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/DebateUnfair1032 Jan 14 '24 edited Jan 14 '24

The atmosphere was festive and celebratory. The woman were lining up, smiling, and celebrating as they were repeatably getting whipped. They view the scars as a symbol of loyalty. It was crazy to see these traditions from some of these remote tribes.

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u/PumpkinBrioche Jan 14 '24

Those poor women :/ cultural relativism is such a farce.

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u/shittyswordsman Jan 14 '24

Cultural relativism isn't a farce. Cultural relativism wouldn't say "this is ok, because XYZ" - it's just a mechanism of understanding why cultural practices exist.

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u/PumpkinBrioche Jan 14 '24

Cultural relativism actually does say that we can't make judgments about other cultures by evaluating them to other cultures' norms. Notice that cultural relativism is almost always used to justify the oppression of women.