What's a culture shock that you experienced?

Referring to people present in the room as he/she.

I know that sounds crazy, but let me explain. Where I'm from, France, it's considered very impolite to refer to somebody present in the room as he or she. I remember being corrected very often about this as a kid at school or at home that it got engraved in my habit.

If somebody is present in the room, you need to refer to them as the way you address them. For example, if I'm talking to you with Phillipe Dubois present in the conversation, and I'm talking about him, I should use "Phillipe" if I'm formal with him, or "Mr. Dubois", such as "Oh yeah, Phillipe was just telling me about this." If I were to say "Oh yeah, he was just telling me about this" as a kid, I would have quickly been corrected with by an adult with a "He, is Phillipe!" He or she is reserved for people who are not present.

When I moved abroad (the US, and now Germany), I realized that this was an utterly French-only thing. People will refer to people in the room as he/she left and right. At first, I remember thinking "wow... this guy/lady is so rude..." After a while, I recognized it was totally accepted :D .

Side note: Using he/she while the person is present in France can be used to be purposefully rude towards them. I understand こいつ (koitsu) to be similar in japanese, which they usually translate in english as "this guy"

You kinda have to be Brazilian to fully grasp this, but I'm from Salvador, the most African city outside of Africa. Going to Curitiba, a Brazilian city with a strong Ukrainian and German makeup, was quite an adventure. They don't really say "good morning," etc. They talk much less overall. Which I actually kinda liked, but coming from Salvador it was an adjustment. Also, the experience of looking around and everyone was white. I felt a little isolated, and the few Black people there dressed formally and extremely well in comparison to the others. I got the impression that they dressed that way to compensate for being Black. But IDK. It was my first experience in an extremely White culture. I loved the city, the cold climate, and most people were very nice. Just different.

Also, I had no idea that cold could be "trapped". The stores had no heating and stayed cold the entire day. That may sound silly, but when you live at a place that is always between 25C and 38C (and 18C with high humidity just a few days every year), you subconsciously think that is the default, as if everything had a natural tendency to heat. Which, of course, they don't. It's just one of those things that you are used to and never think about.

Speaking of cultures within America:

"Midwest Nice" reminded me of the "Southern Hospitality" I grew up with, which was really just another flavor of "passive-aggressive asshole".

Living in Denver was what actually really shocked me, where people just don't give a fuck about each other. Like you don't really have people giving the head nod when passing, there's no small talk with cashiers or others waiting in line, no waving to people in the neighborhood when they drive by/you drive by. Definitely a lot more of a "lonelier" feel. Made me think of what I've heard of eg Scandinavian countries

But the people who were outwardly nice were more sincerely nice, and conversation with strangers that did happen felt more impactful than superficial. As a massive introvert and at-worst autistic-correlated, I really miss living in Denver lol.

I once stayed at an Airbnb in the USA, just a room in someone's house. We spent new year's eve there and it was very cold and rainy outside, so we decided to stay in. The lovely lady who lived there had a lovely cat who needed to be fed. She had a party that night and asked us if we would mind terribly feeding the cat. Of course we would, it was a few seconds of our time.
The next day we woke up to find a thank you note, which I thought was a really nice gesture, but it included some money. A decent amount, at least for us. It felt strange to me. Very transactional. In my country nobody would do that, you just do favours for people. I asked my husband if we should refuse to take it, but he said it might have offended her. I did enjoy that money, not gonna lie, ha ha.

I just moved from one of the biggest cities in the UK to a small city in Texas three months ago. The biggest culture shock was definitely trying (and failing) to walk to places.

The pavement (sidewalk) would be fine to start with, so you begin heading in a direction, then it suddenly disappears at a seemingly random point. So then it's time to backtrack and find another route, sometimes one of the backstreets has sidewalk, sometimes they don't, sometimes it randomly disappears again... I managed to find a route to the H.E.B. eventually but it requires crossing to the other side of the main road and then back again, and walking through some car parks.

And speaking of crossing roads - doing that is terrifying here. It's a crossing point with a walk sign and everything but unlike the UK, cars are still allowed to turn while the walk sign is on - gave me a heart attack the first time I was walking across and a car crossed it in front of me. It doesn't help that the roads are enormous, so it feels like you're on that crosswalk forever, and the cars are so big I feel like they can't see me.

I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but that's one thing I really hate here. I'm not surprised I never see anyone else walking anywhere.

I grew up in eastern Washington state, in a small town (by national standards; it was quite large compared to its neighbors and county). It was racially-diverse compared to its neighbors, but that wasn't a very big hurdle.

My then-girlfriend, now-wife is Chinese American, 4th or 5th generation depending on which side of the family you trace. She grew up in the suburbs of southern California, considerably less rural and significantly more ethnically-diverse than my hometown. Like, her graduating class from high school was several times larger, in number of kids, than my entire high school.

At one point early in our relationship, she ended up taking a summer job in northern Idaho. Growing up in that general area, I knew the history of the region (Aryan Nation compounds, that sort of thing) and told her what to look out for, and taught her some basic self-defense. She told me stories of her time there, where she "stopped an Albertson's cold" by simply being the Asian person present in the store. She turned heads wherever she went by simply existing.

I had my own, quasi-similar moment when we later went to an Asian market in SoCal together. I was one of only a handful of white people there; I wasn't the only one, but there weren't many. I got some funny looks from folks throughout the store, particularly because I'm very pale - and being that pale in SoCal, I definitely stand out.

What occurred to me was that there was a key difference between my wife's experience in northern Idaho, and my experience in southern California. At no point did I feel threatened. I felt uncomfortable, sure, but I never felt in danger. She, on the other hand, felt uncomfortable and under threat when she stepped foot into that Albertson's.

This was one of the many steps I took towards being (or at least trying to be) anti-racist. No one deserves to feel threatened just for existing in a given space. You don't necessarily have the "right" to feel comfortable everywhere - not every space is made for you - but you don't deserve to feel like you'll be attacked for just being somewhere.

I honestly have so many little culture shocks I could share, especially coming from an American visiting Europe and East Asia. I think probably my favorite one I'd like to share is experiencing South Korean restaurant culture when I visited in 2023. Traditional South Korean meals are meant to be shared. There's often a few main dishes with a plethora of sides and you're meant to just take small samples and share with friends or family. This extends to a lot of restaurants too, with options often meant for a group of people to share with portion sizes to match. This can make it difficult for solo travelers (like myself) since restaurants will either turn you away or require you order multiple portions of food. The first few days I was in Seoul, I struggled to find places to eat by myself as the big restaurants that would show up on the maps apps would often turn away solo eaters. However, I quickly discovered plenty of smaller, family run restaurants that were more than happy to take my business. These places were so cozy and the food was great, it truly felt like stepping into someone's home and enjoying their food.

When I immigrated from the US to rural Australia back in 2012 (having never before traveled outside North and Central America), I think my biggest shock was the difference in the food culture: Walking into bakeries and not recognizing a single product on the shelves, not being able to find a lot of my staples (for example, no wholegrain pasta, and I even had to grow my own black beans! Only recently have these become commonplace), many of my American recipes failing because the measurements are different, thinking "potato cakes" sounded disgusting, going to so-called "American" diners that just taste like Australian food, etc. For the most part, American and Australian culture are extremely similar, and I was completely prepared for how little overlap there would be.

There were also a lot of fun dialect differences to work through, like when my neighbor talked about having "potatoes for tea" (potatoes for dinner) or when a someone told me I needed a "servo" to fill a bike tire (I thought he was talking about a servo motor and I was very confused).

But my favorite dialect confusion: There was a drought my first few years here, and one of my coworkers was telling me that the water level had gotten so low that they found a boy at the bottom of one of the local lakes. I was completely shocked — they found a boy? I asked her if they called the police, and she was confused; why would they call the police about a boy in a lake? It was several minutes of me increasingly freaking out and her wondering why I was making such a big deal about it until we realized that we pronounce "buoy" differently.

When I met my ex girlfriend for the first time, when saying bye, I went to kiss her on the cheek. She's Chinese, I'm Latin. It turns out that this is not how to say goodbye to people universally.

American things (mostly white people)

(Some) people wear their shoes inside. This one still feels psychopathic.

Americans heat water with the microwave. They use the microwave to make tea or ramen.

Circumcision. It being common to mutilate baby's genitals is utterly bizarre. Especially when the reasons are some combination of "hygiene" (the rest of the world and human existence seems to get on with it fine), not wanting people to masturbate (wtf), and aesthetics (of your child's dick?).

Homecooked meals have a tendency to be a clean split between protein, vegetables, and carbs.

People dress very poorly outside

The proper knife and fork etiquette is to cut your food and then swap hands for some reason

Even though knife and fork are the utensils of choice, most people do not seem particularly to have learned or thought much about how to use them

Sweet breakfast

Islamic countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia)

People don't date - you go straight to marriage.

There are no urinals. Only stalls. It's customary to only pee sitting down.

It's customary to use like a water pot thing instead of toilet paper.

Mainland China

Spitting

People drink hot water when it's hot

All the subways have (pointless) metal detectors

Quite literally everything is on an app.

People still don't quite queue for the subway

Shockingly, they convinced drivers not to honk in the last 5 years or so

I visited Toronto last year and was entering a shopping mall through a double door vestibule. A middle aged woman is walking behind me, so I hold both doors for her.

"You held the door" she says. "Nobody does that anymore". I really didn't have anything to say but "I'm from... The prairies?".

Despite our stupid reputation, Prairie cities in Canada are known for their hospitality and friendliness, and whether it was the door holding thing, cyclists and pedestrians in heated screaming matches or just the general level of unfriendliness, the Toronto public were pretty awful.

Coming from USA, visiting Japan, it was a (pleasant) culture shock that slurping noodles in a restaurant was polite. I took full advantage! Compliment to the chef!

Coming back from Europe to the USA... the culture shock of re-entering... seeing so much abject poverty, lack of third spaces (such as plazas), and public transportation being a have-nots feel in most locations.

Small talk is a big deal here in Canada. I notice people who immigrate later in life have a hard time with this. I’ve been a Canadian since my early teens so to me it’s natural now. I get why it may feel kind of fake or useless to someone who is not used to it, but I always defended this. I value honesty and directness, but when I’m out and about in society, interacting with strangers, I think it is kind of nice to have this baseline understanding that we’ll just be nice to each other and exchange small talk. It’s not fake. It’s just being polite. The worst that can happen is the other person will cut it short. But more often it’s simply an easy ice breaker and the first step to making a new friend or at least a good first impression.

In Greece, plumbing works differently than in the rest of Europe, so oftentimes, you can’t throw toilet paper in the toilet, but instead throw it in bins. Traveling there as German, it was a bit shocking and kinda tough to do in a way, because you’re just so programmed on wiping and throwing the toilet paper away immediately. It’s not as unhygienic as it sounds and you do acclimatise fast, but in the beginning it was quite the adjustment

When I first moved to America I remember going to see a dr under my health plan and being told I had to pay. I had no idea that was a thing (coming from Canada) and the receptionist looked really offended at me for trying to leave after my visit.

I also remember seeing how much class and race were intertwined and finding that quite shocking.

College

I grew up in a very small town in the Appalachian mountains. Most of the people I went to school with were the same ones I started with at age four or five. Very few people moved in or out of the area. I wasn’t completely isolated, I traveled with my dad for his job and we took vacations, but my social world was narrow and extremely stable.

Going to a major U.S. university was a shock I really never fully adjusted to. The campus alone had more people than my entire county. On my first visit, my strongest impression was that everyone was beautiful. It sounds shallow, but coming from a place marked by extreme poverty, poor health, and an aging population, it was very much like stepping into a different world. Over time though, that contrast flipped. Returning home made the place I grew up feel stark and ugly in ways I had never realized.

Living on campus exposed class differences immediately. Many students received regular allowances from their parents, which was almost unheard of where I’m from. At the same time, a surprising number of them didn’t know how to do basic things like laundry. I ended up teaching people in my dorm how to use washers and dryers, things I had been doing since around age eight or nine.

I was out of my depth socially. Being surrounded by people from many backgrounds came with unspoken norms and subtleties I wasn’t prepared for. I never really felt like I belonged anywhere on campus and I very much had imposter syndrome. For all the time I was at college, I made not a single lifelong friendship. I just didn't know how to make new friends after I established my friend group at an early age.

Food was another shock. At home, most produce came wrapped in plastic and was bland. Suddenly there was abundance and variety everywhere. People joke about the freshman fifteen, but for me it was closer to twenty or thirty pounds. I had access to food choices I didn’t even know existed.

As someone from an Asian background who prides myself on my worldliness (I've lived for months in cities across Canada, the UK, the US, and Singapore), I was absolutely culture-blasted (yes blasted, it was that jarring) by living in Singapore.

I was so excited to spend a few months there. I thought I understood Asian rigid adherence to rules and inflexible thinking. I did not. Singapore is next level. Japan, China, and Korea do not even come close to comparing with the robot-levels of rules following I encountered in Singapore.

My parents came to visit once and we went to a burger restaurant that had a 2 for 1 beer special. My dad wanted a beer, I wasn't feeling it so I asked the staff: could we do the special, but instead of the free beer, I have a fountain coke instead? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Waiting in line to buy something at the store? Oh sorry, the clock ticked past closing time, get out. No, I don't care if you've been in line for 20 minutes.

I saw locals who insisted on going through the metal maze-things to guide crowds at the airport...solo, at 3 in the morning, when no one else was there. Because of following the rules. One of them scowled at me for not doing the same and taking a cab, despite there being 15+ cabs for the two of us.

I saw a guy who obsessed with balancing trash on an overflowing garbage can, despite there being an empty one maybe 10 ft away. Because I guess he had it drilled in his head that he had to do that one right.

All the locals I met had no life outside of work or school, it was jarring. There was a wonderful art and drinks/snacks night in an open-air park one night. The only people there enjoying it were exchange students and ex-pats...but there was a massive line of locals who paid to enter, walk in a single file line through the whole thing, and then leave. No stopping to chat. No mingling. Just...I think they thought the government told them it was good to see, so they'd better file through.

I was there when the founding dictator, Lee Kwan Yew, died. The propaganda was absolutely insane, but what really stuck with me was the literal days-long line of people lining up to view his body. Now, looking from afar I'd figure that just showed the respect for him...but the people there were remarkably not-touched at all by his passing. There were people who couldn't even answer why they were in line - just that they were supposed to.

I could go on, but I think that's more than enough examples to get my point across. When I was leaving, the staff at Changi told me that my flight had been changed terminals and that I might not be able to get there without paying for a cab because the bus wasn't running yet, and I wasn't allowed to enter the terminal I was currently in because...rules (they were CONNECTED INTERNALLY). I've never been so excited to have an international adventure end in my life, and it left me with a profound appreciation for all the spontaneity, creativity, and independent thinking Western culture has baked into our every day lives. It's not perfect by any means - gestures wildly at the US - but I really think its the culture I need to thrive.

I'm not sure if this counts, but something that really stuck in my mind was the continuous running water all around Rome.

After arriving at the airport, I went to the restroom and saw that the water was already flushing the urinal. After finishing my business, I looked around for a lever or button or something to shut off the water, but couldn't find one. Turns out all the urinals were just constantly flushing. I thought that was a little weird but moved on with my life. Then it turned out that there were tons of fountains all around the city that just constantly flow into a drain, which made me realize that the urinals weren't broken. They just had that much water to spare. It was mind-blowing for someone like me from California, which is usually in drought conditions (although apparently not this month).

Biggest culture shock was when I got the opportunity to visit Israel twice for a previous job. I got to see and do a fair amount around Tel Aviv, and it was really a different world.
It was especially harrowing to actually see the Gaza strip and the military equipment around there.
I could talk about a lot from that visit. But the biggest shock was all these normal people living day to day when there's an air raid siren blasting like once a week for the umbrella defence system to blow missiles out the sky, and they are like "oh it's just the dog Palestinians".
I made it clear during my trip that I was not pro Israel, but I was happy to listen to people's views and it was intense. The raw, deep seated hatred some of them have for an entire group of people was pretty scary.
I don't think I could ever really understand it to be honest. Maybe I can emphasise a little? But it's really difficult not living there.

This is not about a huge shock, but I'm very conscious about how different cultures allow different amounts of physical personal space. I'm from a place where we stand fairly far apart when talking and feel uncomfortable if someone gets within that area. When I travel, I sometimes experience people who will come very close when talking, or in public areas people will bump into each other more often and that seems pretty odd to me. I mentioned it to a "close talker" once and they must have been pretty offended about it because they talked about it every time I saw them afterward.

When my wife and I went down south to South Carolina and Florida we did our usual chart of Celiac-friendly gluten-free food so we can, practically, plan the trip backwards from where we eat. Up here in NJ it's often a minefield with cross-contamination; even when we find a new place that'll do a GF order, we take a huge chance and my wife occasionally gets horribly sick for a day a few times per year. We thought food prep was going to be worse down south.

Nope! Holy shit, so much better. Not only is there some real good GF food down there, but restaurants who were serving GF were way better about managers swinging by to make sure they got her order correct. There was a GF chicken and waffles chain, Bantum and Biddy, that was like crack in Amelia Island. We ate there three times in 24 hours. Zero glutenings in a whole week. Y'all got it good.

A reverse culture shock: Coming home from remote summer work to the overwhelming noise and crowds and shininess of modern city life, it always took me a couple weeks to readjust.

To expand: I spent my younger summers tree planting in northern canada (it's a real job that can make good money, not, like, a feel-good volunteer thing). The companies I worked for had bush camp setups in reasonably remote locations, where the amenities were our own tents, outhouses, bathing in the nearest lake/river, and a cookshack run off propane + mess tent. I did this long enough ago that starlink didn't exist, and there was usually little to no cell service in these areas. The nearest towns were often 1-2 hours away, and we'd go in only once every week or two. We worked hard and had fun, but man were we ever in our own world! Coming home was such a major adjustment to all the stimuli.

macaroni served with clear broth, with options of fried egg, hotdogs, ham slice, or (if feeling fancy) porkchops/grilled chicken/5mm thick steak.

I've eaten any variations upon clear broth + starch + protein my whole life and never thought it was weird, until Mr Chocobean came to HK with me. After spending a few weeks in my culture, Mr Chocobean was all kinds of culture shocked and wanted something familiar. I suggest macaroni for breakfast? He thought it was kind of weird to eat as breakfast but yes macaroni would be familiar so he came, chose his protein, and was actually pretty excited. Waiter casually dropped off two soup spoons. Soup spoons? Yeah, for your macaroni. More culture shock ensued. We went for actual Italian pasta later that afternoon.

Hot pots:

The first time I had sukiyaki was the first time I realised that hot pots could be beautifully presented: a perfect balance of colours and textures, that looked wholesome and nutritious, promising a responsible diet with a responsible quantity of food.

My first Taiwanese invididual hot pot was also a shock: you mean.... I can take my time and eat at my own pace and whatever I put in stays there until I've actually been able to eat a bite?

Don't get me wrong, I still love my Cantonese hotpot as a family meal, I love feeling like an absolute T-Rex one moment and overloading on greens the next, I love finding surprising ingredients I sure didn't put in but know goes well with the other surprises I fished out, and meals don't need to look good to taste good. But cultural diversity is a wonderful thing.

This is only tangentially related, but I was recently shocked to find out that there is not only zero Porto's locations in Florida, but they only exist in a few cities around the greater Los Angeles area.

For those outside the loop, Porto's is a chain of Cuban bakeries specializing in pastry and cakes, but also do coffee, bread, and a handful of lunch specialties. They are notable because they are physically huge buildings, are massively popular, and their food is both mind-blowingly good while also being very reasonably priced. Their most famous item is their cheese rolls, which is a sweet cream cheese filled pastry roll, followed by their potato balls which are a buttery cheesy potato... ball. Right now they are in the middle of making a new location in Downtown Disney, the shopping and restaurant space outside of Disneyland, so they're a pretty big deal to people in the area.

And for those even more out of the loop, I'm surprised that they aren't in Florida because there's a lot of Cuban people there.

When I visited Japan, I was already at least conceptually familiar with many, many aspects of the culture (I can read/speak Japanese), so while I was still impressed when I got there, I wasn't necessarily culturally shocked by most things I saw.

But there is one thing that still left me in shock: convenience stores.

It sounds silly, because of course I understand what a 24 hour store is, it's not particularly special as a concept, and I of course knew way beforehand that Japan was littered with them. But such establishments do not exist where I'm from. Here, after like 10 Pm, the only things you'll find open are bars. If you need to buy anything in an emergency you'll have to wait until everything opens back up around 8/9 AM.

So when I was in Japan and I found myself thinking "man I really need to get [thing] but it's past 10 pm" it then suddenly hit me that no, actually, I can just go outside and find a convenience store open that will likely be selling anything I need. It was a legit shock and took a while to get used to the idea that I could just go out and get stuff instead of waiting until the next day. Felt a little surreal to have that kind of convenience (heh).

And of course, when I got back, I sorely missed that experience. It's really funny how you can be shocked by the things you least expect.

Another little shock that took took a while to get used to was that most restaurants closed "early", but then I learned that's because I come from a country where dinner is usually at 8/9 PM whereas most of the world eats dinner before that haha.

Seeing people openly carrying guns in public was a huge shock to me. The first time I encountered it was on vacation in Croatia, where there were guards with I think SMGs standing outside a local bank, looking mighty menacing. In Norway, parliament authorized police to routinely carry guns last year. All my time growing up, not even the cops would carry guns. You'd never see an armed person in public. Ironically, Norway has a relatively high number of firearms per capita by European standards, because hunting is/was common, and sports shooting is also fairly popular. But those are kept strictly under lock and key when not in use. Sure, if you go for a hike in the woods during hunting season, you might see a hunter with a gun, but you'd never see one on the street. Nobody but criminals buys a gun for personal protection.

My most shocking experience was in 2009. I happened to be in Oslo when Obama was there to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. There were snipers on rooftops, men in military gear carrying automatic rifles in the streets, and the main street was closed to traffic. I felt like I'd stepped into a Hollywood movie. Experiencing that kind of culture shock within the heart of your own culture made it all the more shocking.

The biggest one for me when moving east was that some people over here, especially ones from further east, think of "ma'am" and "madam" as age-coded. I've... learned... to call everyone "miss" but a decade in it still feels ridiculous to call any adult that.

Some people even object to being called "sir" or any other formal title and I can't understand that one at all. Like, we don't know each other, how do you expect me to address you?

This comment actually got to be longer than I thought it would. It was actually a bit fun thinking about this and realizing just how many times I've been put outside my world view and experiences so far in my life.

I'm a white guy who grew up in the Pacific Northwest with what I would say was a racially diverse group of friends, so while there were minor "shocks" none of them felt big since I was a kid, and you just accept that's what your friends' families do. That being said, I definitely ran in to my share of different culture shocks over the years.

• One of my best friend's family growing up was from Laos, and they would have regular big extended family and community gatherings where all the kids would play together/do stuff and the parents/elders would drink and sing karaoke and eat Laotian food. I would attend most of them, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that I had a mild shock when I realized that I was the only white person there when some distant relative from out of town came to the gathering and asked why I was there since I was white. I'd been going to those gatherings since I was ~7, and I'd never stopped and thought about that fact, I'd also never had one of the people there mention it to me.
• My best friend's at the time girlfriend in high school was Vietnamese and I found out after they'd be dating for a while that her dad had two wives (one unofficial) and that one of the kids with a different last name in our school was her half brother. He was born 1 month apart from her full brother. I'd never encountered a polygamous family before.
• One of the guys I grew up with was Hmong and during our senior year of high school, I asked him what he was doing for his 18th birthday, and he let me know that he was getting married. His family had arranged his marriage to another Hmong girl whom iirc was 16 or 17 at the time. I lost touch with him after high school, but I do remember seeing him being very involved in the Hmong community from social media posts I saw him make before I deleted all my social media.

For a within the broader US culture shock, I grew up I would say in a comfortably middle class household, but part of that was being frugal, and we did all the repair work for cars and our house (except for specialist stuff that required a professional). When I went to college it was a shock how many of my friends didn't know basic car maintenance or how to do "home repair" things that felt like stuff I'd been doing since I was old enough to walk around and hand tools to my dad and older brother.
There was also the number of kids who received a substantial allowance from their parents to spend on whatever. My parents gave me $50 a month so that I could go out and eat with my friends sometimes so I wouldn't feel left out, and they helped me pay for my room and board, which I was incredibly grateful for that since I knew it wasn't cheap. I eventually had my grandpa start giving me some money each month to help with school expenses since I had helped out at his house for most of my life and would go down every few weekends to help him with things which helped me pay for my books (hello $300 mandatory text book that the teacher puts out a new edition of every year with updated homework questions so you can't reuse an older edition). Once I turned 21, after my first weekend going out to bars, I never went again unless it was for a friend's birthday or a special event. Way too expensive and I couldn't justify spending 5-10x more for drinks when I could just get a bottle or some beers and have a better time with people I enjoyed being around by not going. Meanwhile some of the guys I knew were out at the bars every weekend at least once, but sometimes 2-3 nights in a row.

My wife is Malaysian Chinese, and we eventually moved to Malaysia, so I've had my fair share of culture shocks which I've gotten used to:

• The food culture here is huge. Running in to someone you would usually ask if they have eaten yet, and if they haven't, and you're not in a rush you would grab a bite of something cheap to eat while you talk.
• Most locals will have strong recommendations on what is the best X dish and that is a great way to get people talking is to ask where can you get the best X, Y, or Z dish in a certain area.
  • There's also different dishes being called the same name depending on where you go, which was incredibly confusing at first. Hokkien Mee is not the same thing in Penang compared to KL and locals will debate which is better and then go into an "oh your X dish is our Y dish" conversation which is fun to listen to.
• Western fast food being considered a sort of status symbol. I personally find it is almost always a waste of money going to McDonald's or another Western chain fast food place, considering how much it costs, since I could get better food at a local burger chain for slightly more. The only times I don't mind eating it is for the occasional mix things up and let our kids go to the play area, and if we're on the road and need something quick that we know has decent quality control so we won't need to worry about food poisoning. 49 times out of 50 I'd rather get local food.
• Malaysia has constitutionally enforced racism that gives preferential treatment to ethnic Malays (and certain other native groups). I admittedly have a surface level knowledge of this and don't understand all the nuances of beyond the broad brush strokes. I do know that it contributes to Malaysia's brain drain of educated workers, usually of the two main ethnic minority groups (Chinese and Indians) who leave due to this and the better opportunities they receive in other countries (usually Singapore). My wife and her family actually got a lot of "why" questions regarding her moving back to be near her family when she already had her green card in the US.
• Providing money to my wife's parents was a cultural practice I needed to get used to. While the amount varies by family, the rule of thumb is ~10% of your income (though for our family the amount depends on circumstances/what is going, and thankfully my wife's parents aren't huge on this and just gratefully accept whatever we give them). We've joked at times that it is handy I'm white, since we would be giving another 10% of our income to my parents if I was also Malaysian Chinese. Combine that with our tithe to our church, and we would have been out nearly a third of our income before other expenses.
• How big of a thing Chinese New Year (CNY) is. My wife's family are Christian, so we don't celebrate all of the religious aspects of the Holiday, but we'll often take a week off work for visiting family, attending open houses, etc. For a specific example, giving/receiving ang pao (red envelopes with money inside) during CNY. There's the need to use new/fresh bills to pack the envelopes, and since Malaysian banks stopped giving out those freshly printed notes for CNY, there is a desire to store up and never use those pristine notes so we can give them out again for special occasions. I had to get used to always having some on hand to give to people/children during that time of year, and we also have to think about how much we want to give to each person/family member.
• Living in a Muslim majority country for the first time and having the call to prayer start up at different times throughout the day. It's background noise for me now, but something I had to get used to.
• I can still get a very mild shock going to more Malay areas, not in a "this is shocking" but "oh this is different" way, if that makes sense. Despite living in Malaysia, there can be a bit of self segregation that happens in communities. I lived in one of the states with the highest amount of non-ethnic Malays, and in that state I lived in a predominantly Chinese area, eating at mainly restaurants that cater to non-Malays (served pork), and shopped in mainly Chinese areas, so I wouldn't run to a large amount of Malay people. I have since moved to another area in a different state that is also predominantly Chinese, and the same situation applies. I'm more used to hearing either English or a Chinese dialect and spoken when I go around and Bahasa Melayu (Malay) isn't spoken as often, but when I go to a more Malay area English and Malay are heard. When that happens, it gives me that reminder that I live in a bit of a bubble inside the bigger country, and also gives me that reminder that I really do need to follow through with my New Year's resolution to learn to speak Malay.

Two culture shocks, related.

I went to Japan early last year and immediately went to a small city in Kyushu. It was a 3 hour bus away from the airport I flew into, and I spent two days at a luxurious ryokan, just vibing and enjoying walking around the town. After that, I took the train to the other side of the island for three days. On my way off of Kyushu to Hiroshima, I saw the first faces of European ancestry I had since leaving the airport, at the Kokura train station. I grew up and have lived and traveled (until that trip) in North America and Europe. Though I'm reasonably cosmopolitan, and have been the minority in many rooms, it was the first trip I had taken where, for days, I had seen nobody like the folks I grew up with. It was on an escalator, and I did a literal doubletake, because I had seen so many new faces in the past 5 days, but those two stood out.

On my way back from Japan, after 10 days, I landed in LA, and was immediately overwhelmed by all the things to read out there. In past trips, to various countries, I either read the language or knew the alphabet enough to sound things out on signs. Most written meaning in Japanese is conveyed by kanji, symbols adapted from Chinese writing with several readings and idioms, and it is very difficult to master. Although English writing (and kana, a few dozen characters which have defined sounds to make words) is everywhere in Japan, it was still mostly beyond me, despite being able to speak a good deal. Reading signs turned into a puzzle as I tried to expand my kanji comprehension, and it was a little endorphin rush to recognize a word or name I'd just learned that day. I've taken for granted the last 30 years of my life that I can read or at least get meaning from signs and other writing. Everywhere I look, I can get meaning, even if it is only, "that sign makes these sounds, which I can hear in my head, even if not understand." Getting into LA was a form of unexpected information overload.