‘Non-Americans, what was the biggest culture shock when you came to the US?’ – 23 proper eye-openers
The cultural divide between the United States and the rest of the world is a frequent source of fascination (and entertainment).
And it’s one we return to after Redditor Miserablemermaid asked this.
“Non-Americans of reddit, what was the biggest culture shock you experienced when you came to the US?”
And the answers came flying in from all over the world. We’ve read them all – well, quite a few of them – so you don’t have to and here are our 23 favourites.
1.
‘Everyone I met treated me like a long lost friend.’
Red_Ranger75
2.
‘Everything being fucking huge. Literally. Road lanes, groceries, soda sizes. Especially distances: where i come from, 3 hours of driving are enough to cross half of the country, in the US it’s just a small drive to go to see a relative or something.’
salderosan99
‘You can drive 11 hours in the us and only go from one state to another.’
PriorSolid
‘You can drive for 11 hours in Los Angeles and still be in Los Angeles.’
KirkMouse
3.
‘Your sugar has very little food in it.’
manjeete
4.
‘Advertisements in between the title credits of the show and the actual show. You guys have a LOT of advertisements.’
VodkaMargarine
5.
‘People really care about their teeth like whitening and straightening.’
WhitePhatAss
6.
‘It had been 20 minutes since we got our appetiser (which we were having trouble finishing cos the portion was so huge), when a woman came up to our table and said “Hello I’m Sheila, the manager”, and we were like shit have we done something wrong, but no she was there to apologise profusely for our main course being SO late.
‘We figured it would be another 15 min or so, which would be okay since we were struggling with the appetiser, but naw as she was leaving our food arrived.
‘If that was back home, not only would the food be later than 20 minutes, there would be no Sheila to beg for our forgiveness. And definitely not if it was literally 10 seconds away.’
LucTempest
7.
‘Could not walk anywhere, or take good public transport. Always had to take Ubers or hitch lifts.
‘Everything was also HUGE. Cities, buildings, regular houses, food portions. I’d say people but I did not see anybody who was hugely obese there at least.
‘There was an insane amount of space just … everywhere. As a European used to being crammed into every available nook, even in rural areas, the way that towns and cities just stretched out was unimaginable.’
ScotchSirin
8.
‘The air conditioning. Everywhere. And the literal temperature shock between the inside and the outside of any fucking building.’
un_saumon
9.
‘The toilet doors (or lack thereof). Not enough door! Seriously, you’re a wealthy enough country you don’t need to leave an inch gap at the sides and a foot and a half at the top and bottom.’
litsto
10.
‘People kept asking “how are you?” and seemed utterly perplexed when I actually answered literally.’
barsknos
11.
‘Lawyer commercials and “if this happened to you, you can sue them” commercials.’
RegnumRico
‘There are two main reasons we have so many lawyers and it’s a big industry to sue people. We don’t have universal healthcare. Having a major medical issue, even with insurance is very expensive. So people end up having to make someone or some company at fault just to avoid being in financial ruin their whole life over one accident.
‘The US doesn’t have a pro-active safety regulatory system. The way the US generally deals with negligence by companies is someone has to she them and take them to court. Many other modern nations have regulators agencies that proactively make things safer. In the US it’s largely reactionary and almost entirely done through the courts.
‘This is why we seem like we sue for everything and others don’t. Because it’s really the only option to get a lot of things done that should have been taken care of already.’
VulfSki
12.
‘British here, the first time I visited the US I was 11, I heard a mom scream at her daughter “get your fanny over here” Fanny means vagina here 😂😂😂
After_Cheesecake3393
