15 Stories of People Who Felt Weird in Another Country

They eat strange things, get scared in the most common situations and don’t understand what is asked of them. Who are we talking about? From foreigners, of course. And many times we are the ones in that role. Virtually everyone can tell a few stories about how we communicate with residents of other countries. And it is unlikely that during a trip abroad, funny situations did not happen due to differences in traditions and mentalities.

But these situations can be a reason to learn more about other cultures, be surprised by the unusual habits of foreigners and even laugh at yourself. That’s what the awesome.club proposes that you do at this time.

I work at a Chinese medicine center. A regular customer brought her masseuse a gift: homemade jam. The Chinese man did not understand the essence of the gift, and during the massage session he put the jelly on the client’s back.

Once, in Antalya, Turkey, I decided to go to the local market and buy souvenirs. After walking around for a few hours, I went to a local store. The seller turned out to be an interesting interlocutor, we talked with him for an hour. In the process, we trade like an angel and a devil for a sinner’s soul.

The next day I realized I needed to buy another present and went to see my friend from the day before. Along the way, I figured the carved plate I bought for $40 would make a good reference point.

In the store, I immediately grabbed a similar, but smaller plate and, having put about 30 dollars in front of the seller, went to the exit.

– That is wrong! “I heard it behind my back.

The salesman was on his feet, reaching out towards me and shaking his head sadly.

“You paid well, but what about bargaining? And talk like yesterday? And invite your friend for a good cup of coffee? That is wrong…

I live and work in Denmark. I can name, without thinking too hard, at least 10 acquaintances who in the last 3 years have taken leave due to stress. Honestly, I really don’t know what it means and what should happen for the condition “I’m tired of everything” to become stress.

The Danes say something about palpitations, headaches and poor sleep. Furthermore, it is not just managers with urgent projects who suffer from stress: in the team next door, a colleague who is reportedly lazy, who cannot carry out a simple task with step-by-step instructions, took a two-month leave of absence due to palpitations caused by stress. . Managers take this very leniently: they care and feel sorry for you.

We were on vacation in Thailand and during breakfast we asked them to cook an egg for our son. The cooks simply cracked the egg in boiling water and brought us a shapeless mass with the question: “How can he like this?”

In China there is a sweet consisting of fruit on a stick, covered in caramel. It is very tasty and sold close to any shopping center. Every time we buy a toothpick, the seller wraps it in a transparent film, similar to hard polyethylene, and puts it in an envelope.
of paper.

And every time it costs us a lot to remove it, because it breaks and crumbles into small pieces. We cursed the Chinese every time it happened to us.

Today we learned that this “envelope” is edible, made of sugar and gelatin.

In Delhi, everyone wants money. The Krishnas you photographed as souvenirs and even those you politely asked to tell you how to get to the subway.

— Where is place X?

“Right and then left. It’s 500 rupees.

In my country, I lived in a rich family: good education, own apartment at 16 years old. But if for any of us children the payback came out wrong (in our favor), the fact was considered by the adults as a small victory in the lottery. Later, when I was a college student, I found a huge, expensive ring in a theater, and it never crossed my mind to take it to the box office.

In December it’s been 4 years since I’ve been living in Norway and I work in a small shop, the only one in our town. Every day people lose something: glasses, wallets, keys, gloves, bracelets. 90% of these objects are found by the store’s customers. They always take everything to the cashiers, we put it in a conspicuous place, and the object is waiting for its owner.

We have a wallet with cards, a pair of gold rings and a bracelet: gold, but boyish, pink (we believe the owner will show up next summer when she comes on vacation).

All my life I dreamed of visiting Paris: walking through famous places, alleys and parks, feeling the romanticism of the city. The biggest dream was to see the lights of the Eiffel Tower at night.

Finally, I was there. It was 9 pm, I was very excited. And suddenly, at the foot of the tower, from the shore, many mice began to appear. They tore up garbage bags, fought, ran to cafes or to passers-by. Tourists, instead of taking pictures of the beauty of the tower, took pictures of them. I ran with chills down my back as fast as I could. The romanticism evaporated in a second.

My friend met a friend from her school.

– Hi girl! How is your life in the Netherlands?

“Terrible boredom. The other day my husband and I were watching television at night and suddenly he felt that the sofa had become uncomfortable. He called the furniture store and ordered a new sofa, and in the morning he was already at home.

— What is it that you don’t like?

“Like what?” There is no intrigue! It’s boring

The red berries in the photo are cherry tomatoes. It is strange, but the Chinese have equivalence of this type of tomato with the fruit. They prepare fruit salad with them, make smoothies with milk. When they cut all kinds of fruits, they also include tomatoes.

I met some guys from South Africa who had been touring Slavic countries for quite some time. And their food culture is very different from ours, like fried salty bananas and stuff.

They were surprised that we ate mushrooms, and even more so in those quantities and forms. And they said something like: “We knew that somewhere in the north there were Vikings who ate mushrooms and went crazy, but we can’t believe that Europeans cook absolutely nothing except desserts.”

I want to tell you about a family friend. He is Arab, studied in Lumumba. In addition, he for some time he lived and studied in the UK. Like most Moroccans, he speaks French and Arabic. After long wanderings, he decided to settle in Russia. He met a girl from Siberia who taught Russian to foreigners. Years later, he bought a small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow and began living there with his Russian wife.

Once he went to visit his wife’s family in Siberia. We called him, but he didn’t answer. We managed to communicate with the family and they explained to us: “Abdul Kader is with his uncle in the forest. Yesterday he killed a bear and today he went to fix the hut. He went to the ski forest, there is no sign there”.

An Arab from Africa went skiing to repair a hut during the Siberian winter. My world will never be the same after this.

If you are a white tourist, in India you can feel like a celebrity. You will get admiring looks and many requests to take a selfie next to you. I chose the best selfie that I decided to duplicate with my cell phone.

Many Indians were too shy to approach and just greeted from afar. But as soon as they saw someone taking a picture with us, they would immediately come running and ask us to take a selfie with them, their grandmother, their son, their grandson or their wife. We weren’t denying anyone photos, we were all having fun.

A friend is now somewhere in Vietnam, went to a temple. There was a bell there. Next to it was a single sign, in just one language.

“Don’t ring the bell. Thanks”.

When I started working at the hotel, all the foreigners scared me a little. One day we got a Korean. He smiles a lot. And he didn’t understand a word of Spanish or English.

It took an hour to check in. We talked like this: he wrote the questions on a piece of paper, passed it through a translator and he answered aloud what the same corrector answered. He stayed at our hotel for 4 days. On the fifth day, when I was about to continue my journey, I prepared some notes for him, in case he got lost on the way.

It started like this:

“Good morning, if you are in the city of X and you are reading this, it means that Korean has lost its way. Please show him the way to the station and, if possible, accompany him to the train.”

And followed:

“If you work on the train, please don’t forget to wake up the Korean gentleman so he doesn’t pass your station.”

And it ended with:

“If you are a taxi driver, take the Korean gentleman to the hotel where he was staying. And yes, he doesn’t understand Spanish or English.”

And have you ever been in uncomfortable or just plain funny situations related to foreigners? Share them with us in the comments.