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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.
Right … TIL I’m finnish and must have been adopted … cool!
As an American I don’t want to interact with my coworkers. As an Italian I don’t want to either. I am so happy wfh right now. Socializing with people who aren’t my friends is not something I enjoy.
Even if it was possible to feel at ease and not in a work mindset while hanging with them, it’s just wise not to get that close, it makes it harder in future to be selective in what you divulge about your private life which can give your boss leverage over you. Sometimes you may need a “sick” day and it’s just better if they don’t know enough personal information to be able to determine how sick you are and make everything awkward.
That might seem dishonest, but there’s reasons why you might need to the employer to know only what they need to know and they aren’t necessarily laziness or incompetence. It’s a shame because it’s nice that your boss wanted to be friends but unfortunately there’s always going to be that fact that they’re your boss which gets in the way of that and everyone is better off keeping things arm’s length
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.
“Shut up! I’m trying to stay warm here.” - Some ancient Finn
I’ve heard it’s fairly expensive place to visit though 😅
This is going to seem minor, but it was a shock to me.
I grew up in Texas. I lived in very metropolitan places – near downtown Dallas, and near the Houston medical center. So I never thought that I was culturally isolated or anything.
When I finally left the state for a job, I went to Los Angeles, circa 2007. In my first week there, a lady pulled up next to me on the street and asked me where the courthouse was. I had a vague idea, but explained that I was new to the area so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. People familiar with the LAX area will know that the nearby courthouse is a tall building with something resembling a crown or halo, I pointed her toward that.
It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later I realized what seemed strange about the encounter. The lady was of African-American descent.
I thought back on 3 decades of living in Texas, and I cannot once remember being approached by a black stranger and asked a question. Not one single time. Houston has a large homeless population, I had many encounters with panhandlers. I couldn’t remember one single black person.
In fact, as I thought about it, a HUGE difference between Texas and California was that black folks on the street behaved very differently. In California, they looked you in the eye, they said “hello”, etc. In Texas – at least, up until I left in 2007 – black folks were strictly “heads down, eyes on your own business”. Even thinking back on some black friends and co-workers, I realized that they behaved very differently in public than my white friends did.
The whole thing made me sad for my black friends back in Texas. And now that we know how police treat black folks, I guess I can see why they behaved the way they did.
This was not the kind of answer I was expecting. Thank you for sharing.
I moved from California to Texas, and that has not been my experience at all since getting here. Perhaps it’s the city I live in, but black people here seem no different than any other person, same as my experience when I lived in California. The percentage of the population that is black here is much, much higher, though.
I’ve lived in Houston my whole life and I have no idea what this guy is talking about. It’s one of the most diverse cities in the country of course we talk to each other lol.
Same here in Houston. I have no clue what this person is talking about. I have had many black people talk to me, and I work with quite a few. There’s nothing odd about our encounters.
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.
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.
as someone from Berlin, it’s wild that you even have a “last call” rule in so many places/countries. Bars and clubs here can just decide themselves, when they want to close. There are even a few 24/7 places.
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I’m not much of a drinker myself but. Some people use alcohol because it makes them “open up” and it’s easier for them to have fun that way. (this is what the finnish song “cha cha cha” is about.)
The Finnish song Cha Cha Cha is awesome. It should have won Eurovision!
Plenty of people in the West find the alcohol culture frustrating, especially recovering alcoholics. Personally I can’t drink much, so I tend to find myself sipping on a cranberry juice.
Well, I personally get drunk quicker due to metabolism and my hangover starts the same day.
That is, compared to most Europeans, but I’ve heard that for SE Asia this would actually be the norm.
So one can say in this case culture just follows structural difference.
But - yes, it’s much nicer to be with friends when they are not drunk.
Except for beer, there are weaker sorts, and the effect of hops on people I actually like.
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Going to sound weird but going to one of my childhood friend’s house
He had a loving family where everyone was happy and helped each other. They communicated with each other happily about things that interested them. They were unafraid to share what was on their minds and what they were passionate about. They asked each other to do things without threatening or screaming. When they did have disagreements they talked them out. They’d say, “I love you,” without a hint of pain or irony.
It was jarring. It threw me off. I went over to his place a lot (like literally almost every day for the time were friends) and it wasn’t until I had been going to his place for a few weeks did it dawn on me that I had never seen his parents argue.
And honestly one of the most eye opening experiences from when I was young about how a family is supposed to function.
I guess you could say it was culture shock because my relatives operated on a culture of fear, hatred, and a lack of love. The phrase, “You have to love me, I’m family,” was uttered entirely too many times. Violence and the threat of violence was the only motivator my relatives used.
I was friends with that guy for 3 years. I’ll never forget his parents telling me that they saw me as family. I’d say those years did more good for shaping who I am today than all the years I spent with my relatives. I look back fondly on the time I spent with them. I wish it didn’t end the way it did though.
I hope they’re all doing well.
Sounds pretty similar to how my gf responded to my family. We don’t always realize how lucky (or unlucky) we are.
I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have my immediate family, my mother’s extended family, and my husband’s family. We get along well and can talk openly even about contentious or difficult issues. My mother and her sisters have showed an excellent way to structure a family, where each has specialized on certain areas: finance, technology, organization, etc. They all have a deep trust built up over a lifetime that they will work in the best interest of each family member.
As I got older, I started hearing people’s experiences with terrible family situations, chiefly online. I also started to hear and see more of my dad’s side of the family. Two individuals on that side have bipolar disorder. My grandmother’s bipolar disorder destroyed her marriage to my grandfather and led to a messy divorce. The treatment that was given in those days likely did more harm than good. Then my uncle also has bipolar. His bipolar destroyed a marriage. Unfortunately, Switzerland where he moved to has old fashioned laws that allows one spouse (my uncle in this case) to drag their feet on a divorce.
There is also some distrust between other family members involving my grandfather’s second wife splitting him from contact with his beloved sister and her family. Of the family I listed in the first paragraph, I simply cannot imagine any of them doing something that horrible. I would consider that intolerable in my own marriage, not that my husband would think to do so (he was friends with my husband in high school).
What happened? Sounds like you guys stopped being friends after 3 years.
Warning: This story is kinda hard to read as it details one of the shittiest moments of my life that ended up being the catalyst for years more of a shitty life. I have gotten back on my feet since but that wasn’t until almost a decade after the fact.
My home life was falling apart around that time and eventually hit the point where we knew we were going to be homeless.
I asked his parents first if it would be ok if I stayed with them while I finished highschool and tried to get on my feet and they said it would be fine. I asked his parents first so he wouldn’t have to be put in a position of having to tell me that I couldn’t stay with them.
I then asked him if he was ok with it and he said that it would be cool and he just had to check with his parents. I told him I had already asked them and told him why I asked them first. He seemed surprised but understanding.
When the day finally came a couple weeks later I called them up and no one answered.
I walked to their house and no one was there.
I eventually left them a message on their answering machine saying that I tried to come by but no one was home and that I’d greatly appreciate a call back as today was the day we had discussed.
I walked to the library to hang out there that afternoon. And to sleep on the bench behind their building that night.
I couch surfed for a couple weeks with acquaintances and was reaching out to other people I knew hoping someone would let me stay with them for awhile and no one would or could.
Eventually he called me and I knew I was on speaker phone and he accused me of stealing from them. I told him that I’d never steel from them as the were more family to me than my actual relatives. He didn’t listen and said that that’s why they hadn’t reached out as they were trying to figure out everything that I had stolen. His parents then said that they were disappointed in me and that they never wanted to see me again.
I ended up being homeless for 8 years after that as no one I knew could or would help me. Not even my relatives would help me.
He was my best friend for 3 years, and his lie made my life that much harder for almost a decade.
Edit: To clarify a point, I asked his parents first because if they said no I wasn’t going to ask him and put him in that position of having the guilt of having to tell me that I couldn’t stay with them. Also in the conversation with his parents I had told them that I had already asked my relatives if I could stay with them while I tried to get on my feet and they had already turned me down. My grandma even said, “God has a plan for everyone, and sometimes that plan can be hard to deal with for a time.”
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Haha, reminds me of the scene in the beginning of the film The Gods must be Crazy where you see someone getting in the car to drive down the driveway to pick up the mail.
I had a friend in school who went to South Africa for half a year and he was mugged several times. He always had like 20 Dollars of cash on him to get out of the situation. That was 15 years ago, no idea what it’s like now.
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I immigrated to Vietnam. That was ok.
Visiting north America again years later was quite a shock!
Going home after living abroad was a way bigger shock to me than living abroad was too. You suddenly see your own culture from outside.
I left home for a little over a year, here I am almost a decade later fascinated people here can’t see that things can work so much better than they currently do.
Can you explain more about this? What was shocking about it?
Ack, my long response got eaten.
I guess in North America, people I know seem to think that developing countries in Asia are these oppressive, miserable places.
While I do technically live in a slum, it’s safer and the residents are happier than any place I’ve been in Canada. The people here have so much freedom to do the things that matter! The barrier to starting a business is very close to zero, zoning and tax laws are not prohibitive either. You can do whatever you want with your home – no home owner’s association. Raise chickens on your roof, if that’s what you want to do. Anything not dangerous is OK – maybe talk to your neighbors first if it’s something unusual.
Going back to North America is something I do for family. It’s inconvenient, everything is far apart and empty, it feels dead. The food is less good. People are angry and divided about politics. There’s some low-but-everpresent degree of hostility towards people who look like foreigners, and overall it seems people have somewhat strange ideas about Asia. It’s not terrible, and there are many good things there too (it is clean and many forests!), but I feel woefully out of place.
Interacting with people from North America who visit Vietnam has always been the biggest cultural shock though. Often, they outright ask me how to commit crimes (I maintain a presence online to answer questions for confused tourists – Vietnam is not that accessible sometimes). Work permit compliance is low, also many fake university degrees and fake passports. Lots of people running MLM and crypto scams. Many drive without any valid license, and if they hit someone they flee back home. I met many selling drugs illegally (I wasn’t looking for them, either). It used to be shockingly bad. On the bright side, it drove me to integrate culturally and pay careful attention to my immigration paperwork.
So I guess I consider myself culturally Asian now, which I suppose is a reasonable outcome after 10 years. The language is still hard for me though, I still speak like a child – running a business doesn’t leave so much time to study human languages.
Nowadays, we’re getting more qualified professionals and tourists that are decent people, so things are generally way better than they were 5 or 6 years ago. Overall the things I’ve seen make me ashamed though. I don’t think any amount of progress can really wash that feeling away. I try to assist tourists online as a way to prevent myself from turning that shame into prejudice.
If you can afford it, I found that the Pimsleur technique taught me how to speak well better than anything else I tried. I’ve forgotten the Spanish I know because I didn’t keep using it, but it got me to a decent adult conversational level in about a month at half an hour a day and I was always speaking ‘adult’ sentences right from the start, both copying then making new ones.
It’s more a problem of economics. I’ve optimized my life to accomplish a single goal. There is no room for anything else. Time is the most expensive thing right now.
I had zero dollars and a company license 6 or 7 years ago, so my focus has been bootstrapping myself into land+home ownership, which is very expensive here. A home in Vietnam is much more expensive than what you’d expect considering the cost of everything else.
So I’ve spent 100% of my time studying whatever I think will make me the most money. This has typically been technology and programming languages, with some brief forays into economics, finance, law, and accounting. I studied the Vietnamese enough to deal with daily life only. I can’t really socialize in Vietnamese very well, but then again, I don’t have a social life in any language.
It’s intense, but going well. If I continue at this rate, I’ll be able to retire after a career of about 10 years (so a couple more years). Then I can learn Vietnamese. Maybe I’ll learn to paint too, or run a machine shop, or help students build their careers!
Very good luck with all of that!
Went to Ireland for a couple weeks. I was expecting a bunch of rowdy angry drunks, and instead was met with warmth and hospitality at every turn, and constant singing/music everywhere.
Truly mind blowing
How big “anti-imperialism” is as an ideology in countries ravaged by America and the former Soviet-bloc.
I’m of Iraqi descent and whenever I visit home I see people supporting extreme ideologies like Islamism or Stalinism or some unholy mix between the two, which is always nuts for me. They are super-political, but they never vote, because that means the “imperialist system wins”. They use anti-imperialism as a justification for anti-LGBT, anti-feminist, anti-democratic, anti-religious and anti-secularist hate.
Otherwise the people are very nice, but if any major political/cultural topic is being mentioned, they go full doomer mode.
I get why anti-imperialism is so big in Iraq, but actually experiencing it, is really crazy.
I grew up in Liberia in the 80s and had to leave due to the civil war. (Remember General Butt-Naked? Yeah, that war in that country) It was a crazy time, not one big shock but a string of many smaller things. For example, I would look out the school window and see a horde of students wielding machetes overrunning the school grounds - I can’t remember what they were protesting.
But coming back to Europe the biggest culture shocks were functioning waste disposal and utilities, and how clean everything was. Also it was hard for me to relate to people’s problems, because they seemed so trivial. Took me a while to adjust.
Little kids taking a shit literally wherever in China. They have special pants (NSFW?) so they can just crouch down and take to take a dump in a shopping mall, the street, the subway …
What the fuck…
The same thing I thought when I saw it. Not sure yet how things work here, but if there’s a wtf here this should go there.
You’ll literally shit your pants when you learn about the indians, jej
This was more common back in 1980s and before, when it wasn’t urbanised enough to have public bathrooms. Nowadays of you do that, passerby will give you white eyes.
I live in China. It still happens today and nobody bats an eye. I’ve seen a kid shit on a hospital floor 2 weeks ago, and some old guy pissing against a wall of a shopping mall just yesterday. And this is in a Tier 1 city.
Regional differences? It is, after all, a very big country.
Same for me. It was particularly vexing seeing a child pee into a plant outside an open shopping mall in the center of Shanghai. The restrooms are free, why not just take your kid inside??? The other thing that got me was people refusing to let you off the subway first before they make a mad dash looking for seats. The same happens on the elevators, but there aren’t seats so that one is even more confusing.
That’s a society which had lots of hierarchy and very little social or even territorial mobility until very recently. And those people’s ancestors were likely peasants who’d just live all their lives growing crops in very scary conditions.
I mean, I’ve heard these things about China and manners.
I’ve event heard maybe not so scary, but similar things about Russia and manners in the early XX century (since I live in Russia, I do believe they are correct).
I certainly agree with the possible cause. The part I can’t figure out is the lack of logic in the actions. Why try to push into the people attempting to get off the elevator when one could just wait a few seconds and get on in a more efficient manner? It all seems to increase the time it takes.
I’ve been told that many generations grew up in conditions where they had to fight and struggle for everything. If they allowed someone else to go first or get something before them, then they would lose out. Only oneself and family, everyone else is one their own. I suppose this overrides the logic I mentioned that is missing in the scenarios. I don’t think they’re trying to be rude, they’ve just been taught since birth that if you want or need something (like getting on an elevator), then you do it however you can that ensures success. In the elevator example, if you do wait for people to get off, others might not and could fill up the elevator before you get on, thus leaving you to wait for possibly several more minutes.
Well, analogy is not a sufficient method of argumentation by itself, but I suppose things I’ll write would be even more visible in Chinese villages 100 years ago.
In Russia the peasant commune as an institution was created artificially (so all those Russian narodniks glorifying it as something perfect and wonderful untouched by bureaucratic machine coming from the depth of ages were just stupid ; it’s one thing one can’t argue with Lenin about - they didn’t have a bloody idea of what that “people” they considered inherently virtuous was) somewhere around Peter the Great’s time. So it’s had enough time to mature.
That commune had enormous families living together, with the patriarch (the oldest man still able to work and do things) being basically a despot. It was literally not so rare for him to casually sleep with wives of his sons and nephews, for example (if not daughters and nieces). Nobody could refuse him.
Again, that whole family would live in one bloody place, together. No personal space or individuality at all.
In such an environment, first, you don’t act differently (either you’ll seem weak or you’ll cause envy, both are worse than any gained efficiency justifies), second, your value is so low, that nobody cares if you make it, third, in a despotic system your own attempts at planning usually don’t work, so you don’t learn to do it, and planning is what’s needed for more honest behavior to be advantageous.
So yes, you are right.
I’ve got to say it was pretty shocking to be fresh off the boat, walking down the street, and some kid just bolts out of a store, drops her pants and starts pissing next to a tree.
Between this and gutter oil (Google it, or actually maybe don’t), it sure doesn’t leave me with a great impression of China and hygiene.
you’re hella brave saying that on lemmy.ml
Lol at least he isn’t trained by the political drama yet.
I actually saw them doing that once near where I lived. Thankfully I never ate there.
sounds like china
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.
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.
People from other countries are also much easier to get to know. After that it’s Norwegians who have experience abroad. But clubs and classes definitely work.
Clubs are a good place to meet people for sure. :)
That whole local vs not is kind of crazy though. I know of a guy who’s been here for 40 years, huge part of the local community, everyone knows him - and everyone still referes to him as “the guy from the north”. I find it equal parts hilarious/sad-ish. I dread to think what it would feel like to be a foreigner here, and not just some guy who moved in from a city a few hours down the road. I get it though on some level, historically it’s been a very isolated community, and even now getting here (or getting away) can be difficult, practically speaking, in the winter months.
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.
German living in Canada since 2018. Couple of things:
- There’s no bread culture. It’s all toast, with the exception of French breads. But I saw brown colored toast sold as pumpernickel. A travesty.
- The love for bland food. I know, there was a demonization campaign against salt in the 80s or something. But you gotta get over it. Feels like you’re saving salt from the cooking to put it on the road in the winter.
- The healthcare system is a joke. “bUt It’S bEtTeR tHaN iN tHe Us.” As if that’s difficult. Only difference is your dumpster isn’t on fire, yet.
- THE ABSOLUTE TRASH THAT’S SOLD AS TOILET PAPER! Honestly my biggest pet peeve. TP here is flimsy and overpriced. >1$ for a roll of 2-ply or >2$ per roll of 3-ply, but both tear if you do much as look at them the wrong way.
Look into bidets. There’s cheap seat addons you can buy but there are also portable bottle-like ones. I’ve got one of these: https://happypo.com/products/xl-bidet
When I first came to US, I was very shocked by how talkative Americans are, especially to strangers. Ngl, I was a bit annoyed at first. Then I realized that’s just the way they are.
I’m an American who finds this trait very annoying. People do not know when to shut up, and they tell you the most personal things!
yep, and I am too timid to ever end the conversation
so now I have to hear Larry’s entire life story, or about how Wanda’s cousin has bowel cancer
They only use darn cash in Germany. Feels like going back to ancient times.
i prefer cash, gives you anonimity and an easier overwiev of your spending
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Not true in cities, i havent had cash on me for at least two weeks now and Ive gotten by just fine
paper money is aight, but coins are super annoying
When I started using the internet, it was a shock, because I got in contact with people from different places and realized how poor I am :(
Even today, I get cultural shocks here and there. Just this week, someone mentioned what they consider the bare minimum specs for a phone they consider to be viable for simple usage, and guess what? My phone doesn’t have half of these specs.
Had a functional iphone 5 I wanted to give away to someone, for use as a child phone or temporary replacement for a broken phone. Went to my local buy-nothing group, found several people asking for a free iphone to replace a broken or missing phone, every one of them saying “any old phone is fine, 12 or above”. I’m still using iphone 8…
