It's easy for Americans who haven't traveled outside the country to assume citizens in other parts of the world have access to the same amenities offered in the US.
But people who were not born in the States know very well how what a world of difference life in North America is compared to where they've come from.
Curious to hear of the things most Americans take for granted as citizens of the US, Redditor CapitalBread6959 asked:
"Fellow Non-Americans, what is something quite common in the U.S. that is completely unheard of in your own country?"
Americans do drinking differently.
Bottoms Up
"My German friend visited us in college. First party he goes 'THEY DO EXIST!!' and held up our pack of red solo cups. Haha"
– mulljackson
Cup Overruneth
"Free drink refills."
– internetsss
H2O Required
"Every single place with a bar is legally obliged to provide free tap water on demand in England. Most restaurants will give you a pint of tap water with food for free (you do have to specify tap otherwise you get stung with some fancy expensive shite!) Admittedly the measures of alcohol are small here, though, compared to other places."
– anon
Some industries have laxed work protocols compared to in other countries.
Bee-Lining It For Home
"Health care workers going home after work still in scrubs. And washing them at home."
– orebro1234
Work Clothes Stay At Work
"This!! It's so weird to me. Here it's literally forbidden to leave hospital grounds in your work clothes. I would hate having to bring them home and possibly carry some resistant hospital bacteria there with me. Plus you never know how well other people wash theirs, I like it done professionally at the hospital."
– pauliaomi
Making Sense Of It All
"Many moons ago, I did an IT internship at a hospital's service desk and being the intern, was always the one who had to run out and physically check things."
"When I had to go in to work on something in an operating room, I had to put on a full body tyvek suit, gloves, mask, coverings for my shoes, etc."
"Which made sense to me. Except the OR nurses who worked there wood just breeze in and out all day long, wearing the same scrubs they wore commuting to work on the bus."
"That DIDN'T make sense to me."
– caribou16
Meanwhile, over at school...
Dances Don't Happen Everywhere
"Homecoming, Sadie Hawkins, Winter Formal, Prom..."
"We have none of this, the closest thing is the graduation itself."
– badeksha
American Educators
"Teachers buying school stuff so they can teach."
– comicsnerd
The way certain things work in the US definitely raised eyebrows.
Feeding The Sink
"This thing were the kitchen sink has teeth."
– PoetPont
Going Nowhere Fast
"As a Dutchy, driving a car and turning right on a red light. That messed with my head. If you do that here you are gonna hit at least 5 cyclists."
– CowabungaNL
My Japanese cousin always comments on how Americans are friendly and are more open to striking up a conversation as opposed to citizens in Japan, where they prefer to keep to themselves and be captivated by their smartphones out in public.
As an introvert and one who can't stand small talk, I actually loved being left alone whenever I was in Japan riding the subway and walking about the city. Nothing against engaging with other people, but I found the quiet and my personal space being respected to be very calming.
People Break Down The Weirdest Things They've Ever Seen While Traveling
Traveling to other countries comes with a lot of culture shock.
Certain things can leave an impression on you, and are different depending on where you go.
But there are some things so strange that they can't be attributed to simply culture shock.
And these Redditors experienced them firsthand.
Redditor Yokeyoyo asked:
"Redditors who have been out of their home country, what's the weirdest thing you've seen?"
Holy sh*t!
"I lived in Barcelona for four years, and their Christmas traditions are weird."
"Firstly, there's the Caganer. The Caganer is a little dude that you place in your nativity scene, who is standing with his pants around his ankles, mid-sh*t. Literally, his name comes from the verb cagar, meaning 'to sh*t'. This pops up a lot in Catalonia."
"The best part is that you can get non-traditional caganers too, so it's not at all uncommon to see pop-culture figures like politicians (or... well, basically anyone you can think of) just taking a dump behind the manger where Baby Jeus is doing his thing."
"Then there's the Caga Tío, which is a happy, smiling Christmas log... that children hit with a stick until it sh*ts candy, all while singing a song about how much they're going to beat the sh*t out of this log until it gives them what they want."
- Caga tió!
- Caga torró,
- avellanes i mató,
- si no cagues bé
- et daré un cop de bastó.
- Caga tió!
(in English)
- Sh*t, log!
- Sh*t turrón,
- hazelnuts and mató,
- If you don't sh*t well,
- I'll hit you with a stick!
- Sh*t, log!
"There's a lot of poop in a Barcelona Christmas."
- Portarossa
GiphyNot uncommon in NYC.
"A man and woman in their underwear holding up a sign in New York."
"Welcome to Times Square"
Sassy Irish kids.
"I got called a f*cking a**hole by a 5 year old on a bike with training wheels in Belfast."
"Belfast is awesome. I was headed back to my friends house when I got very slightly disoriented and stopped on a street corner and looked at the street signs around me. Some kid (maybe 10?) stops and says 'What's the matter America? Can't find your hamburger?'"
"I just automatically replied 'I'm Canadian' and the little sh*t didn't lose a beat. He came back with 'You're really lost then, we don't even have a maple syrup shop'."
"We both laughed like idiots."
GiphyA long ways away.
"Not seen, but heard because I was asked what part of France I was from."
"I'm British."
"I was in San Diego."
At least he looked the part.
"Late one night in Shinjuku, Tokyo, I witnessed a Japanese pimp screaming at a prostitute a solid 8" taller than him. He looked like the stereotypical pimp, from the fur coat and cane right down to the Cadillac. It blew my f*cking mind."
"I'm not sure which parts of that I'm most surprised about hearing from Japan."
Whoa...
"Tanks casually rolling down the street and guys with machine guns patrolling in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. They tell you to not leave the town because Guerrero has a lot of cartel activity."
"The first thing I noticed about Iceland when I left the Keflavik airport was the near-absolute lack of trees. The whole island has almost no trees. I'm from Appalachia, so that was really odd for me."
That's one way to sell.
"I was walking down a street in Thailand and a hooker on the other side of the street yelled 'WON'T SOMEBODY COME F*CK ME?'."
....thank you?
"Walking down a street in Mannheim, Germany and had an older man pull up near me on a bicycle. He rang his bell twice and very directly looked at me and just said, 'Hübsch'. He then rode off casually ahead of me."
"For reference I'm a 6'6" guy (198cm) and a man in his 50s-60s just called me pretty in German. I mean, I am pretty, but no one says it."
GiphyUm...excuse me?
"Chinese toddlers wearing pants with no butt. The world is their potty...."
"Ah yes. I remember standing in line for tickets to some attraction in Beijing and the mother behind us picked up her toddler and held him over a trash can a few feet away while he took a dump. Nobody batted an eye."
A very trusting country.
"A blackout drunk dude in a train in Japan with his wallet full of cash and phones on the floor. When the train was getting full of working dudes and students they just asked him to sit up straight. He didn't lose his stuff and didn't really cause trouble. This was a Thursday morning."
"I was in Tokyo in September. I saw bicycles just propped up against posts and the like. No locks."
"And people mostly don't pay with plastic, so they tend to carry quite large amounts of cash. Japan is mostly a very safe place."
Farnsworthson
Seems a little dangerous.
"I was down in Guatemala and saw a family of 5 riding a single motorcycle."
GiphyThat would traumatize me.
"Cuy in Peru. Aka fried guinea pig on a stick. Especially when there were batches of them being waved and set up by people on the side of the road trying to sell them. It's not just the meat either, it's the entire body including all the limbs with the pole stuck through its mouth. I learned about it in Spanish class so I wasn't too shocked but my family was."
That's interesting.
"Travelling on trains in Europe, there were many instances where European teenagers spoke in their mother-tongue but swore in English."
"So you would hear the English words f*ck, cu*t, sh*t, a**hole etc... sprinkled into the conversation."
Milkshake in a bag?
"It's very typical in southern Mexico to get a plastic bag as the default 'to go' drink receptacle for juice or sodas. When I went to Guatemala tho, I was a bit thrown when they gave me a milkshake in a bag."
GiphyIncongruous indeed.
"There are several, but the first that comes to mind is the flyers from the hip-hop club in the town I was living in in Germany. It's not like there was a military base nearby, so the whole Germans/hip-hop thing seemed incongruous."
"Fridays were theme nights at the club, but whoever thought them up didn't quite have their terms down right. My personal favorite: 'Afro Centric Boat Party'."
"Also, in Miami which isn't technically out of my home country (the US) but might as well be: while moving into grad student housing I saw smoke coming out of the window of the apartment below mine."
"There wasn't a ton of it, but there was enough that I thought something might be wrong so I ran downstairs and banged on the door. When the door was opened I saw a couple about my age and an older man dressed all in white, glaring at me."
"I had interrupted a Santeria house-cleansing ceremony."
Traveling can offer quite a bit of culture shock.
Do you have similar experiences to share?
Let us know in the comments below.
Comedian Hasan Minhaj Explains The Powerful Reason He Decided To Correct Ellen's Pronunciation Of His Name
Do you remember when Hasan Minhaj corrected Ellen DeGeneres on the pronunciation of his name?
It was around April, and it was one of my favorite moments from this year.
Ellen says Hasan's name wrong. Hasan says "No."
Ellen says "Yes." And then he teaches her how to say his name right.
It was a great moment and sparked a great conversation.
Hasan Minhaj Uses Timothée Chalamet's Name at Starbucks www.youtube.com
Recently, this moment was brought up again and contextualized on the Netflix show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.
Hasan received a question about using the correct pronunciation of his name, and how difficult it is to switch back after years of an Americanized pronunciation.
And the response is as touching as it is funny.
Hasan is out here trying to live. https://t.co/6xe96a9QY7 https://t.co/K3nSLzc5nV— Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (@Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj) 1576871542.0
“our parents were always trying to survive but i’m just trying to live” All of this: https://t.co/fmwcYejR43— Aman Chaudhary - Art (@Aman Chaudhary - Art) 1577179368.0
That difference in 'survival' and 'living' as key generational difference is on point. Our generation has the privi… https://t.co/cLA1KUcKNR— Uz (@Uz) 1577139384.0
YES! If People will go out of their way to pronounce high end brands to sound fancy they can pronounce my foriegn a… https://t.co/sVJtQJbflH— illie (@illie) 1577109551.0
From there, he explains his history with his name in the entertainment industry. At one point he used the name Sean because a host for an open mic show told him no one would be able to pronounce it.
He's slowly reclaimed his name, moving from 'Sean' to an Americanized version of 'Hasan' to finally holding people to pronouncing it correctly.
Minhaj is now standing strong on having his name pronounced right.
YES! If People will go out of their way to pronounce high end brands to sound fancy they can pronounce my foriegn a… https://t.co/sVJtQJbflH— illie (@illie) 1577109551.0
@hasanminhaj This is awesome. Thank you for not changing your name.— Adi Shankar (@Adi Shankar) 1554431068.0
When I was younger, I used to think my name was too difficult to pronounce and it would just be easier to Americani… https://t.co/8m1x9KUCHN— mamta (@mamta) 1577050454.0
@KamalKa13475386 @hasanminhaj I keep a running list of all the ways Starbucks and other places misspell my name. I… https://t.co/OybAYc4hi1— Teresa Huang (@Teresa Huang) 1554651580.0
It's funny because his father chastised him for spending so much time on his name. Which is understandable, but it's also understandable why Hasan would push to have people say his name right.
As he explains it:
"I think that's the big difference between our generation and our parents' generation. They're always trying to survive... But I'm trying to live."
"So I'm gonna go on Ellen, the most American show ever, and make you hit all the syllables."
This move encouraged others to share their own stories about their names.
@VV4Change @patriotact I had a sub in high school who was doing attendance, completely butchered my name, looked ar… https://t.co/epm7Zx03ig— Mari Kina (@Mari Kina) 1577005973.0
@sureshtrumpet @patriotact @AimaNiqabae I appreciate this, too. Impersonating immigrant parents' accents has become… https://t.co/ca3a0DNhLn— Nick (@Nick) 1577059333.0
@patriotact so long saying it a different way. i even wrote an essay on my name last year just like prav did lol. i… https://t.co/rei3J1Vwty— رنا 🌹 (@رنا 🌹) 1577110383.0
@Adam_g1590 @patriotact Thanks for sharing! He sums it up perfectly - including the difference between generations.— Dr Amira Aftab (@Dr Amira Aftab) 1577099602.0
It's understandable in our society to not have an immediate grasp on a name you aren't familiar with. Despite the mixture of cultures in the U.S. there is still an insulating effect we have on foreign cultures influencing us.
However, if you refuse to make an effort to learn someone's name, you're doing more damage than you might think. It ranges from microaggression to an active erasure of someone's history.
Take the time to learn the right pronunciation. It's the simplest act of respect you can do.
Hasan Minhaj's album Homecoming King is available here.