Mike

For me language can be a real culture shock: <BR> <BR>On my first ever trip to England many years ago - landed in airport, and kept thinking "why are all these people speaking to me with a fake English accent?" (I'm Canadian). Followed many months later by the strangeness of hearing all these 'odd' Canadian accents again, when flying home! <BR> <BR>Another shock for me was the first time I was in a place where no one was speaking English or French. Very disconcerting not to even hear in the background anything one can understand. <BR> <BR>Trip to Russia was another occassion - first experience with non-Roman Alphabet (i.e. Cyrillic). Initially, couldn't distinguish any letters in any signs, street signs, printed messages, etc. - had to compare them character by character, like pictographs. Otherwise, Russia was culture shock in a wonderful, exciting way (and the people were wonderful). As has been mentioned, the "shock" isn't bad when one is expecting it - it can even be part of the thrill of experiencing something completely new. <BR> <BR>Mike

dave

to mary: <BR> <BR>Off subject too, but what is so difficult about real cheese that they had to make it easier? I can manage the real stuff and i'm a kitchen incompetent

Phil

Coming from a region where good, freshly baked bread is highly regarded, I got culture schock, when I went shopping for the first time in a U.S. supermarket: <BR> <BR>The customer in front of me at the checkout counter had put two loaves of American "French bead" on the conveyor belt. Their crust looked suspuciously soft even from a distance, bat this didn't prepare me towhat was coming: The shop assistant picked them up, neatly *folded them in half* and put them into a carrier bag. <BR> <BR>I think my chin must have hit the bottom and I was hard put to it not start guffawing... <BR> <BR>Phil.

Anon

My father was in the U.S. Air Force, so I moved every year or two while I was growing up, both in the States and overseas. Sometimes it was the juxtaposition of the moves that caused culture shock. Here are a couple that stood out when I was a teenager: <BR> <BR>We moved to Tokyo for a few years. I was only 14, but everywhere I went people asked me how many children I had: I was 5'4", very average size for a woman in the U.S., but tall over there, so everybody thought I was an adult. In fact it took me years back in the States to realize that I am not an unusually tall person. It was also very eye-opening for me at a formative age to live in a non-Judeo/Christian culture. Made it hard for me to be very close-minded about religious beliefs as I grew up. (We also loved watching Bonanza on TV, dubbed in Japanese, and hearing Hoss Cartwright say things like, "Ah so, deska..."). <BR> <BR>We then moved from Tokyo, at the time the largest city in the world with 10 million people, to Wyoming, only 300,000 people in the whole large state. I couldn't get used to driving for miles and miles in Wyoming and seeing NO sign of humans - other than the road - which had no other cars on it anyway. It seemed like the world had suddenly gotten empty and all the people had vanished - at first it produced a sense of unease, but I learned to like it. <BR> <BR>Then we moved from Wyoming (winters of 30 degrees F. BELOW zero) to Florida (winters of 90 degrees F. ABOVE zero). BTW, re: "racism and the South". I agree with the poster who pointed out that racism can exist everywhere: the target population is what differs. In Wyoming it was totally common to hear extremely racist remarks about Native Americans and people from Mexico. There were virtually no African Americans there at the time, so there seemed to be little racism directed at that population. I once had a person in Wyoming say, "I cannot understand why people in the South can be so prejudiced against black people. Now [rude slang for Mexicans] are something else - they are really impossible." In Florida it was the exact opposite: Native Americans were considered sort of exotic and interesting at the time and African Americans were often spoken of in derogatory terms. Evidently familiarity can too often breed contempt, unfortunately. <BR> <BR>As an adult, 2 experiences of culture shock that especially stand out were: <BR> <BR>Driving in East Germany and having the border guards measure every compartment in our car to make sure there were no false walls, etc. in which to hide, not drugs, but a person trying to leave the Eastern sector. <BR> <BR>Talking to people on small islands in Fiji who had NO preconceptions about Americans because they had a) never met any and, more importantly, they had b) NEVER SEEN ANY SORT OF AMERICAN TV! An increasingly small subset of the human race and one that was very refreshing! <BR> <BR>Didn't mean to write a book - sorry to be so long-winded. <BR> <BR>

S

This is one thread I've truly read all the way through. Fascinating. <BR> <BR>I've lived in north Alabama (USA) for 20 years now. When I got here, some girl, fresh from California, asked me how I dealt with all the KKK in south Alabama. I could only laugh. She was totally unaware of any activity around (because there was none) and assumed that it was all in south Alabama. In reality, the birth of the Klan was in a small town in Tennessee about 45 miles away. <BR> <BR>I was born and raised in the South. Honestly, I've seen more open blatant racism in Pennsylvania (where my husband is from) than here in the South. (Open racism would be rude. Southern manners wouldn't tolerate that!) <BR> <BR>When my husband & I first got married, upon realizing he was from the Pittsburgh area, most people had some comment about the dirty air and city of Pittsburgh. Likewise, people up there seemed to feel like everyone from Alabama are rednecks, have 2 teeth in their head, illiterate, etc. Both impressions couldn't be further from the truth. Here, your next door neighbor very easily could be a rocket scientist. And Pittsburgh is not a dirty, smelly steel city. <BR> <BR>The biggest culture shock between the 2? When we leave my in-laws heading for home, I feel like I want to stretch. While I'm there, I don't really notice how tight and close together everything is. But when we leave and start seeing all the open spaces, we (all of us) appreciate our home out in the country.

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bumper_upper

Very interesting, a good read. Liked David West's observations re America the most.

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Nomadic1

I got my greatest culture shock after I moved to Kosovo. I moved there for a year and it was a real eyeopener.

I remember the daily electricity blackouts and how my meals, baths, and entertainment were interrupted. I still look at my dvd player and wonder if it will suddenly shut off.

My apartment bed and bathtub were a fraction of western standards. My feet would dangle over the edge while I slept and I couldn't sit in the tub, so I was forced to sit on the side and use a washcloth to clean.

Driving in Kosovo was interesting and a challenge. The roads were marked with huge craters in the road and one had to avoid various animals. It's funny how the local police had a radar gun but no car and they would hide behind trees and try to pull people over by waving their hands. Needless to say, they had very little success.

It's a culture shock paradise but I cherish my time, I spent there. The people of Kosovo were good to me and my dog, Erin.

Melnq8

Thanks for reviving this thread. I found the comment about Saudi Arabia interesting. I lived in Saudi for three years in the 90's. I'll never forget the first time I went to town with my husband. He seemed surprised that I wasn't shocked, just curious. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I knew it would be different, and that it was.

I now live in Kuwait and I've visited many countries, so I'm seldom shocked.

Strange as it sounds, the only real culture shock I've ever encountered was moving from Colorado to Houston, TX. Now, that was a shock!

In fact, these days my motto is &quot;I can live anywhere, I've lived in Texas&quot;!

Kate

Just found this thread, and wholeheartedly agree with David West's comments. I first visited the US about ten years ago and fully expected to feel right at home (I live in London). Whilst much was as I expected or had heard (the friendly people, overbearing shop staff &quot;no, I don't want any help thank you&quot;, the large everything - cars, food portions etc) it was the oddest things that surprised me.

Much was to do with food and dining culture. I found much of the food sweeter than I am used to - even bread and butter tasted over sweetened to me.

I found that waiting staff in cheaper restaurants or diners were astonished when I asked to see a wine list - and it took me a while to see that most other diners only drank soft drinks with their meals.

I had dinner with a friends American cousins who lived in a Chicago suburb. We had Spaghetti Bolognese - no surprises there for a Brit. However, there was a bowl of fruit salad on the table, which we all assumed was dessert (thinking that it was a little odd to put dessert on the table before we've eaten the main course). But our host was more surprised that we weren't tucking in - she expected us to eat the fruit salad WITH our main course. Mixing sweet and savoury is rather unusual for us.

One of the things I really enjoyed was when this cousin took us to her grandson's high school play: the school was everything I expected an American high school to be - guys in baseball jackets, lockers in the hallway, big staduim for &quot;American&quot; football. But I was very surprised to see a petrol (gas) pump in the car park. In the UK, not only do school kids rarely have their own cars (we have to be 17 to drive in anycase), even if we did, we wouldn't be allowed to park in the school car park and certainly wouldn't be provided with a petrol station!

I've since been to the US many times, particularly New York (which isn't anything like the rest of the US, I know). I find New York to be sooo similar to London in culture that I sometimes think I may as well have saved myself the airfare!

missypie

Kate, that's funny about the fruit salad. We live in Texas and our neighbors are British - we had them over for Thanksgiving dinner - they didn't quite know what to make of the jello mold - asked if it was for dessert. (No!)

Kate

missypie! That's too weird! Unless it was cranberry jelly to go with the turkey. That's the only time it would be acceptable (I wonder of we inherited that tradition from you lot...?)

LJ

As a Canadian now living overseas in Italy, I was intrigued by the reaction of some in the very early part of this thread to the &quot;chilliness&quot; of London. I just spent a week there after 7 months straight in Italy. London seemed to me very friendly and accessible.

The ability to understand the conversations happening around one (admittedly, of course, to be expected)...being asked if I needed help without requesting assistance when trying to decipher a map...folks seemed to smile at one another for no reason whatsoever on the street when it started to snow.

Rome is wonderful and exciting but it is not friendly in the main. This is not to say that one cannot have individual experiences of unexpected warmth from Romans. And that is how I expected London to be. My experience was much &quot;jollier&quot; than I would have expected in a town that sees almost as many tourists as Rome. Yes, I agree that the standards of service are not what one would find in the US, but there was a sort of amateurish zeal to please that is absent many tourist cities.

RufusTFirefly

Moving from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, Korea in 1971. Big time culture shock. I was in a daze for days. Ox carts and men wearing A-frames carrying huge loads on their backs in streets in the middle of Seoul. Very few private cars, hordes of buses and taxis. Hotels and high end restaurants the only places to find a decent restroom (either Asian or western style). At 5'10&quot; I was usually among the tallest people in any group--and people staring at and wanting to touch my red curly hair and moustache.

Midnight curfews on the streets at midnight because of North Korean infiltrators.

Seoul and South Korea are so much different 33 years later.

popesa

over the last 20 years i've been going back and forth from italy our worlds are gradually becoming similar....from the sneakers on the telephone lines in naple to the cousins who &quot;won't be keep down on the farm&quot;...with all the new technology brings everthing to the fore and at there face....no longer wait and see....more nervous tension, more fast foods , similar diseases from stress....

mpprh

Hi

not much culture shock in US or Europe ( maybe a little in E Europe before 1989 ?).

Real culture shock is Asia ........... remote areas of Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia.

Lesser culture shock is N Africa, Grenada , Dominica.

Peter
The Languedoc Page
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