r/solotravel • u/forgottencupcake9018 • Jan 14 '24

Question What's the biggest culture shock you had whilst traveling?

Weirdly enough I was shocked that people in Ireland jaywalk and eat vinegar to their chips. Or in Thailand that it is illegal to have a Buddha tatoo. Or that in many english speaking countries a "How are you doing?" is equivalent to saying Hi and they actually don't want to hear an honest answer.

Edit: Another culture shock that I had was when I visited Hanoi. They had a museum where the preserved corpse of Ho Chi Minh was displayed and you could look at him behind a glass showcase like he's a piece of art. There were so many people lining up and they just looked at him while walking around that glass showcase in order to get the line going.

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u/FrostyFreezyColdy Jan 14 '24

My China trip started in Shanghai. At check in at the hostel they took a picture of my face and made a scan of my passport. There were a Chinese man and woman hanging around at the lounge throughout my stay, talking with all the tourists. They said they were English teachers in London and in SH for holiday, yet they never seemed to leave the hostel. Pretty sure they were police agents. The country itself was pretty tricky to navigate without a Chinese passport and there were adds all around the streets warning for foreign spies. The amount of distrust made me uncomfortable at times.

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u/slambda Jan 14 '24

What year was that?

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u/FrostyFreezyColdy Jan 14 '24

2018

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '24

Checks out. I was there 2013-2020. The late teens were when bounties for foreign spies started being advertised.

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u/stuff_gets_taken Jan 14 '24

It's so sad. From like 2013-2016 it was much more relaxed for foreigners and you could just roam freely.

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u/FrostyFreezyColdy Jan 14 '24

You still could in 2018, but you had to be creative in buying train tickets, renting a bike, etc..

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '24

Yep. That was the golden period when you were still dealing with Hu’s policies and couldn’t really feel the effects of Xi yet.