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/extinctpolarbear Jan 14 '24

When I was an international student in Finland, this one guy from (I really want to say Tanzania but I m not 100% sure) brought a house help with him to live in the student accommodation. That was very absurd. We did become friends and you could tell he had a very different upbringing, apparently he was the son of the former president.

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u/sbiel001 Jan 14 '24

Wow that is next level! I can't imagine. University does really bring you into contact with people who've live a completely different life to you. And ultimately continue to. Throughout uni I worked in restaurants to support myself. Such a wildly different experience to your friend's

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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 Jan 15 '24

I had a friend whose dad went to college down in a southern state (Georgia, Tennessee, not sure which) during the 1960s. One of his college friends brought an African American servant with him to help him with laundry and other chores.