City zoning.
Oh, i have to drive from single family zone to commercial district to pick up a loaf of bread. Then drive to education district to drop kids at kindergarten, and finally to business district to work. At the end of the day i hang out at bar/entertainment district with the guys from work to have a beer, but there's no public transport so I have to drink alcohol free so I can drive back home. That's only 120 miles in a day!
The way politicians and the political system nakedly serves the needs and interests of corporations and the wealthy, and not the average individual.
The way that the price you're quoted invariably gets bumped up by various taxes.
The insane system that is tipping, including the fact that a lot of workers are so underpaid that they rely on tips to get by.
The incessant adverts on TV for medical products, particularly prescription drugs.
Voting registration. I get a letter that I can vote and what the options are. Then on voting day, which is on a Sunday, because why would it be on any other day, I just walk into my town hall with that letter and my ID card, put down my crosses and leave. It's like a walk in the park, often quite literally.
Grocery baggers. I'm German - we pack our own bags over here and most customers do NOT like others to fondle their groceries. We literally do not have any "baggers" in any supermarket, and if a cashier packs a customer's bags without being specifically asked to do so (basically never happens) the customer will take that as an insult - as if you're trying to say they don't get out of your sight fast enough / that you want to speed up their departure to get rid of them, or that you don't think they're capable of that super basic, simple task. It's considered rude and condescending.
A cashier is expected to scan the stuff the customer wants to buy, take payment, hand over the receipt and change, and then leave the customer and their groceries alone.
they have an insane amount of gun and gun related deaths They don't have Universal Healthcare they don't have a federal payed leave law they don't have a maternal/paternal leave law they don't have tuition free universities they don't have decent mass transportation The use of the imperial system
It just doesn't make sense and baffles my mind for the richest country in the world to treat it's citizens like this
Restaurant tipping instead of decent wages; somehow the blame is on the "stingy" customer
Okay now I'm stretching the OPs idea a little bit, but America is big.
How people live in South America never needing to learn other language than Spanish and plausibly never interacting with a foreign language outside movies. I spent some time in Chile, the place I lived in had a nice janitor. He did not speak English, I only knew a few loose words in Spanish so communication was... peculiar. Only after 2 months of awkward interactions he realised, that I probably am not Spanish native speaker and it hit me.
When your entire life in a continent where everyone speaks flavours of Spanish or Portugese, you can have successful, international career only in Spanish, participate in all kinds of rich culture only in Spanish and all signs and labels are only in Spanish, huge majority of tourists speak Spanish... it is not immediately obvious, that people may not speak Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, it's not dunking on "dumb spanish speakers". There are ton of places in Europe where people disregard English, where it's famously hard to communicate in anything other than the local language, but the fact, that other languages exist is apparent to everyone once they learn to read. Awareness that people actually speak these languages is the most natural knowledge from ground school as we learn that "Germany speaks German. Italy speaks Italian" etc. A perspective which does not involve being in constant proximity to numerous foreign languages felt like something that made no sense to me in the past until I actually came into contact with it.
Electing positions that require specialized skills or have judiciary authority. You elect your law enforcement, your judges, your fucking dog catchers. What the fuck?? Is it so hard to come up with a meritocratic method of selecting a fucking dog catcher that you must just throw your hands up and just ask random people what to do?!
Cheap wooden houses in areas with termites
And no insulation, so you rely on expensive AC
Tipping
Very large cars. You can easily fit 5 people in a small car.. lol.
Your voting system. Registering to vote? Wtf is this? Here you get your "ticket" to vote, by mail, automatically after you turn 18, a few weeks before the election date. And you are required by law to get time off, to vote, if youre otherwise unable to make it in time.
Also paying for education.. lol. Here its all free. In fact, im getting paid to study. (Not a ton but enough to get by)
My experience is from Canada, but Canada is in America so it should count:
- insane amounts of empty space. It's one thing to know that in America several hours drive doesn't count as "far away", another to experience it.
- guns. Not like in "them americans only shoot themselves", but like in "any hardware store carries full gamut of weapon-adjacent accessories and it's normal" wtf mates, you can't keep your murder machines confined to murder machine shops? We manage to do it with porn and sex toys in Europe (at least my part of it), sure you can too with guns?
- malls. We do have malls in Europe. I still don't get them, but it is a choice to go there. Where I lived in Canada it was the only shopping option. Why not corner shops? These suburbs waste a ton of space, no one has ever thought in a capitalist brain "hey let's put a shop closer to the people and charge them more because they burn less fuel and waste less time to get here"?
- And a very specific nitpick: calling places "european" like a point of pride while in fact they are rather not. Quebec City and Montreal I think both pride themselves on being "the most europe-like cities in north america" and... they're not europe-like? Like, ok, the old town is nice, but that's it.
Absolute hostility against pedestrians. Or not-driving in general. It seems you are unworthy of public services if you don’t own a car in the US.
Pickup trucks everywhere. No public transportation usually. General Tso's chicken is a typical Chinese food you get. Weed products are available almost everywhere legally. Light beer. No proper lager beer even in small breweries. How people drive. No sidewalks most of the time. The whole health industry. Electric sockets. So many churches. The general war against trans people. The general war against women.
Cars. You seem to buy cars like smartphones( actualy probably even worse since buying phone on credit dosent seem to be as common nowadays ) . If you can afford the credit payment for the card dosent mean you can afford the car. In fact why everyone buys stuff on credit cards in the US . It seems insane to me to go to debt for a stupid cofee.
Americans seem very "fighty" compared to people from many other countries. You just have to say something that could be construed as liberal (the American kind) or conservative, too politically correct or incorrect, or mention you ride a bicycle or have an outdoor cat, to set some people off. With some Americans having a conversation is like navigating a minefield, especially those who have very little understanding of the rest of the world and reads everything you say into an American context, language barriers and all.
I love talking politics, and have had pleasant conversations with all kinds of people but I have learned from experience to just not bother with Americans, unless they're the very curious and open kind.
Everything in this thread so far is normal stuff I could have guessed. Guns, metric, tipping, etc. Most of it has large groups of people in the country that agree, or at least know.
What are some non-obvious things? Culture shock isn't about major political issues. It's about universal things that turn out to not be universal.
For example, US people have a strong culture of how standing in line works. It's basically a moral sin to butt in line unless you have someone holding your place. This is universal in the country. My understanding is that other countries differ. Is that true?
Worshipping guns.
It's such a strange contradictory place. You pride yourself in freedom of speech but are so puritanical you refer to using the toilet as 'using the restrooms' and 'taking a comfort break'. Everyone knows you're going in there to crimp one off, not to have a comfortable rest in a designated room.
The fraternity and sorority thing at universities is really odd too. I don't really know what they're for aside from providing a dedicated environment for abuse via the deceptively amiable name of 'hazing'.
And referring to all your sports competitions as World Championships when the only teams that play are American. Bit cringey. I mean, you probably would win if there was an actual international basketball or baseball or american football competition, but at least the World Champion thing would actually mean something then.
"Panties"
Ick.
