I lived in China for a year after college, and that was basically fine since I was already pretty knowledgeable about the country and I went into it expecting to be off balance and that there would be a lot of new things. What was a surprise was the culture shock when I came back to the US. I don’t think that the jet lag helped, but I remember feeling really really out of sorts for about a week and just generally in a bit of shock about how different life was here having largely not been exposed to it for a year.
I spent a few years in the US, coming from Scandinavia. It took several months before I was able to navigate the whole “strike up a conversation with anyone”-thing. The issue wasn’t so much being “forced” into conversations (which I got used to fairly quickly) as it was knowing when these interactions were considered over by the other party. I’d often, unintentionally, overstay my welcome. The general vibe and attitude were also quite different.
The biggest shock was however moving back home. I’m originally from one of the larger cities in my home country, but ended up in a tiny village through a series of coincidences. Going from a multi-million US city to a tiny Scandinavian mountain village was rough. Went from a place filled with outgoing people to a place where the cashier in the local store still took me for a tourist after having lived there for a year. An almost impenetrable society. I’ve been here for a decade now, and have long since realized that I will always be “that guy from XYZ”. On the plus side, it’s nice not having to deal with people beyond my own family an coworkers. On the negative side I have almost no sense of belonging here outside of my wife’s family who are all local.
Oof. I feel this one. I spent most of my childhood in - what we consider - a small city (10k people). My school class was like 20 kids with a few different ethnic backgrounds. Then we moved to a mountain town where the elevation (in meters) was a multiple of the population count, my class (including the neighboring villages) was 4 and there was exactly one family who didn’t look like they were at least 20 generations Swiss.
My dad is a very outgoing person, passionate volunteer firemen (most towns here have their fire department on a volunteer basis), contributed to the town council, was pretty religious (BIG up there, when there was a mass during the day then all the classes from school attended) - but they literally were just happy to take his work but not give anything back. The protestant priest from the neighboring village checked in on our family (protestant) and him (catholic) more often than our “our” priest. My mom befriended another “immigrant” family who had been there for 10-20 years and basically had NO connections in town. My father made 1 good friend and 1 good acquaintance at work.
For us kids it was a lot easier. The other kids were welcoming and friendly and even the adults were somewhat accomodating to us. But I was approaching adulthood and started to experience this myself. Town tradition was that for christmas the oldest kids in primary school would dress up as the 3 magi and lead the younger ones around town to sing christmas songs. And they would also participate in the christmas mass. They were in a pickle that year as from a class of 4, half were protestant heathens. I was still expected to stand in the front of the church as ornament but when the edible paper was distributed I was rudely shoved away.
You need to join a club or take a class. That is the Norwegian way of breaking the silence. Instant connection.
Same here in Switzerland. After university I moved to my new job and for a good while I basically had no friends here. The vast majority of the people I hang out with are either family, are from a club I joined, from the club I started or came “attached” to someone from those categories.
I must admit that I eventually got used to it and even started enjoying this attitude, which I also took part in, but I was quite amazed by the Finns.
For work reasons, I had to spend three months in Espoo and the interaction with my colleagues was strangely cold in social interactions. Examples:
- In the office canteen, they would sit next to you and start eating without even greeting or making conversation. I wondered why they had chosen to sit next to me.
- When they finished eating, they would get up from the table and not say goodbye.
- The scrupulous respect for personal space: in queues, crowds, etc.
- Small talk was generally non-existent. People often preferred to stay quiet rather than chat about the weather or other common topics. Even in an elevator, silence was the norm, not the exception.
- During meetings, the Finns would often speak only when they had something substantial to contribute. The silence in between wasn’t considered awkward, but a moment of thoughtfulness and respect for others’ ideas.
I ended up enjoying this way of social interaction. It seems to me that one uses less energy in social situations. There’s less stress about having to make conversation or engage in small talks.
Love you Finland.
This makes me want to go to Finland for a visit. The lack of small talk seems very efficient.
Maybe they wanted to conserve calories during colder climates. I wonder if other cold climates have less small talk in social settings.
How prevalent alcohol culture is in the West. I’m Southeast Asian and it’s more common for us to drink sugary drinks and have food at the local corner restaurant at night instead of having alcohol when we spend time with friends.
When I studied in the West, it really struck me how the only place you really could hang out at night was the bar, and alcohol was often the preferred drink. And they normally closed at 12am, so you can’t even stay out that late.
Personally I’m not very fond of inebriation just due to the issues it creates (not that my friends were alcoholics and got blackout drunk every time we hung out), so I found it kind of bad that it’s so socially accepted to see a need to get drunk in order to tolerate socialising with friends.
And they normally closed at 12am, so you can’t even stay out that late.
Most of what you said is unfortunately accurate for Germany, but this part isn’t. I live in a medium-sized city and bars around here usually close around 1-2 am on normal weekdays and 3-4 am on weekends. And in the bigger cities they usually close later. From what I’ve heard it’s similar in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy), so I don’t think this is universal for “the West”. Maybe you’ve been to an anglo country? From what I’ve heard pubs in Britain and Ireland often close rather early, but I don’t know for sure.
Pretty spot on, I was in the UK for a bit lol. Their shops closing at 4pm on Sundays was also a pain. Yes, let’s make it so no one can run errands on the one day they’re most likely to have time if they sleep in…
Well, on that point you’d probably hate how we do it in Germany. With small exceptions for restaurants, bakeries, and small shops at train stations and the like, everything’s just closed on Sundays. Although some states allow a restricted number of “open Sundays” per year. But I have to say that while it does make shopping less flexible, it does have advantages, too. It makes sure that almost everyone has a day where they can see their family and where everyone has a day off, even poorer people who might not be able to choose a job as easily and would otherwise be forced to work on Sundays (or just everyday). It also makes sure that almost nobody has to work when there’s an election, which are usually on Sundays.
We are also used to it, and since most people also don’t work on Saturdays that’s mostly the day to run errands for us. But it definitely is a common culture shock or at least a surprise to those who are not used to it.
Australian here, we have the same culture but it doesn’t finish at 12am, I found the Cinderella rule in the USA weird.
Here in NYC last call is 4am. Whenever I travel I always find it really weird that most places in the US close so early.
Not me, but the first time my boyfriend traveled with my family somewhere, he could not believe that sitting quietly in a living room reading was a thing. My family didn’t feel the need to fill our day to the brim with tours or shopping or other activities. And that was shocking to him.
I’m getting flashbacks to our family skiing vacations…
Parents: Kempeth, come spend time with the family.
Me: alright, we doing something? playing a game? watching tv?
Everyone: *opens a book and sits quietly in a corner*
Me: *goes to do something else*
Repeat from the top
