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Culture shock

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Re: Culture shock

#141

Post by caskstrength »

madmax108 wrote: post #138

"I don’t know how many people will agree, but striking up a conversation with an American stranger is much easier than it is with an Indian stranger." LOL, as an Indian, I relate to this so much. In India, if a stranger walks up to you, nearly 8/10 times it's either to ask you for money, directions, or to scam you. So naturally over time, you develop a thick skin to avoid strangers or keep interactions with strangers…

> In India, if a stranger walks up to you, nearly 8/10 times it's either to ask you for money, directions, or to scam you.

Same in Eastern Europe. Small talk with strangers is generally not a thing here.

Re: Culture shock

#142

Post by stevekemp »

kodah wrote: post #4

> Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has…

On the topic of mixer-taps in bathrooms, the UK typically has separate taps due to the way the water is stored, or used to be stored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA

I was pleased when I remodelled my bathroom there and installed a mixer. So much more convenient.

Re: Culture shock

#143

Post by Paul_S »

watwut wrote: post #132
jlawson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being obese has basically nothing to do with "working out". It's all about diet. Nobody worked out before 1960 and nobody was fat (and lots of people were poor). Nobody in India is fat and nobody work out and they're largely poor. To your question - Lots of them. I'm (relatively) wealthy and I don't want to diet. But I do it anyway because it's worth the short-term suffering for the long-term gain. It's a super o…

This is not really true. The amount of physical activity you do absolutely influences both your shape and your health. Also, we do have more sedentary lifestyles then typical 1960 person. Just in terms of how much you walk during the day, we are already not moving.

You have moved the goal posts. Exercise has a positive effect on health, yes. It does not have an effect on whether you're fat. That is down to food intake. That is what the poster was actually saying.

Re: Culture shock

#144

Post by brailsafe »

Some of these things are culturally surprising even coming from Canada, depending of course where you're coming from and going to. Our suburbs seem like a significantly scaled down replica of a good majority of U.S urban development since the 40s. Where it's impractical to get around without a car here, it's hilariously so there. Our biggest two highways seem to be the same size as half of each direction on a given highway in the U.S. We have Walmart, they have Super Walmart. It just takes some getting used to.

That said, the areas that were built before cars don't remotely suffer from this as much.

Re: Culture shock

#145

Post by CalRobert »

the_af wrote: post #44

Is the car respecting pedestrians a thing everywhere in the US, or just where this person has been? My very limited experience in the US (NYC, San Diego and Miami) has been hit or miss regarding traffic, and I wouldn't trust drivers to stop. I know the story in some European cities is different. I was impressed in London, and a Belgian friend of mine often crossed the streets of Brussels without stopping to look at t…

I guess it's relative. When I was in San Diego and LA it was terrible. Among other things, drivers are the leading killers of children and young adults in the US, and they disproportionately kill people walking and cycling.

Re: Culture shock

#146

Post by Freak_NL »

reducesuffering wrote: post #107
akomtu wrote: post #79

"I’ve seen shirtless guys walking, jogging, and cycling in broad daylight." It's unfortunate that the fight against biases hasn't reached this point yet, but it's certainly a cause I could support and donate to political campaigns who also support equality of rights as much as I do!

(NSFW) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_nipple

That one seems pretty tame and SFW though. Wikipedia certainly has more explicit articles that would raise eyebrows.

Re: Culture shock

#147

Post by Fricken »

losvedir wrote: post #5

What a fun read! I've never been to India but it's fun to infer what the reverse culture shock would be for me from the points here. Like, can you not sit on the grass at a university there?

I spent a few months in Indonesia, and I swear, the culture shock coming back to North America was more of a culture shock than arriving in Indonesia.

Life was simple and means we're limited for the people of Indonesia, but everything they did followed a logical progression from the first principles of basic human needs, So nothing about it felt terribly strange.

In north America society has warped itself into some strange abstraction that doesn't make any sense.

Re: Culture shock

#148

Post by makerofthings »

I have travelled a fair bit in the US. I don’t think anywhere in the US gives a realistic representation of the US. It’s all different, you need to visit a few different states and types of city and think about the whole. It’s Vegas and NYC and Portland and Salt Lake City and Austin and Mountain View and a whole bunch of other places mashed together. I don’t get this as much with other countries. If someone on here thinks one single place in the US captures the whole country then I would love to go and visit.

Re: Culture shock

#149

Post by TheRealNGenius »

kodah wrote: post #4

> Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has…

Yeah I've been thinking about the two taps thing with shower taps. For my shower tap, you turn it counterclockwise to get water running. Where it goes from slow flow rate and cold, to high flow rate and hot. I thought that it would make sense to have two knobs so that one controls flow rate and the other controls temperature. As it stands, one knob ambiguously controls both the temperature and flow rate of the water.

Two taps - one for cold and one for hot makes sense. Since they each control the flow rate of hot/cold respectively. And from what I understand, this matches with the internals as you have one pipe for cold water and one pipe for hot water. Of course, rich people probably have more complicated setups that allow for even more precision...

Re: Culture shock

#150

Post by paganel »

AutumnCurtain wrote: post #22
losvedir wrote: post #5

What a fun read! I've never been to India but it's fun to infer what the reverse culture shock would be for me from the points here. Like, can you not sit on the grass at a university there?

I'm interested in the apparent intolerance of shirtless men, I didn't realize that was a thing.

> I'm interested in the apparent intolerance of shirtless men,

Not sure about India but in a lot of European countries walking shirtless on the street might be a fineable offence. A larger discussion on the subject can be found on this recent /r/europe thread. [1]

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/qixnsa/filling_up_a...

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