inside shoes.

Place shoes in designated area behind you, in basket provided.

Pants cuffs are to be rolled up in this fashion: roll back hem to the outside, then fold each additional roll in approximately 1 inch folds.

Continue folding up trouser cuffs until the roll extends past your calf muscle.

Last fold should be a tight fold to keep your trouser cuff up.

Place feet in onsen foot bath and enjoy.

When finished with enjoyment, take shoes and socks from basket and retire to bench to let feet dry.

When feet are dry, unroll trouser cuffs and re-install socks and shoes.

You may now leave.

This attendant went up and down the line, repeating the instructions, correcting people whose cuff rolling was sub-optimal. He wasn't mean about it. He was just...exacting.

The Japanese guests complied with bows and "HAI!". The foreigners bumbled along, trying their best, and getting a bit irritated. It was a hoot.

Balinese funerals and how they celebrate death. I was sitting on the beach on my first day there and heard a crowd coming, carying food and playing festive music. I thought it was some kind of party or wedding until I realized they were carying a corpse.

As someone who has lived in the Philippines for most of his life, I am considered quite chubby or overweight here. When I travelled to the USA a few years ago to study, I was shocked when people over there looked at me and said I was quite fit. Huge culture shock in terms of body image, and an even bigger culture shock at the portions of food in the USA.

Went to San Francisco. Was shocked to see the amount of homeless people there. Not to mention the amount of human s**t on the ground. It's literally disgusting, like third world disgusting.

You amercians need to fix that.

I went to The Netherlands as an LDS (Mormon) missionary. The first person I tried to talk to stopped me and said, "uh, I don't speak Dutch, and I'm gay, so Jesus won't work for me". And he walked away. My companion just laughed and said, "welcome to the Netherlands".