People who have been to the USA, what was the biggest culture shock for you? r/AskEurope

I'm from the Netherlands, and I completely agree with how strange it is to see people salute a flag. Last time we saw people salute a flag in The Netherlands, they spoke German.

Hello everyone and welcome back to a man who is squatting in an Airbnb because it’s the cheapest way to buy a house in London

The constant smiling of retail workers definitely creeped me out. Here in Germany if the retail workers smile at you or make smalltalk, you know that they're doing it because they're genuinely in a good mood and not because they'll be fired if they don't act like they have the best job in the world and every customer is their best friend...

I, as a German, had two weird occasions: I was walking to the grocery store in a village, near to Philadelphia. It was a two miles walk. The sidewalk just ended, so I walked on the street. It took 5 minutes until a cop switched his fancy light show on and questioned me, why I was walking on the street. He found it weird that I did not take the car. I found it weird to use a car for that short distance. The second occasion was, when I was hand-rolling my cigarette with my favorite Dutch tabac. I was questioned, if I was using drugs. But it was just tabac.

A lot of the US wasn't built for cars, it was RE-built for cars: city blocks were demolished to make room for cars middle of the last century. Sometimes getting rid of buildings where "unwanted" people lived (black or poor or both)

I think the thing that shocked me the most was the questionnaire I had to fill out, when entering the USA. One question in particular asking "if you ever have/ or planned to kidnap an American child"... Never mind that apparently they expect someone who did so to be honest(?) I was shocked that it specified American! It was like saving "who cares if you kidnapped a French or Spanish (or whatever) child" ( I apologize for my English, as it isn't my first language and it's 1 a.m.)

"America was built for the car" No... It was bulldozed for the car.

One Thing bothered me (British) in the USA. In cocktail Party situations, where you drift around and meet people. In Europe, in my experience, we start off as strangers, and while talking to someone, we slowly get to know them better. In the American cocktail parties, someone would come over and greet me like a long-lost cousin, asking about the family and my health and all sorts of personal things. After about 15 minute of this he/she will just say turn around and walk off to give someone else the same treatment. I stand there feeling I’ve just been shunned/deserted. It’s this strange familiarity among strangers that is completely outside of European norms.

For me, it was overt friendliness. I knew before I went that Americans were more personable than us Brits, but I wasn't prepared for how disingenuous it felt. It was like they were being nice because they wanted something from me, even if they didnt. It weirdly made me miss how blunt we brits can be with each other.

When my US Navy family was stationed in England, the Navy shipped our Honda Odyssey car with our home goods. My Mom had such a challenging time driving her large American minivan in our tiny rural village- but it did come in handy for transporting a bunch of the village kids up to the school bus stop (at least 1.5-2 miles uphill), cutting out the 30+ minutes walk in the morning. In all other aspects, though, she didn’t love driving her large American car on tiny rural English roads!

I lived in the UK for 3 months about 4 years ago, and frankly how big the US was felt overwhelming when I came back. Everything tasted super sweet too— even things that didn’t necessary need sweetening. That reverse culture shock definitely hit hard!

For me, it was definitively the guns. Seeing security and police officers etc. being heavily armed at airports and other places was really a shock and very intimidating. Also, I saw police officers interact with people for something that didn’t appear to be very serious and the level of aggression they displayed was also quite shocking. I’m from Ireland, by the way, our police are generally not armed.

Comment: "People's bosses in work openly smoking weed" Me: That's normal Evan: "I think you might have been in like, Colorado" Me: Yeah that's where I live that explains everything

When I went to the USA a few years ago I did have a culture shock from the portion sizes, but we kind of already knew they would be big. However, one of the biggest surprises was the lack of vegetables besides a small amount of side salad. There were veggies in the supermarkets but not on the plates. No broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots or anything like that. We went to Boston and Wyoming and it was definitely more of an issue in Wyoming. We went somewhere and my mum specifically asked if it was possible to get me a portion of fruit or veg and the waitress replied that she could get some apple sauce.

The first time I went to the US I went to Austin, Texas. I joined a bus ride for a historical tour and they drove past a building telling us it was from 1911 or some shit. It just made me think of LA Story and Steve Martin going "Some of these houses are over 20 years old". I'm from Sweden, when we ended school for summer breaks we'd go to a church built in the 12th century still being used to this day. The lack of history was a shock to me.

I’m from Norway and was absolutely shocked when I visited America and some woman just randomly started talking to me at the supermarket 😆 Like she was nice or whatever but still, felt a bit of “fight or flight”

What you said about the refills thing was really interesting (I'm a Kiwi/Brit with an American partner). I honestly think it's down to tipping culture and wait staff trying to be as helpful/attentive as possible. But what is considered 'good service' in the US would be considered very overbearing in NZ because most people don't want their every possible need to be pre-empted; so long as you can flag someone down easily enough when you want something, that's all good. I feel bad saying this, but there have honestly been times in the states where it's so over the top that I've wanted to say "I'll give you a 20% tip if you just leave us alone for ten minutes."

I think my biggest culture shock was the preparedness to fight over the smallest things! In England we’re mostly passive about things that irritate us in public but in the states, I’ve witnessed people almost brawl in the middle of the street because one was walking too slowly or something. Whereas here in London you either overtake and maaaaybe glance over your shoulder to look at the fool, or you sigh and say something indirect like “I’m definitely going to be late walking at this pace but that’s out of my control”. We don’t really get people threatening to sh00t servers if they’re out of stock of something you wanted but I’m always reading about that stuff in America.

I went to New York in 2014. I had a good time. I had some minor and some more disturbing culture shocks. The relatively minor culture shocks were the flags plastered everywhere, even infrastructure maintenance vehicles, and the waiters coming to my table every five minutes (the interruption was a mild irritation, but we were in another country after all so we were tolerant). One amusing culture shock was when I got the large coke at a McDonald's - I was not prepared for how large it would be. That was fun. The first disturbing culture shock was that waiters didn't see tips as an act of generosity, but as something they expected because they had no choice as their wages were really low. The second was all the private healthcare provider adverts plastered everywhere on the ferry that goes past the Statue of Liberty. Many parts of the American culture were a really good experience, but those two things seem really dystopic to me.

For me it was my Chicagoan friend telling me crossing the road at an intersection in the middle of Chicago was Jaywalking and illegal, even though I stopped and looked both ways, US jaywalking laws seem really strange to me as a Brit where pretty much all our road laws (apart from motorways) put pedestrians at the top of the right of way list. What confused me even more was when the same friend at the next intersection asked why I stopped and looked cause it was a pedestrian crossing and I was meant to go, my instinct is to always look (because why wouldn't you?).