25 Unique Cultural Norms That Usually Confuse Foreigners
Travelling is an amazing activity to engage in. Eating different food, seeing unique places, learning about traditions and engaging in local activities are all part of the experience. However, no matter how ready tourists may feel to try new things, some practices normal to certain countries may come off as rather peculiar, daring or confusing. Folks on a Reddit thread recently got to sharing things that foreigners may find weird or unusual but that locals find to be completely normal when someone asked, “What’s something that seems normal in your country but would completely confuse someone from another place?”
#1 In New Zealand being barefoot out of the house is considered normal. Many children walk barefoot to school (they have shoes, just choose not to wear them). You’ll also see barefoot people in supermarkets and fast food restaurants
#2 Actually telling people how you’re doing when they ask you how you’re doing. We don’t use a lot of polite phrases just for the sake of being polite, so when people ask “how are you”, it’s interpreted as a genuine question rather than polite smalltalk or a greeting. My grandma once asked a cashier how she was doing and she replied “Not great. I have type 2 diabetes.” (I’m from Norway)
#3 We pay companies in case we get sick or injured and they decide if we are sick or injured enough for them to use the money we pay them to help us. And we still have to pay more money once they help us.
#4 I’m Irish, and we tend to swear a lot in ordinary conversations. It means nothing most of the time, just a normal part of speech, but some of my non-Irish friends seemed a bit taken aback by it.
#5 In Sweden, it’s a common tradition to watch Donald Duck (known as “Kalle Anka” in Swedish) cartoons on Christmas Eve at 3 PM sharp. This isn’t just a casual thing – it’s a national event! Every year, millions of Swedes gather around their TVs to watch a specific 1958 Disney special called “From All of Us to All of You” (or “Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul” in Swedish, which means “Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas”).
#6 In India, arranged marriage is still the norm. I went to law school with a guy who already had an engineering degree. He told me he only enrolled in law school because his family expects him to return to India when he’s finished schooling and have an arranged marriage. As a result, he keeps enrolling in new higher education programs to postpone his engagement.
#7 In Vietnam, you can buy anything you want (and as much of it as you want) from the local pharmacy without doctor’s prescriptions
#8 Going to the sauna with the whole family naked. Completely normal where I live but for almost the whole planet it would be very confusing.
Edit: yes, Finland.
#9 I’ve been living in China for two years and I still can’t bring myself to shout in a restaurant to get a server’s attention. I’m British, so I’m so used to awkwardly raising my hand and saying, ‘Excuse me’ when the server looks in my direction. But in China, oh boy, you just have to shout and hope you’re louder than the next table.
#10 People dying because they don’t have free universal healthcare. A lot of people will choose to not get medical attention because they don’t have health insurance. So they end up dying. It’s cheaper to die than have insane medical debt.
#11 Cheering when someone accidentally drops and smashes something in a restaurant/pub.
#12 Saying “yeah, naaahh” = no. Saying “nah, yeeaah”= yes.
#13 Adding tax onto the price listed on the tag. That drives non-USA folks nuts.
#14 Rootbeer floats. I tried to introduce this American delicacy to some German friends. They thought I was playing a trick on them. Thought it was so weird and gross they wouldn’t even try it.
#15 If we’re having a casual gathering at a house, we usually don’t sit on long tables but put newspapers on the floor as a makeshift “dining table” and sit around it to eat. I’ve had parties like this my whole life and it was only when my foreigner friends got culture shock from it did I realize it’s not a norm in other countries.
#16 As an American, when i “lived” in England for three months, i realized just how rude and unacceptable Brits view the act of “pointing fingers”.
not that i was ever doing shit like pointing at and/or making fun of people, but just any kind of pointing even remotely in the vicinity of anyone’s direction was just a straight up no-no, regardless of context. my ex-fiancée (who was British) was constantly like “stop doing that” lmao. kinda interesting.
#17 In Asian culture. Relatives fight with each other. Because each one wants to pay the bill for the whole family, eating out.
‘I will pay. I am the most elder person. I have responsibility to the family’
‘No I will pay. Even though I am young. I earn well enough. To cover. Let me pay this time’
That sorta argument happens.
When I tell it to westerners. They don’t believe it.
#18 In Malaysia, calling older people not related to you uncle or aunty
#19 Flashing headlights to warn incoming traffic of police presence or speed traps. Got a few awkward reactions doing it abroad.
#20 Here in Sydney, the police regularly deploy d**g detection dogs at train stations. They bring them into pubs as well. People visiting from overseas seem genuinely shocked by it, but most people here seem to ignore it.
#21 Living with parents is common in India. People aren’t considered ‘losers’ for living with heir parents. I never understood why being 30 and living with your parents was considered as something ‘bad’
#22 In my family’s home country, it is normal to “try” things out in food stands, like, just shove your hand in the pile and try one, you like it? You buy by weight from the pile of whatever it is you tried. And it is apparently totally acceptable to just snack on whatever while you shop and browse through the store, as long as you buy something at the end. I had a massive cultural shock on my first visit ?.
#23 TV ads for pharmaceutical products.
#24 Weights and measures.
I’m 5’10” and weigh 195lbs My over cooks at 350 degrees My pool is 72 degrees But
I drive 80km/h The temp outside is 21 degrees I buy meat in either lbs or kg Milk comes in 1 litre bags Liquor in 26 fl oz bottles Lumber in 2”x4” (which are really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2) plywood in 4×8’ sheets.
#25 In my country, eating rice with every meal is a must.
Shanilou Perera
Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.
