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Modrigue View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Cultural differences between countries
    Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:09
Feel free to expose aspects, misunderstandings or advices specific to your country that you find interesting to mention to others, based on your personal experience.

The idea of this thread is not to emit judgements on this country or that country's point of view / particularity / tradition / culture / politics, but to enunciate some interesting lesser-known differences that could help people planning to do a trip or to live / work in a country.


In France:

- Do not talk about money, it's a taboo topic. Do not expose your wealth or big car to the others. In general, Frenchs don't like flashy and large cars. Do not talk about your salary with your colleagues.

- Do the French bise to salute women, even those you don't know.

- I remembered being shocked the first time I heard American teenagers saying they were more liberal than republican. The term "liberal" is considered as an insult here, as it refers to evil capitalists who make poor children work at very low-cost, whereas, on the contrary, "republican" is a positive term: it represents unity and equality.

- There are many dogs and also... proofs of "Doggy was here" Big smile

- The university has not the same educational meaning than in most countries

- For our Asian friends: shops are closed on Sunday
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:25
In the UK everyone has an opinion about things they know nothing about, including me. Is that the same everywhere?

..or and for some reason we eat doner kebabs served up from vans parked in pub car parks. We also care more about football than the future of the country. The well educated are smug and patronising and the ill educated are violent, racist and tend to drink heavily....and follow football.

With regard to liberal, anyone can call themselves a liberal. That doesn't make them a liberal. These days many people who characterise themselves as such are actually very authoritarian and controlling in their outlook. In the UK we have just have right wing bigots and centre right neo-liberals. A socialist leads the opposition party at the moment, but he'll be long gone before there's another election.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:29
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

In the UK everyone has an opinion about things they know nothing about, including me. Is that the same everywhere?

 

Seems that way to me. 

In fact I was gunna say in recent years I've kind of been learning that, while there are always differences here and there... personal country related things, seems people really are basically the same all over. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:36
Originally posted by Modrigue Modrigue wrote:

- I remembered being shocked the first time I heard American teenagers saying they were more liberal than republican. The term "liberal" is considered as an insult here, as it refers to evil capitalists who make poor children work at very low-cost, whereas, on the contrary, "republican" is a positive term: it represents unity and equality.

Liberal is still used as an insult by American socialists :P
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:42
In America we pronounce water as wood-er.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 08:57
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

In the UK everyone has an opinion about things they know nothing about, including me. Is that the same everywhere?


I think that's just called being human.


"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 09:15
As someone with 11 years here:

In the US do not not talk about money. Do not not try to show it off.  

Also, try to smile all the time to everybody like you're trying to sell them something. No matter how much you don't give a f**k about them. Be fake. 

Those are some negatives aspects (for me). There are a million positives, too. It's relatively easy to adapt to this culture. 


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 09:42
Some people may know that I partially grew up in Germany and partially in England. One big difference I noted was queuing. In England people stood several meters into the street in a queue when trying to get entrance into a movie at a cinema. In Germany people just stand around in the anteroom without any order, only immediately at the entrance will they get into line because they have to.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 09:44
In my country of origin, Ecuador, please be advised that if you have a non-business appointment with someone, say, at 5 PM, they're most likely showing up around 5:30-5:45. Lateness is like ingrained in our culture LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 09:56
Another difference I noted: I was not allowed to enter a pub, not even accompanied by a grown-up; I had to wait outside. In Germany my father went to the pub each Sunday morning to play cards with his brothers and a few friends, and he always took me with him. I was of course not allowed to drink alcohol, but I learned playing Skat and Klammerjazz there, two card games that are quite popular in Germany.


Edited by BaldFriede - June 20 2016 at 10:34


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 10:14
I was once told that "on the Continent" it was considered to be ill-mannered to talk about the weather because it implied that you had nothing else to talk about.

That isn't the case here in the UK where we seem to talk about very little else. Some would observe that is because we have so much of it but the reality is not quite like that. The truth is, it's something we all have in common - walk up to a total stranger in the street and try and strike up a conversation, regardless of what opening gambit you use there is a fair chance that they will completely ignore you. However, the one thing you can guarantee is that you are both currently experiencing exactly the same weather and you can safely predict with high certainty that you will both agree that it will change shortly. If it is currently sunny you will agree that it will most likely rain later and if it is currently raining you will both be sure that it will brighten up soon. Before you know it they'll be telling you their life story as if you'd known them for years, and you never know, they may even ask something about you.

So there you have it - with a simple comment about the weather you've struck up a conversation with a normally reserved Brit.  

Ta-dah!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 10:27
Americans tend to want to talk to strangers about anything. I don't know if it's me and my dislike of that or if it's actually a thing. Actually, it is. I have traveled abroad several times and of course I also come from a different culture and people just not start conversations out of nowhere with strangers (like in elevators, pubs, etc) . I don't know. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 10:39
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Americans tend to want to talk to strangers about anything. I don't know if it's me and my dislike of that or if it's actually a thing. Actually, it is. I have traveled abroad several times and of course I also come from a different culture and people just not start conversations out of nowhere with strangers (like in elevators, pubs, etc) . I don't know. 
I've experienced that in the USA enough to believe it could be a thing but that maybe due to how I look or sound piquing their curiosity as they invariably open with a rhetorical question based upon my appearance or nationality. 

One of the strangest that had me planning the quickest route to the exit was "You don't have guns in Eng-er-land do you?"


Edited by Dean - June 20 2016 at 10:40
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 10:45
LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 14:26
What's the point of leaving the house if you're not going to talk to strangers? It's basically the only reason I ever go in public.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 14:42
^One of those instances when I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or real. Tongue

In my case, such an statement would be quite the sarcastic one.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 15:20
I love the friendliness of the people when I go to the US. People generally seem much colder and more reserved here in and around Vancouver.

My problems have not been travelling to other countries so much as in coming back here after a long absence -- sort of reverse culture shock, as I've found people so much friendlier and accommodating in my travels (but part of that has to do with being an obvious foreigner, so people tend to go out of their way more to be helpful).

In pubs which to me have always seemed places to go to socialise (and have a drink or two at the same time), I have found it much harder to connect with people here than when I was in Australia, for instance.

On the plus side, I haven't had to hide my wallet here, or use a money belt, as I have in some other parts of the world -- never been pick-pocketed here. In parts of Europe I was very wary when certain people would come up to me as I knew the trick (get me talking, filling something out etc. while another tried to pick-pocket me), so apparent friendliness from strangers is not always welcome.

Edited by Logan - June 20 2016 at 15:26
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 15:59
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Americans tend to want to talk to strangers about anything. I don't know if it's me and my dislike of that or if it's actually a thing. Actually, it is. I have traveled abroad several times and of course I also come from a different culture and people just not start conversations out of nowhere with strangers (like in elevators, pubs, etc) . I don't know. 

Yeah we do that.  It's definitely a thing.  I think many Americans think if you aren't overtly friendly then you're probably some kind of a dick.  For the most part I think people are genuinely trying to be polite and well-meaning though, hard to fault folks for that.

I travel internationally quite a bit and most of the rest of the world is far more reserved than Americans (except Aussies, they're a bit of an outgoing bunch).  

Sometimes I get pleasantly surprised and run into exceptions though.  I was eating in an out-of-the-way diner in Romania once and the servers were huddled and pointing at me.  After a bit one of them went into the back room and out came a young lady who walked up to me and proceeded to tell me all about her friend from Seattle and how she plans to go to the U.S. to visit her, and she really wanted to know what I thought of Romania.  

And in China I get kids come up to me all the time and want to practice their English and get a selfie with me.  I was climbing the stone steps of Wudang mountain last summer and a bunch of Chinese students ran into me and insisted on me posing for pictures with each one of them, they even wanted to put on my headphones to hear what I was listening to (it was Tom Waits, I don't think they were impressed).  And an old man came up to me at the bus stop in Singapore once and gave me a 10 minute lecture on everything that was good and bad about America (apparently we are more bad than good, but he was very polite in telling me this).

And I went to a pub for breakfast in Germany once where the older lady serving hustled me into a side room because there were a bunch of football fans getting roaring drunk and ready for a match (at 09:00am).  She fussed over me the whole time and made sure I wasn't hassled.  That was pretty cool.

"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 16:10
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

As someone with 11 years here:

In the US do not not talk about money. Do not not try to show it off.  


Unless you're super f**king rich. Then everyone will worship you if you show it off.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2016 at 16:27
Originally posted by Smurph Smurph wrote:

Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

As someone with 11 years here:

In the US do not not talk about money. Do not not try to show it off.  


Unless you're super f**king rich. Then everyone will worship you if you show it off.
I said the same. Check the double negative there Wink
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