This is going to seem minor, but it was a shock to me.

I grew up in Texas. I lived in very metropolitan places – near downtown Dallas, and near the Houston medical center. So I never thought that I was culturally isolated or anything.

When I finally left the state for a job, I went to Los Angeles, circa 2007. In my first week there, a lady pulled up next to me on the street and asked me where the courthouse was. I had a vague idea, but explained that I was new to the area so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. People familiar with the LAX area will know that the nearby courthouse is a tall building with something resembling a crown or halo, I pointed her toward that.

It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later I realized what seemed strange about the encounter. The lady was of African-American descent.

I thought back on 3 decades of living in Texas, and I cannot once remember being approached by a black stranger and asked a question. Not one single time. Houston has a large homeless population, I had many encounters with panhandlers. I couldn’t remember one single black person.

In fact, as I thought about it, a HUGE difference between Texas and California was that black folks on the street behaved very differently. In California, they looked you in the eye, they said “hello”, etc. In Texas – at least, up until I left in 2007 – black folks were strictly “heads down, eyes on your own business”. Even thinking back on some black friends and co-workers, I realized that they behaved very differently in public than my white friends did.

The whole thing made me sad for my black friends back in Texas. And now that we know how police treat black folks, I guess I can see why they behaved the way they did.

Going to sound weird but going to one of my childhood friend’s house

He had a loving family where everyone was happy and helped each other. They communicated with each other happily about things that interested them. They were unafraid to share what was on their minds and what they were passionate about. They asked each other to do things without threatening or screaming. When they did have disagreements they talked them out. They’d say, “I love you,” without a hint of pain or irony.

It was jarring. It threw me off. I went over to his place a lot (like literally almost every day for the time were friends) and it wasn’t until I had been going to his place for a few weeks did it dawn on me that I had never seen his parents argue.

And honestly one of the most eye opening experiences from when I was young about how a family is supposed to function.

I guess you could say it was culture shock because my relatives operated on a culture of fear, hatred, and a lack of love. The phrase, “You have to love me, I’m family,” was uttered entirely too many times. Violence and the threat of violence was the only motivator my relatives used.

I was friends with that guy for 3 years. I’ll never forget his parents telling me that they saw me as family. I’d say those years did more good for shaping who I am today than all the years I spent with my relatives. I look back fondly on the time I spent with them. I wish it didn’t end the way it did though.

I hope they’re all doing well.

Little kids taking a shit literally wherever in China. They have special pants (NSFW?) so they can just crouch down and take to take a dump in a shopping mall, the street, the subway …

I must admit that I eventually got used to it and even started enjoying this attitude, which I also took part in, but I was quite amazed by the Finns.

For work reasons, I had to spend three months in Espoo and the interaction with my colleagues was strangely cold in social interactions. Examples:

• In the office canteen, they would sit next to you and start eating without even greeting or making conversation. I wondered why they had chosen to sit next to me.
• When they finished eating, they would get up from the table and not say goodbye.
• The scrupulous respect for personal space: in queues, crowds, etc.
• Small talk was generally non-existent. People often preferred to stay quiet rather than chat about the weather or other common topics. Even in an elevator, silence was the norm, not the exception.
• During meetings, the Finns would often speak only when they had something substantial to contribute. The silence in between wasn’t considered awkward, but a moment of thoughtfulness and respect for others’ ideas.

I ended up enjoying this way of social interaction. It seems to me that one uses less energy in social situations. There’s less stress about having to make conversation or engage in small talks.

Love you Finland.

How prevalent alcohol culture is in the West. I’m Southeast Asian and it’s more common for us to drink sugary drinks and have food at the local corner restaurant at night instead of having alcohol when we spend time with friends.

When I studied in the West, it really struck me how the only place you really could hang out at night was the bar, and alcohol was often the preferred drink. And they normally closed at 12am, so you can’t even stay out that late.

Personally I’m not very fond of inebriation just due to the issues it creates (not that my friends were alcoholics and got blackout drunk every time we hung out), so I found it kind of bad that it’s so socially accepted to see a need to get drunk in order to tolerate socialising with friends.

Believe it or not it was a trip to Memphis for training from Canada. I am not well travelled by any means. I made it into Memphis and after a short ride, arrived at my hotel. The people who worked there were some of the most lovely people I have ever met. Southern hospitality was in their soul. I even got to sit down one afternoon with some other guests and hotel staff to discuss differences in politics, healthcare and so on. It blew my mind when people were telling me the expense of just having a baby delivered at their local hospital. I could not wrap my mind around not wanting socialized healthcare. It was the first evening in the hotel, I decided to turn on the local news for Memphis. This was the first real culture shock. The violence. Shootings, stabbings, robberies. I honestly went from feeling like this place is amazing, to this place scares the sh!t out of me. I could not understand why in a place where I had met such beautiful and lovely individuals had to live in a place that was so violent. So after my training week had finished up I decided to head to Beal street and walk around the downtown core a bit. Beal was very much what I had imagined. Kind of felt like a tourist trap. Anyhow I ventured off the beaten path and headed into the town to do some shopping around. I had left a local record shop and heard the ranting of some biker coming out of a building. He was yelling the most racist things if I have ever heard. I was floored. Most of the racists I have encountered where I live are old asshats who keep it secret. But this man out in the street let his hatred fly.

Memphis was this weird crossover world where I was treated like gold and at the same time had to feel afraid for my safety. It still blows my mind the racism and bigotry people still face. It has stuck with me for years.

When my Muslim coworker told me that they didn’t use toilet paper and found it disgusting.

I later got a bidet and have never looked back.

I went to India (New Delhi, Goa, Chennai, Jaipur) as a middle class Canadian.

People hanging off the side of busses, monkeys running around everywhere, open sewage, cows eating garbage on the side of the road, literally everyone staring at me, tons of people following me trying to give me directions to tourist sites, different views on personal space.

Shit was wild.

I was in an airport argument with a British person. I was amazed to learn not only do they like to argue but they like being calm and reasonable about it. I think inviting and arguing with strangers is something they do to pass the time.

The sheer avalanche of religious bullshit in the Finnish Military.

Not me, but the first time my boyfriend traveled with my family somewhere, he could not believe that sitting quietly in a living room reading was a thing. My family didn’t feel the need to fill our day to the brim with tours or shopping or other activities. And that was shocking to him.

10 years ago I was visiting friends in Melbourne. They casually proposed going out and hanging out like you would at around 11am on a Saturday. It was 9pm on a Tuesday. Blew my mind that most things were open and operating.

Where I live if you haven’t eaten by 8pm, you better enjoy McDonald’s because it’s the only thing open.

I graduated from high school in 1995. The community I grew up in was incredibly diverse. It was a decent sized city (100k+) and we had about 3,000 students the year I graduated.

That summer, we went to rural Idaho for a family reunion. It was probably the first time in my life that I visited a place that was exclusively white. I’m a white dude myself, but like I said, grew up in a diverse community.

The lack of diversity was a giant culture shock to me. I was in a small community with a population that was about half the size of the school I had just graduated from.

South Africa: Hate of walking, danger of walking.

I’m from Germany, I’ve walked to school in 1st grade already. In South Africa there’s an American-Style car culture, and a lot of crime. So mostly the very poor walk. I’ve lived there for half a year in a rich area. I walked to the store, because it’s a nice walk (Uber back, because we lived on top of a mountain… some of the cars even struggled, only tried walking that direction once) every time I went shopping, I was the only white guy to walk that street. Some black employees (it was a rich area) of the mansions there were walking, but mostly it was just SUVs.

My wife’s niece’s school is maybe 1 km away from where they live. Car, both ways, every time. She’s 13.

Last time we visited, we went to a restaurant. It was dark (minor culture shock: It’s crazy how fast the sun disappears in comparison to Northern Germany. Bright-dark-black. No slow sunset) when we walked back (~500 meters). When we arrived, her uncle was just leaving and told us we really shouldn’t do that, it’s far too dangerous. About 350 meters of those were brightly lit …

Also, not so much culture shock directly, but a ton of things were new and strange to me, a white guy whose exposure to black people was pretty much just TV and cinema. Simply that hair works so different was completely new to me because I never thought about it.

In SA, there’s some added strangeness from surviving tribal rituals that sometimes get blended or live side-by-side with Christianity. Last time we were there (my wife is from the Sotho tribe), there was the ritual overnight slaughter and cooking of a lamb, which also involved making bread and brewing some kind of beer, and then eat, drink and either smoke or take snuff. Even the tiniest amount was okay, so even the children participated. This was to ask the ancestors to bless our lives and our trip back to Germany. Then, because a ton has (?, not quite clear, my wife is not very traditional :D) to be made, they had to find people to eat/drink all that stuff.

I immigrated to Vietnam. That was ok.

Visiting north America again years later was quite a shock!