100 People Share Things That Are Normal In Their Country But Weird Abroad

What’s normal for you and me might not be normal for someone we know who lives abroad. Or their neighbor. One of the harsh truths of life is that reality isn’t always as objective as we might think it is.

In a viral thread, Redditors shared the best examples of what’s completely normal for people from their country and absolutely weird for foreigners. We’ve compiled some of the best answers that we hope will make you smile and laugh.

Scroll down and upvote your favorite things that are normal for some people, but are unusual for the rest of the world. If you enjoyed this list, why not share it with your friends? And be sure to let everyone know in the comments if you’ve got any of your own stories about what’s normal for your country, but that you realize to be strange when you go abroad.

#1

Being left off of maps (New Zealand)

#2

Golden gay time. (It is an ice cream in Australia)

#3

Being middle-class with a property having a 6' wall, electric fencing linked to an alarm, automated gate and garage doors (with security clamps over the gate motor to prevent theft of the motor), security gates over every door, burglar bars, and a house alarm system with infra-red sensors linked to armed response with a reaction time of under 3-4 minutes. (South Africa)

Reddit user Ojlol2’s thread on the ‘Ask Reddit’ subreddit got more than 63,000 upvotes in a day, as well as over 48,000 comments. Wow, now that’s a lot of people wanting to share their experience about how normality can differ from nation to nation.

From bizarre actions to eyebrow-raising phrases, there will always be things that seem out of place, as long as different countries, cultures, and ethnicities exist. And it’s a wonderful thing because a shift in your perspective can lead to more creativity and a more objective understanding of yourself.

#4

In my friend's country, Easter is when gangs of boys roam the countryside, pouring water over girls and beating them (gently) with sticks. The girls then have to thank them for it. I thought that was pretty weird. (Slovakia)

#5

Leaving your baby alone outside for their nap, even if it rains or snows. (Norway)

#6

We have matrimonial ads in newspapers and sites to find grooms and brides which I think don't happen in western countries and they find it strange. The ads are mostly published by parents. It's like tinder supervised by parents. (India)

The United States of America is one of the most powerful countries on Planet Earth, but it doesn’t mean that everything its citizens do is the norm across the world. Some things are minor differences. While some take you aback, make you stop, and keep you awake at night thinking about the cosmos, Multiverse theory, and humankind as a whole.

#7

In university we thump the tables to "applaud" our professors. Instead of actually applauding. Or doing nothing.

During my exchange semester everyone not from Germany was looking at me confused why I did this. (Germany)

#8

Whole restaurants cheering when a plate or glass is smashed (UK). Once was in a Canadian bar/restaurant on holiday and a waiter dropped a tray of glasses, the local looked horrified when i was out of my seat screaming “wheyyyyyy”

#9

Strangers sitting totally naked skin to skin in a steamy room heated to +80 to +100C... and us having competitions on who can last the longest in there. (Finland)

For example, one thing that is really odd is how Americans write today’s date by starting with the month, then writing down the day, and ending with the year. Most countries in the world start with the day or end with it. While we’re on the subject, how is it that the US still uses the Imperial System? It seems like the American War of Independence didn’t get rid of all of Britain’s influence over the colonies.

#10

Drinking beer before 12 o‘clock and seeing it as part of the culture (Germany)

#11

Putting cable ties, branches, fake eyes etc on helmets, buckets and hats in spring time to scare away the birds. Magpies are vicious bastards (Australia)

#12

Putting broken glass bottles on the walls around your house so burglars cant jump it and rob you. I moved to Canada and they don't even have walls around the houses! (Brazil)

Constantly tipping everyone, no matter how well they did their jobs, also causes a lot of people to shrug and give Americans peculiar looks. Japan’s a real wonderland in that regard: there’s almost no tipping.

#13

Tax not included in advertised price (USA)

#14

The cracks that are just wide enough to be able to see in and out of public restroom stalls. (United States) I’ve heard it’s thought of as weird since many other countries enjoy the luxury of privacy.

#15

Men holding hands in public as a display of friendship is normal in Afghanistan but super weird in the west.

#16

Unsuccessfully helping your dad look for one of his missing thongs and then watching him squeeze into one of your mum's so he can go out into the back yard and get the laundry. I'm told the rest of you (incorrectly) call them flip flops. (Australia)

#17

Cheese curds and gravy over fries. (Canada)

#18

Marrying someone without knowing them and only seeing their face once the marriage is agreed on. (Saudi Arabia)

#19

Washing your butthole after taking a crap (Italy)

#20

Eating with our hands.

In 1969 (the same year the man landed on the moon), Miss Gloria Diaz coveted the Philippines' first Miss Universe Crown. During the preliminary Q&A, she was asked "Is it true that you Filipinos use your hand when you eat?" To which she replied "Why? Do you use your feet?" and went her way to winning the crown. (Phillipines)

#21

In my country you bike everywhere. Cars aren't used much. For longer distances you mostly use train and public transport. Also being 6 foot is normal (The Netherlands)

#22

Vegemite (Australia)

#23

Sprinkles on buttered bread is made by fairies and is perfect for kids parties. And anything negative said about said treat is sacrilegious. (Australia)

#24

Calling a Traffic Light a Robot (South Africa)

#25

Deep fried mars bar

Edit: I’m from New Zealand, for those asking. These are usually sold in fish n chip shops. (New Zealand)

#26

Blood pudding and fermented fish (Sweden)

#27

Direct democracy in Switzerland. It often baffles me when I read what the government can pull off in other countries without ever involving the population. Like...yea, you get to elect representatives but it often seems to me that those people then elect someone who elects someone who elects someone...is it really still democracy if you're about five steps removed from the actual decisions? (Switzerland)

#28

Having a reality tv star as president (USA)

#29

Where I'm from the answer is guns. Lots of guns. You shoot guns at 9 years old with your buddy at an old washing machine. They are a way of life, and I suppose death for a lot of people. I understand why people support owning guns, they grew up with them and see them as normal. You tell people from other countries about shooting guns at 9 and they look at you funny. (USA)

#30

Queuing politely (UK)

#31

Boiled Coca Cola with lemon and ginger (Hong Kong)

#32

Having Spaghetti in Mcdonalds. (The Philippines)

#33

Walking around barefoot (New Zealand)

#34

Marry a tree to break a curse. (India)

#35

Until recently, no women drivers. (Saudi Arabia)

#36

upset? have a cup of tea

happy? cup of tea

bored? cup of tea

literally any feeling? cup of tea

edit: yes, I’m from the UK, tea is our answer to all of life’s problems.

#37

I have two to share since I'm half and I get to see those every year. Dead. We celebrate dead and we have parades about dead. We laugh about dead. Dead is our friend. In Mexico we treat dead with love and fun.

Also in Japan we celebrate kanamara Matsuri. Wich is basically a parade about fertility with dicks everywhere. Small dicks. Giant dicks. Dicks as food.

#38

Praising the body of a dictator is 100% normal. (Spain)

#39

"Yeah, nah" = no. It seems so obvious to us Australians

#40

Everyone rags on the US for using imperial, but can we talk for a second about how weird we are here in the UK for using both inconsistently?

You buy a pint of milk or beer, but a litre of coke and 25ml of whiskey

People know how many miles to the gallon their cars get, but you buy fuel at pence per litre.

You watch the weather forecast and the temperature is in Celsius but the wind speed is in miles per hour

Most people can tell you their weight in kilograms, and their height in feet, and if they can't give you kilograms they can probably give you stone instead, which is even older than pounds, which nobody uses as a unit of measurement, probably because of the confusion between lbs and £...

It's a glorious mess.

#41

A short while ago they stopped selling alcohol after 10pm. At some stores you couldn't even get non-alcoholic beer. What's weird tho is that wine is not considered alcoholic drink so you can buy it anytime. Welcome to Moldova ;) (Moldova)

#42

Bagged Milk. I know it's normal in some places but not here in the UK

#43

I'm from the USA and my girlfriend is from Singapore. The amount of pumpkin s**t we consume practically frightens her. (USA)

#44

Calling mixed race people coloureds. Im from south africa and im coloured but when i went on holiday in Spain, coloured is a derogatory term but in south africa its completely normal.

#45

Our wildlife is not trying to kill us.

#46

Having a garbage can in the bathroom for used toilet paper.

#47

Calling them all chips, not crisps, hot chips or anything else. Just chips, except you wedges you can have a different name. (Australia)

#48

Bears on motorcycles driving on roads, drinking vodka and playing balalaikas.

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Hahaha! Gotcha. What I said was untrue. Russia doesn't have roads.

#49

Legal drinking age of beer and wine is 16 (Germany)

#50

If you work in an office here in Germany and open two windows to get a cool draft, a coworker will close them angrily in the next few minutes, yelling angrily "Es zieht". A lot of Germans wrongly believe that a draft will give them all kind of sicknesses from a stiff neck to a common cold. There is of course no scientific proof that a draft is harmful. (Germany)

#51

Cunt is a term of endearment. (Australia)

#52

Going into the sauna naked while sharing the sauna with the other sex(es).

---

Edit: It's about Germany but we always welcome the Finnish, origin of a welcome invention. As this got somewhat hijacked about Finnish sauna culture, German sauna culture is very easy:

1. In public saunas usually everyone is naked. If you feel uncomfortable, you can wrap a towel around your waist and/or chest. Between sittings you'd usually wear a robe.

2. Most public saunas have half a day or more during the week reserved to female only. Check their website for details on that, if you are interested.

3. Be prepared that it will get crowded in the sauna when infusions are scheduled.

4. I don't know a public sauna where swimsuits are allowed. If there are pools, you'd swim naked but you can wear swimsuits there if you want to.

5. As long as you are in the sauna, you don't want to get too romantic with your spouse or whoever you are with. There is a difference between nudity and promiscuity. There are special clubs reserved for that.

6. In hotels you will often find a small sauna. Unwritten law is, the first to enter the sauna decides if it's fine to be naked. But in hotel saunas it's way more common to wear a towel than in public saunas.

7. Private saunas of course are up to the owners and/or users. Do what you are comfortable with - naked or towel. (Germany)

#53

Eating biscuits and gravy. I traveled to the UK and told them that biscuits and gravy is a very common breakfast food and as you would expect they were highly confused (biscuit=cookie across the pond) why we would take something sweet and cover it in gravy. And also was confused that the gravy we use has sausage in it and is white. (USA)

#54

Pharmaceutical commercials (USA)

#55

Men wear skirts even when it’s poring outside, which is all the time. (Scotland)

#56

Living with your parents is praised a lot ,but getting your own place or moving with your SO is still looked weird at as an act (Romania)

#57

So much damn water in the toilets. (USA)

#58

in the netherlands we learn biking around our 4th birthday, seriously how are there still people 16+ who can't ride a bicycle!

#59

A teeny tiny nation with atleast 50 different accents. (UK)

#60

Circumcising your sons seems to still be pretty common here. 13 years ago when my sons were born we had to dig in our heels as it was something that was pretty commonplace. Not sure if it's still like that, but historically...ya...we like to snippity snip snip our little dudes. (USA)

#61

A properly functioning train system (The Netherlands)

#62

peeing wherever we want (India)

#63

Paying for small things with 50 franc notes.

In Switzerland its the norm, in Ireland or the UK, it constitutes a war crime.

#64

We eat the animals on our national emblem. One of them is actually super good for you! (Australia)

#65

American coinage doesn't have numbers on it. If you see a 1 Euro coin...it has a 1 on it. Seems reasonable enough. In America, just words. Seems like a mean troll on foreigners that can't read our coins. I know the dead presidents on the coins so it doesn't bother me; but if I went to another country and they insisted upon making me read to use their money I would probably be pissed off

#66

People are always shocked at in my country: 1) our “public” restroom stalls are constructed in such a way that you can pretty much see what a person is doing in there thanks to a constant crack between the door and its frame... 2) I say “public” in quotes because most of our so-called public restrooms are in private businesses who don’t let our surprisingly very large number of homeless use and since there is no actual fully public restroom to use, said homeless often piss and sometimes even s**t in our streets. Oh- and we have a higher percentage of our population in jail than literally every single nation on earth. (USA)

#67

To get money back when you bring empty plastic bottles to the supermarket. In Germany its called Pfand. Each bottles makes 25 cents.

#68

Going bankrupt from medical debt. (USA)

#69

Eating pasta everyday i think (yes i am italian)

#70

Scottish here. We deep-fry our pizzas. No even sorry. Tasty wee bastards.

#71

Small talk in Poland actually is quite sincere. If someone asks you what's up, you tell them exactly that it's s**tty etc.

#72

Eating most of the organs of an animal, I had some people look at me in disgust when I told them how tasty the brain and the heart of an animal are (Romania)

#73

South Korean oddities:

Straight dudes wearing makeup
16 year old girls getting eyelid surgery as a gift from their parents
Everyone driving new cars around for as long as possible with blue protective sponges on their doors that automakers everywhere else in the world take off immediately after shipping
all electric fans have timers on them, because everyone believes that if you fall asleep with one blowing on you, you'll die
expecting to receive a free portion of pickle slices on the side when you order pizza

#74

Mandatory 2 years and 8 months of military service for men (2 years for women) Absolutely normal for us, pretty much all fit teenagers serve. (Israel)

#75

Having a slice a bread with cheese and a glass of milk for lunch (Dutch)

#76

We have no sun here. Around this time of year everyone start asking each other "You been taking vitamin D?". It doesn't matter if you're talking about feeling sad, dealing with the flu, or missing limbs... you been taking vitamin D bro? (Canada)

#77

In my high school (US) we had a group of australian students come to live a day in the life of an american high school. They all thought it was so bizarre and cult-ish that every morning we had to stand and recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag with our hands over our hearts. I couldn't agree more that it is, indeed, bizarre and cult-ish.

#78

In my country, we address people by calling uncle, auntie, brother, sister or if it is a senior citizen we would called them mother father or grandmother or grandfather. Its very strange to us address specially people who are elder to you by name. (Sri Lanka)

#79

On Valentine's day, men don't give any gifts. Only women give gifts, they only give it to men, it's always chocolate, and they get it for all the men in their lives, including coworkers. Then there is a day on the 14th of March where the men reciprocate. The gifts are only from men to women this time, and are chocolate or jewelry or nice clothes, and the amount spent is directly related to the amount of chocolate received. (Japan)

#80

Having a coffee after basically every meal.. I'm from Portugal, and here, everybody has a cup of coffee after lunch/dinner (here coffee is very cheap btw, ranging from 0.50€ up to 1.00€). I thought it was a very common thing worldwide, until some years ago, when I traveled to Spain and discovered it's more of a portuguese thing after all...

#81

Pouring loads of cinnamon on people when they turn 25 and are unmarried. Moving on to pepper if you turn 30 and are unmarried! (Denmark)

#82

Putting chips in our burgers (UK)

#83

I don't know why but teenagers from my place ( Vietnam ) like to put hot sauce on everything, like pizzas, chips ( French Fries ), spaghetti, rice, cakes, hamburgers, anything you can think of ...

#84

Taxes. We have this weird system where the government really kind of knows what we should pay, but they offer us an opportunity to guess and maybe pay the right thing, but if we don't pay the right thing, we get penalized. I remember listening to a podcast where people all over the world were super confused about how the US does taxes. Most other places the government sends you a bill, and you pay it, and you're done.

#85

My ex wife is South African and from a fairly affluent family. Without exception, their security is as described in one of the previous threads. The crime is UNBELIEVABLE! Together with a completely corrupt (and largely racist) police force, it's a tough place to live.

#86

Writing the date as mmddyyyy. (USA)

#87

It's getting better in other parts of the world, but: consuming weed without fear of any real repercussion. (Belgium)

#88

Feet and Inches! (USA)

#89

Drinking until we fall into a fence? (Denmark)

#90

In the Philippines, it would be people living with their parents. Everybody I know whose parents' homes are in the city choose to live there. With the relatively low wage to cost-of-living ratio, it is not unusual for married couples to share houses with their in-laws.

I work remote and I still live with my parents and pay zero rent. Of course, I pay all the bills, feed them and do all the home repairs and chores.

#91

In Germany we eat minced raw pork. Our health and safety standards are pretty high, so it's a perfectly safe thing to do.

#92

We eat fertilized duck eggs. (Balut) (The Philippines)

#93

Selling bullet proof backpacks for little kids to wear to school... (USA)

#94

I think tips are a thing in other countries, but in America you have to tip almost everywhere you eat or you get hardly judged by everyone. And if the tip isn’t big enough, they judge you too. It’s so dumb.

#95

Chicken fried steak. It's not chicken. (USA)

#96

Back home we put an effigy of a man on a pile of wood and burn it Wicker Man style whilst eating toffee and holding sparklers. Remember, remember, the 5th of November. Live in the US these days. Having a baby, getting 6 weeks of short term disability leave and going back to work. 8 weeks if you had a c-section. Who cares about mother/baby bonding, am I right?! You then get your medical bill and it's all wrong so you have to fight with your insurance to have claims covered. But wait, your anesthesiologist claim was processed before your maternity stay claim therefore it isn't covered and you have a copay you weren't expecting. That's another call to get them to process the claims in the correct order. And all of this if you are lucky enough to have insurance. (UK)

#97

Separate gender buildings / libraries / professors / teachers / management / technicians / and even janitors in every single school / university. (Saudi Arabia)

#98

The Swedish holiday of midsummer, where people dress up in plain white clothes and flower crowns to sing together and dance in a circle around what's called the midsummer pole. Every foreigner I've ever talked to about the holiday said it seems like a giant cult.

For some extra weirdness, the pole is supposed to look like the the male genitalia, and the holiday started as a celebration of fertility.

#99

Making a human-sized doll stuffed with hay, and burning it at 12AM on January 1st. The doll is called “Old Year”, and burning it symbolizes the year ending.

Country: Colombia

#100

When somebody of our relatives die, we keep the body in the house for 3 days(somebody always have to stay near it), and only after that we bury the body. I’m from Moldova.

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