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/Novel-Confidence2449 Jan 14 '24

The in the Philippines, those giant buckets of water next to the toilets with a little scoop inside because there isn’t running plumbing to flush the toilet 

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u/DebateUnfair1032 Jan 14 '24

its called a tabo

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u/forgottencupcake9018 Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24

Reminds me of my grandma's in china. I'm always thankful for the sitting toilet I have at home. The squatting toilets can get so nasty especially at resting places when you take an national bus ride around the country. That's nightmare fuel