If so, how?

36 comments

  1. I grew up on the south coast, small harbour town/city. In my early 20s moved to a little bit bigger town/city in the east, North Karelia, to study at uni.

    I was used to people mostly just using grunts to communicate with strangers, if they communicated at all, and insular friend groups, the usual stuff. In the east people actually talked to me, a lot, and it was much easier to find new friends (outside of the obvious university context too). It was baffling at first, shocking even.

    There’s the stereotype of the reserved and taciturn Finn, no small talk, and knifes. All relatively true compared to many other cultures in Europe, but there are parts of the country where the stereotype isn’t quite as accurate.

  2. I’m half Ukrainian and half Spanish and in both countries there are regions that don’t speak Ukrainian or Spanish (the languages I was raised with)

  3. Not much of a culture shock nowadays but traveling from north to south and viceversa can be a particular experience nonetheless.

  4. I would say Spain has a pretty big culture differential. A few examples:

    Recently I went to valencia to visit a friend and his friends and family kept switching to catalan every so often. I do not speak catalan so I just spent the rest of the conversation trying to figure out what the heck they were saying 🤷‍♂️. Honestly It was Kind of fun and It’s their native language so I understand them being more confortable with It.

    Asturias IS famous for their huge portions of food. They’re about twice as big as in the rest of the country. The very first time a non asturian gets a full sized cachopo i assure you they get a culture shock. I haven’t seen a meter long milanese elsewhere.

    Once when talking with my galician friend he asked me if there were vultures in Spain and if i had seen one. Spain has over 30k vultures and I see about three a day in my hometown 😑

  5. In Cyprus, no. We have a population of barely one million, there’s only so much heterogeneity possible.

    At most, I’m still surprised by how much dialectal differences still survive despite everything, but that’s hardly a cultural shock.

  6. As someone who grew up abroad, yes, many times lol.

    In the sense that I’m used to certain public services or random things to work in a particular way similar to that of the country where I grew up, or to how it was when I was a child. And I’m somewhat confused when it doesn’t.

    Also, people around my age in Portugal, at least in the region where I’m living, are considerably more conservative and religious than those in the same age bracket in my Catalan hometown/region.

    Within Catalonia, I remember people in Barcelona being utterly shocked over me wearing t-shirts in late October/early November because the temperature was slightly under 20°C. Where I grew up (Pyrenees), people will start wearing t-shirts as soon as the weather hits 15°C. People in Barcelona dress for the season, while those of us from the mountains tend to dress for the weather instead.

    This also makes me dress ‘weird’ in Portugal, as I’m used to far lower temperatures than those that I deal with here.

  7. Being a Frisian I think it is a two-way street. Folks from the Randstad (Urban area of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague) tend to be from a different planet, they think we’re from a different planet. It’s nice that way.

  8. Going literally anywhere other than the few (2-3) other big cities than Copenhagen in Denmark is a bit of a culture shock for me as someone who grew up there. But generally we’re a really regionally homogenous country compared to most European countries.

  9. I grew up in a little town. When I visit the capital, I feel like a clueless rural farmhand, when I go to a village I feel like a rude city dweller. I grew up close to nature but not “keeping pigs for slaughter” close. I lived in a house with a little garden, but not a “growing our own vegetables” garden.
    I think you can get culture shock easily within your own country, it has more to do with the environment you grew up in.

  10. Anyone can get culture shock if your country is big enough. Or if you move from a small town to a big city.

  12. Northerners (and by that I mean everybody who isn’t from the south) who come here and find out that on the days they are here there is an event related to Carnaval are often surprised.

  13. I travel and have traveled a lot in Italy,so I wouldn’t say I ever get ‘cultural shock’ these days.

    Of course there are some pretty major differences from one end of the country to the other! But I like that…I like the fact that if I go to Alto Adige or Aosta,it feels half like I’m still in Italy, and half that I’m in another country.

  14. Well there is Paris and not Paris, even other big cities are really different. Then you have north/south difference.

    The biggest would be our islands, this is a very different culture, food and lifestyle

  15. Not especially – I mainly struggle with dialectical differences across the UK (including different words being in use). Otherwise it’s all very on par for the course; no huge surprises.

  16. When I, as a Fleming, am in Wallonia or Brussels, I’m always shocked by how dirty, dilapidated and car-oriented their cities are. Like they hate life and themselves. Add to this, the high crime rate in Brussels.

    Compare this to Flanders where almost every larger city is clean, orderly, green, safe and to an extent pedestrian- and bike-friendly.

    As a positive: Brussels has recently started tackling some of these issues, and they have plans to do more in the future, but they still have a long way to go.

  17. i’m from merseyside and DEFINITELY. for example, here chinese takeaways and chippys are one in the same, i didn’t realise that’s not the case for the rest of the country. also, morris dancing is a thing here, i did it when i was younger and today you’ll still see morris dancing groups in town centres performing. we call them high schools and most other places in britian call them ‘secondary schools’, many places in merseyside (my county included) also use ‘pants’ to refer to jeans, leggings, trousers etc, not to refer to knickers/boxers.

  18. All the damn time, especially with food. I was raised by a woman who doesn’t like Polish cuisine and so I have never eaten most things. Nowadays, when a coworker buys something Polish for dinner, I am shocked and internally go, man, you eat that? 😀

  19. Yes. I grew up in a secular big city. My main cultural shock would be in villages in far end of the city. They are much more conservative and it is not hard to notice their eyes one me. Other than only cultural shock would be that each city has their own culture slightly different than neighbouring one. But this one only can be seen if you know someone from that city.

  20. Honestly, no. Sure there are differences depending on where you are in the country, but I have never been “shocked” so to say. At most it will be because of the scenery, geography, and architecture. I feel like Portugal, even with its regional differences, for the most part feels culturally homogeneous. There’s obviously a difference between the more urbanized and more rural areas, but that’s something I already know to expect.

  21. I’m from a small town in Lower Bavaria. Visited Berlin for a day, due to an interview in some IT school. I already had big city experience form Munich.

    It is not like Munich. Most people were actually friendly. Even the drunk homeless person who showed me what ticket i had to buy. He also described the station i had to exit and which direction i had to go. All for some change for the cigarette vending machine. He knew more than the dude at the kiosk.

    I also tried to check out some sights by foot, because i thought, “How big could the inner city possibly be?” ^Narrator: “^Pretty ^fucking ^big”.

  22. I was educated in England so I think telling people I’m actually born in and from Ireland gives them a bit of culture shock. There’s also a fair whack of “Irish” things that completely passed me by, I could only keep up with so much during non-term times and a lot of it (same as in the UK or anywhere else to be fair) were things I just didn’t care about.

  23. As a danish person, that have lived overseas for 7 to 8 years, every time I’m home, and I am right now, saying “Thanks for the food” after every meal feels really strange. And “good night, sleep well” is strange as well. Or maybe that’s from living alone for that long?

  24. Of course! Between northern Italy and southern Italy, it is full of culture shocks. As much as lifestyles have become more and more similar over the course of the twentieth century, there are still important differences, which to an Italian immediately make it clear who is from the south and who is from the north.

    For example, the time at which one shows up for an appointment. In the North, if you say a time, that’s it and you try to arrive on time: sometimes they are so obsessive that they start calling latecomers after five minutes late! In the South, on the other hand, it’s the other way around: the agreed-upon time is understood that FROM THEN ON you will see each other, but it’s okay to be even an hour or two late. In college as a northerner I happened to have appointments with only southerners, show up on time and see them arrive extremely calmly even amazed that I had understood “meet me at 8 p.m.” as actually meeting at 8 p.m.

    Another thing is food: beyond the different regional traditions, there are different ways of calling the same thing and different things called by the same name. For example, “braciola” in the north is a pork chop, in the south it is a roulade. “Ragu” in the north is a sauce made from ground meat, in the south it is the sauce derived from cooking meat. The Italian croissant in the north is the “brioche,” in the south it is the “cornetto” and brioche means another pastry.

  25. From Dublin, and I’m an alternative sort. Going to basically any part of Ireland that isn’t Dublin used to be a shock because people basically looked cross-eyed at me, to put it politely. It isn’t as bad anymore because of modern Internet exposure, but in the early 2000s it was so bad as to be frightening – I’d be followed around by groups of gawking onlookers, and even grown adults would make offensive comments.

    These last 3 years I’ve lived in southern England, and twice I’ve spent some time in the North of England and it’s culture shock all over again but for different reasons; for those unaware of the English North/South cultural divide, it’s quite staggering, almost like two different civilisations divided by a common language.

    Ahem, although northerners are bit rough around the edges compared to the right and proper south, I find thier down-to-Earth and bleak, dry attitude to be very… refreshing.

  26. Stockholm, I never feel like I am in other country when I got to Gotheburg or Malmö, but Stockholm is hard.

    They speak way more Swenglish ( Swedish + English) then other places and you never know when they shift in writing. The problem is they use words that has totally different meaning in Swedish and does has Swedish word.

    I walk passed a sign saying Make till bröllop? Kom hit. Husband for wedding? Come Here. Slavemarket? No, in this case it was Make up for wedding or Make up artist for wedding, Oh and Make up artist in Swedish is sminkös / Sminkör .

    It much harsher place, much more stress , much more going to one place and not looking back.

  27. I am from Berlin, and never really understood the typical stereotypes about Germany. When I went to southern Germany for the first time at 16 I got a bit of a culture shock because you actually had long rows of nice houses, with exspensive cars. Every small town had large industrial areas and it was sometimes hard to understand people talking.

  28. Yes, I grew up in Vienna, so going anywhere else is a bit of a culture shock really. But I feel like the mentality and the humor in the east of Austria are very similar, the further west (or south) you go, the more it’s different and the less I feel at home. In the far western parts, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, I feel almost foreign, because the mentality is so different, be it the approach to life in general, work or social aspects.
    In general, the country side gives me culture shock sometimes. The smaller grocery stores that close at 12pm on a Saturday, how much younger people are when they’re getting married, etc etc.

    Also, people in Austria love to hate on the people in Vienna as whole, so I don’t really feel connected to most parts of the country …

  29. Somewhat. I grew up in southeastern England near London. Much of the rest of the country, even in the south, is quite different in terms of the pace of life, economy, diversity, cultural aspects such as social values, lifestyle, food, accents, etc.

    I got a few minor culture shocks when I studied in the West Country (southwestern England). The traditional West Country accents are not as common anymore, but you can still hear them fairly regularly. They are a rhotic accent just like the Irish or American one, so they pronounce all their r’s. In popular culture, they resemble a “pirate’s” accent (the TV pirate accent was actually inspired by the West Country accent!) So I’d hear people speak that way and I thought they were Irish initially, until I realised they were very much local, they just say things differently.

    Another shock was how comparatively homogenous the West Country is – there’s a lot more ethnic and cultural diversity in the cities like Plymouth and Bristol but even there it’s not comparable to London and the surrounding areas. The Southwest is just very white English in comparison. It feels less globalised and more provincial.

    A third shock was the slow pace of life. The West Country is sparsely populated and filled with beautiful countryside, and of course this reflects in the pace of life. Everything is just slower. There is no rat race, congestion and overcrowding like there is in the southeast. And in the many isolated towns and villages, I found myself bumping into the same people across multiple days. There therefore seemed to be a community spirit and familiarity that you just don’t find much in the southeast of England.

    A fourth shock was that the food quality is generally a lot better – I’ve had some of the best scones, jam, cream, ice cream, cheese, sandwiches, Cornish pasties, and fish and chips in the West Country. Now, you can get these staples around England. Cornish pasties are found everywhere for example. But I found the ingredients were much fresher and the flavours much stronger here compared to what you can get elsewhere.

    The last shocks were in the use of the Cornish language, the unusual place names, the flying of the Cornish flag out in Cornwall, and the architecture. Cornish isn’t spoken regularly in Cornwall but it’s still very much in symbolic use, and that regional heritage is reflected in the place names such as Redruth, Mousehole, Penzance, Zennor, and Lostwithiel. These names don’t resemble names in other parts of England. There was abundant use of the Cornish flag, which reminded me that there is a strong and unique regional pride there. And the architectural styles were quite unique too – there are lots of fishing villages and towns in Cornwall that have distinct clusters of white buildings. On a sunny day, they resemble those whitewashed coastal Greek towns.

    I’ve just evaluated one part of England… I could evaluate quite a few more in comparison to where I grew up, but I’ll leave it at that.

  30. It’s quite easy to experience cultural differences within Norway, especially if you travel across regions, but if it might be called a “culture shock” isn’t sure.

    If I go further into the country people will speak in much more pronounced dialects which usually are hard to understand for the untrained ears, people also have slightly different habits and lifestyles than what I’m used to. I don’t really have to travel far to experience this, but the further I go the more it’ll be obvious. If going over the mountains to the western and other coastal regions the differences will be noticeable, especially for me who’ve been living in the eastern inland all my life. If going up north the differences will be striking, travelling the same distance as I would if I went to say Munich in the other direction. Just going into Oslo might be a culture shock for someone from the countryside or suburbs where available pleasures are all compared to the little you might got where you live, the contrast is enormous as such.

  31. Yes, despite the Netherlands being a small country, there are many cultural, linguistical and religious differences between provinces and even between regions within provinces. Zeeland for example is generally very protestant (Dutch Reformed) and reserved while next door in Brabant they’re catholic and usually more outgoing. They have completely different dialects as well. Liberal, religiously diverse Amsterdam is only 15 km away from conservative Christian Volendam. In Groningen and Drenthe they speak their own varieties of Low Saxon, while in bordering Friesland a lot of people speak Frisian as their day to day language. Except for the capital of Leeuwarden, where (to my knowledge) Frisian isn’t spoken much. These are only a few examples.

    Every city and region has its own distinct identity, which makes us a very diverse country for our size even if you don’t count the many groups of migrants who have come here over the years.

  32. Culture shock suffers from inflation a lot but I experienced a few decades ago. Hitchhiking through the Netherlands a Frysian driver wondered whether I shouldn’t better work with my hands when I told him I studied at university. Later I understood this distrust of those kind of jobs was somethin gin Frysian culture, not just a culture fit for lower education but with an active attitude against it.

    Also in the 90’s the neighbourhoods full of satellite dishes in Amsterdam, the muslim neighbourhoods, I had not imagined this low level of integration possible in the Netherlands, especially not that everybody had already resigned to it.

    The backdoor use in the Achterhoek, the non privacy back garden, that if you ring at the front door people expect a stranger in some official capacity.

  33. All the time especially since Germany is a federal country. So everytime I’m in Bavaria I’m shocked that all the stores are already closed, every time in east Germany I am shocked that people live here, everytime in Berlin I am shocked, everytime in Austria I am shocked this isn’t Germany, everytime I am in northern I am shocked by the amount of tea people trink and the lack of contours in the landscape. And so on and so forth.

  34. Went to London and was shocked that the restaurants all have service charges.

    I’m from the north and people here would complain about it and not return but I’m now having tourists trying to tell me that its normal for the UK to have service charges when it’s very much a London thing. You might come across one ore two places but not every restaurant.

  35. I just spent the weekend in Madrid, and yeah, that was a HUGE culture shock. Particularly because there was a demonstration on Saturday and thousands upon thousands of people walked the streets wearing Spanish flags. Coming from a region where you simply don’t see Spanish flags unless you walk by a government building, it was really shocking to see.

  36. Yes, I was born in small town Southern Italy but grew up in Northern Italy, so I had most of my experiences like schooling, driving, etc in a big city of the North.

    Some years ago I visited Naples for the first time and I couldn’t wrap my head around the level of chaos that governs that city, starting from the traffic of mopeds, a sort of anarchical out of mind bee swarm.

    Even my father, who was born and raised in a city much to the South of Naples, confirmed that the traffic was worse in Naples. It’s basically a microcosm of its own, the good and the bad.

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