As Americans, we don’t stop to think about how strange some of things we do appear to other countries. That’s okay, though, because somebody else inevitably will do it for us. Author Alex Daniel provided a recent guide to some feedback about our quirks which puzzle foreigners (a link appears later). What we think of as “normal” strikes people from other places as quizzical.
For example, our flag-crazy culture has us displaying the red, white and blue in every conceivable corner of our homes, businesses and street light fixtures. That is apparently reserved for holidays or special events elsewhere.
We also have pharmacies which resemble convenience stores, whereas in places like Great Britain, one goes to the pharmacy (called chemists there, as Monty Python fans well know) and buys just pharmaceuticals and health-related supplies. In the average CVS, Rite-Aid or Walgreen, you can pick up frozen dinners, exercise gear and a candy bar or two, in ridiculous sizes. I saw a king-sized dark chocolate Kit-Kat® bar which almost made me go off my diet. My willpower prevailed, but my stomach protested.
In restaurants, our plates are over-packed with food the size of one meal and at least one more to fit in a doggy bag (something other countries don’t do), and we tend to walk around holding beverages. Not over there, folks. We also get free beverage refills, which is fine because we have no issues using public restrooms which have no true privacy barriers. Think about how easy it really is to see people engaged in number two through the gaps all around our restroom stalls, and note that other countries have actual closed stalls with walls and doors and no space around or underneath. And with no free drink refills, I suppose they pee more quickly with less full bladders to contend with. And the obesity rate is not the same as here.
Nobody said anything about whether their women’s queues for stalls are as long as here.
Other countries find our paper money boring and our coins confusing. All our bills are a strange shade of green, but in other places you have a few colors and sized to denote what you are carrying around (no problems for the visually impaired, which is a plus). A five-cent coin is called a nickel here, but that name comes from its historic metallurgy rather than its value, making other people scratch their heads. They pay one price for shopping: no figuring out and adding tax, which varies by a matter of miles, depending on where you are shopping.
We don’t take our vacation time, and we accumulate a lot (ask me and my office manager who is in first place for hoarding time), while overseas they take a week or more off for long extended holidays. However, for people with late shift jobs, they can find a 24-hour restaurant here in America, which is not the case anyplace else on average. Eateries close up and force people to go home and cook if they want to nosh at three in the morning.
When one goes to a restaurant overseas, the waiter brings your food and you don’t see him until you ask for the check, which could be an hour or two, or more, because people dine leisurely there. Here, waiters check on you frequently and will bring the check yesterday, which visitors apparently find as grating as having to tip, as service staff are paid much more and don’t rely on gratuities back home. We crank out diners so quickly, it boggles their minds.
Finally (for our purposes, as this is not the end of the list), we tend to advertise too much on television. Not only do lawyers beg us to be their clients for thirty seconds, but we are the only country outside of New Zealand that carries prescription drug commercials. Yup, fans of Cyndi Lauper outside the U.S. don’t get to see her psoriasis ad for Cosentyx®
Some of what makes us unique may be confusing to visitors, but then we haven’t figured out the concept of some foreign food, or driving on the left. It all works out: just try to bone up before you cross the border and you’ll be just fine.
https://bestlifeonline.com/30-things-americans-do-that-foreigners-think-are-super-weird/
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