35 People Describe The Biggest Culture Shock They Have Ever Encountered

I am an Indian living in United States since last six months. These two countries are very different in many ways which we already know. I am going to write about the cultural shock I faced at personal level.

I was born with deformity in one of my arms so I definitely don’t look like a normal person. And, I grew up around people who inadvertently made me feel I wasn’t one of them. Going to any public places would make me so conscious as everyone’s eyes would be on me. They would stare at me all the time, would feel sorry for me, ask me questions. Sometimes I would not be in a mood to give any explanation, but would still do just because I don’t want to be rude. After all these years, I started living with a belief that anything of this would never change.

I moved to US, and, it’s been six months, not a single person has looked at me as something was wrong with me, not a single person has asked me any question about why I am like this, not a single person thought or made me realize that I am not normal.

I appreciate them for respecting every individual as they are. This has definitely made me a lot more confident person than I ever was.

I would like to share my culture shock experience after I came to Germany from India in 2016.
(The incident is not exactly about me, but I witnessed this).

It was my 2nd day in Germany and I had to travel to the university for completing some paperwork formalities. I chose to travel by local public transport bus. It was peak hour time so the bus is fully occupied by passengers. I was standing in the bus and after 5 minutes the bus stopped at one stop. The driver got off from his driving seat, stepped down from the bus, and came to the middle door of the bus. The reason he came was to help a handicapped person to get on the bus by unfolding a wheelchair ramp

All people were there, nobody made any noise nor any angry faces. I was stunned by looking at the scene that happened. Because in my country I have never seen such a gesture by a bus driver to help a handicapped person and that too during peak hours in a crowded bus.

The second cultural shock was just after 5 minutes when I stepped down from the bus at my destination stop. I saw the same person crossing the two-lane road on Zebra Crossing using his wheelchair. All the cars (more than 8–10) stopped on both sides of the road. There was no noise, no horn nothing. After the person successfully crossed the road, vehicles went off.
This moment really gave me goosebumps, that how can people behave so nicely and show such gestures and follow rules.

Right here in the United States. I am a white woman, born in 1948, raised in Ohio. When I was around 16–17 years old, I took a bus to Florida. When I got off the bus, I had to go to the bathroom, so I stepped into the first bathroom I saw that said “women.” I then left the bathroom and stopped at the water fountain for a drink of water. Imagine my shock when I turned around and found a group of people yelling at me and telling me to get out of town and saying I was a very sick person, etc. I had used the “colored” bathroom and drinking fountain! I had never heard of such a thing and to this day (52 years or so later), I still find it disturbing.

A month back I moved to Brussels. Just after checking into my guest house, I came out to see if I could buy anything to eat.

So, I stand on the side of the road near the zebra crossing. There were no crossing light signals, so I kept standing thinking I would cross the road when its empty.

30 seconds on the road and I see cars are piling up. I have no clue, WHY?. 1 minute and I start wondering.

Then I see the the person first in the line calls me up. I thought he might be asking for direction. I reach out to him, he screams something in FRENCH.

I reply: English?

He went on like: “Cross the road, you stupid!”.

I ran across the road, stopped and realised they were stopping for me so I can cross the road. Pedestrians first.

Well, I couldn’t blame myself too. Dude I am from India, I am not used to such respect on the roads.

I try that in India, I might never see the road again.

When travelling around Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam I saw how much people appreciate immaterial things compared to the UK. One night in Vietnam I stayed up drinking with friends and convinced them to come to the beach to watch the sunrise, thinking we’d be the only ones there. The beach was packed with families & the children played all around. When the sun came up the whole beach burst into applause. It was such an amazing moment & made me realise in England people are too busy to look at the sky and appreciate the beautiful things in life, and I vowed to not become like that again.

Castles in Germany
I have never actually seen such castles. These kinds of structures always seemed magical to me. When I saw that there were such structures in Germany, I realized that castles were not just fairy tales.I was very excited when I first saw it.I've never seen anything like this before. I felt like I was living in the middle ages.

Japanese Toilets.

Well what’s all the hype about a toilet?

As the airplane arrived in Narita Airport, I, customarily, for some reason, go to the toilets. (I dislike using the plane’s toilets when we’re near landing)

Big surprise.

When I opened that cubicle, I nearly got disoriented. Random buttons in separate menu screens astounded me.

I mashed all the buttons and I realized that there was a heater, a bidet water sprayer when you have to take a dump, and on some toilets, they open automatically when you come in. They even have an option to play music to help you concentrate when… doing your stuff!

I literally said “OH MY GOD!” in the cubicles, and pretty much everyone knew that I was a tourist, but you know what? Screw them. Lemme enjoy my time with this gracious toilet.

I was literally in front of the Lamborghini of Toilets. Let me bask in all the glory.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the music mainly masks the sound you make when relieving yourself or taking a dump

Hello all, I am an Indian and I visited Pakistan 4 year ago. The biggest culture shock I faced in Pakistan was how nice the people were to me despite being an Indian. I visited Lahore with my grandfather (he lived in Lahore before partition) and the people would always ask if we were Indian (we were Sikhs so I guess they can tell by the turban). I remember the first time it was when we visited a dhaba and the guy came to take our order, he asked us if we’re from India and when we said yes these were his exact words: “Tussi sadda mehmaan ho, tusi muft ke liye hi kha sakade ho” (You are our guest, you can eat free). We refused the offer but had no choice. This happened everytime, I had heard many stories of people talking about their grandparents in Punjab (india) and talked a lot about their friends before partition from elders. People there were very nice, I wish I could go again if getting visa was not so hard. Aside from visa, the biggest issue was trying to understand the Urdu-influenced Punjabi, otherwise it was amazing experience for me.

There’s a pop-On one side, every meal is potato based. On the other, it seems not a single meal is eaten without a tomato in the form of sauce, pizza, salad, etc.

I grew up on the potato side. Every day was a form of potatoes - usually roasted as a side with a form of meat. To switch things up, there were also boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato pancakes, and so many more I can’t think of.

Then I crossed the line. Obviously I’d had tomatoes in the form of pasta sauce or marinara, but never to the frequency or variety that they have on the other side of the border (yes, I’m being dramatic. Bare with me).
culture line in Europe called the tomato-potato line.

It was like my taste buds had exploded. Every meal had a new flavor and depth that I had never experienced. The tomatoes were different too - better quality, grown near to the location rather than being shipped hundreds of miles. So much more spice and taste can be incorporated into a tomato based dish.

Though I may be biased, I then vowed to never stay in potato territory for food. I learned to cook, reducing my potato consumption to maybe once a month, and have since relished in the variety of foods there are to try from so many different cuisines.

I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years then and my Dutch boss invited me to her wedding. There was a beautiful ceremony in a romantic castle and after that we were served some tiny snacks and petit fours.

After that we took a group picture and then the wedding manager announced that those who have a fork and a knife pictogram in their wedding invitation could proceed to the dinner hall and the rest can go home and thanks for coming.

So there we were, hungry and stuck in the middle of nowhere. Until one of our colleagues called her husband to pick us up by car and bring to the nearest train station where we bought ourselves döner kebab.

I still don’t get it, why should someone treat their guests differently. If you can’t afford a wedding dinner for everyone, it’s perfectly ok with me. You can go for an intimate wedding with your family or close friends or just serve cake, I don’t care. But not treating your guests equally completely blows my mind even 20 years later.

Plastic surgery in Korea.

I know it sounds quite normal as so many people now are doing it. It seems like not a big deal but allow me to explain a little bit.

What shocked me is how many Korean people obsess with changing very small parts of their looks. They can always point out something they dislike about their looks and usually, it is something that wouldn’t even be noticed by others.

One of my coworkers decided that she wants her forehead to look a bit more round so she spent over $5000 to take some fat from her butt (she’s skinny, the butt was the only place to take that fat of course) to put on her forehead. I heard the liposuction was very painful.

At first after the surgery, her forehead looked swollen and after two months, it looked exactly like her ‘original’ forehead. I mean, what’s the point of going through that much pain and money to get a change that is not noticeable?

While walking on the streets of Tokyo, I realised that the streets are cleaner than any place I have seen (except Iceland of course).

This was not the culture shock though.

I was shocked when I couldn’t find a bin on the street to dispose off the empty bottle of water I had grabbed.

One of the locals in the hostel told me that they have very few bins on the streets.

It amazes me how the Japanese are still able to keep the streets so clean.

I have been to quite a few places around the world but I am yet to see the Japanese level of commitment to cleanliness.

Not the biggest but the most recent - I learned that Americans don't tend to have electric kettles in their homes.
Every home in the U.K. has a kettle. (It may even be true to say that every home in Europe has a kettle, though I can't absolutely confirm that.) When you move, the kettle is the last thing to be packed and the first thing to be plugged in at your new house.

The fact that some Americans don't have kettles is the clearest possible indicator of the differences in our cultures.

In China, whether it is in movies, TV series, or comics, when characters need to cover their face, they always cover the lower half of your face. But the opposite is true in the United States

I am an Indian who worked in DUBAI for 6 months.

Unfortunately, the holy month of Ramadan fell in between the time I was there.

The biggest cultural shock in my life is that during ramadan, no one is allowed to consume anything in public by law, not even allowed to drink water. And mind you, the temperature in a “CONVENIENT” 50 degrees centigrade.

Respecting one’s customs is a good thing but forcing people to crave for water in such an uncomfortable weather is not just a shock but I felt that the law was itself archaic and unscientific. So dont get fooled by the glitz and buildings, Dubai is still middle east.

I am not a muslim and still I was forced to follow such practice.

All the muslims are supposed to follow the ramadan style of fasting by law.

So “RAMADAN IN DUBAI” was my biggest cultural shock.

I am going anonymous because I dont want to get jailed at the GCC airports for badmouthing the region. Frankly I dont expect much rationality and a fair treatment from the judicial systems there.

*Eating up the banana leaf*

My friend from MIT was going to Tamil Nadu with me. He was a complete American and didn’t know ‘Indian stuff’.

We went to one of the local restaurants and ordered a full set of meal.

In Tamil Nadu, food is served on a banana leaf. So when we went there, he was perplexed but didn’t ask me a question.

When we had finished our meals, I told him to stay here and take care of our belongings while I go to the washroom, and then we swap.

While I was not there, he started chewing the whole banana leaf

I moved to the US after getting married. My husband and I went to a restaurant on the very first day for lunch. We parked the car and went inside. Without waiting I simply walked and took a chair for myself at a table. I could see everybody staring at me like I've done a big crime. I turned around and found my husband standing near the door and laughing. Out of embarrassment I stood up, placed the chair back in place and walked away.

So then I came to know that a designated person specifically asks us how many people are there to dine and leads us to our table. You should enter only with him and not grab a table greedily.

I am from India and getting the table norm is: You walk in. Scan the area like a hawk. Find an empty table (sometimes an empty chair also would suffice). Sit and order your food.

First few days in Australia. Friends invite me to go to the beach.

Friend reminds me, “Don’t forget your thongs!”

“Wait, what?! Thongs?!”

Thongs in Australia:

I took a trip to Egypt. I chatted with a shopkeeper in Luxor. After ten minutes of pleasant conversation, he asked me if I was married. I said, no I have never been married. He said “You POOR woman! You have never been able to find a husband? I can solve your problem! Let’s get married! We will be a perfect couple.” I learned that this is normal, that American women will get marriage offers after a ten minute courtship. Egyptian men work fast. They let you know right away what they want. In the hotel, in Cairo, I walked down the hall and smiled at one of the employees. He sprinted over to me and wrapped his arms around me. I learned that smiling and eye contact with get women instant attention. Egyptian culture is different than USA.

When I visited Germany and went to the local swimming pool. After paying, I was directed toward a door. I walked in and found myself in a big locker room. Thing is, it wasn’t the men’s locker room. It was a joint locker room. There were cubicles most people were going into to change, but some were changing right out in the open. There were separate showers for males and females, but while I was showering I witnessed several women, in their bathing suits, come into the male showers to talk to their male friends or family members as they were showering. Nobody batted an eye at this or found it unusual. Then, walking into the sauna area, everyone was naked, and it was mixed gender. I had heard that was how it was before this, but actually experiencing it was a bit strange at first.