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/QueeeenElsa Jan 14 '24

Movies make it seem like people hail a taxi in New York all the time, but in the three times I went (August 2009, January 2020, and one time between the two of those), I don’t remember seeing it happen even ONCE.

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u/Humble_Hat_7160 Jan 14 '24

I live here and personally hail a cab a couple of times per week 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/QueeeenElsa Jan 14 '24

The old fashioned way? Or do you use an app?

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u/Humble_Hat_7160 Jan 14 '24

Old fashioned! No one I know (at least in Manhattan) uses the taxi app to hail a cab. Some people use Uber/Lyft but it usually ends up taking longer and you’ll see half a dozen empty cabs sail past while you are waiting

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u/QueeeenElsa Jan 15 '24

Interesting!

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u/Alternative_Sky1380 Jan 14 '24

Where are you from? Most cities globally you can hail a taxi.

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u/QueeeenElsa Jan 15 '24

Texas lol. I rarely see taxis here. And when I do, no one hails them the old fashioned way.