As an American, I know there are a lot of things about our daily lives that are incredibly different from the rest of the world — and I absolutely love it when someone points them out, since they seem totally normal to me! Recently, u/Wonderful-Economy762 posed the question to non-Americans over on Reddit, “What’s the strangest thing about America that Americans don’t even realize is weird?” and these 27 responses totally had me nodding along in agreement:
1.
“How all of the currency notes look the same. Ours (in Australia) are all different bright colors and are all easily distinguishable from each other at a glance.”
2.
“My boyfriend (who is Danish) is here in America right now, and he said it’s the constant billboards all over the goddamn roads.”
3.
“Parents drive their kids 300m (just under 1000 feet) to a school bus stop.”
4.
“The toilet doors have huge gaps beneath them. Seems like a built-in viewing panel.”
5.
“When traveling on public transport or through airports, the number of people who are consuming content with the audio blaring out for everyone around them to hear. That’s got to be one of the worst social faux pas possible. Use headphones or mute the device in public. You shouldn’t need to be told.”
6.
“Things are really far apart.”
7.
“Churches everywhere.”
8.
“Walking into a mall and seeing a reminder to ‘leave your guns in the car.'”
9.
“I found it very odd that there were separate employees just to pack your groceries at the till (checkout) in many of the stores I visited.”
10.
“Just impossibly large portions of food. Often enough to make into three separate meals.”
11.
“So many ads for drugs. So many.”
12.
“The price on the shelf is not the actual price you pay because you have to add tax to it. So confusing as a customer. Why can’t they just advertise the actual price, including tax, like virtually every other country in the world does?”
13.
“When we visited California two years ago, one thing that really surprised me was how a lot of simple grocery or pharmacy items like toothpaste, deodorant, or soap are locked behind glass. Where I’m from, those are the most basic everyday things you just pick up off the shelf without thinking. It felt strange needing to track down an employee just to get toothpaste.”
15.
“High fructose corn syrup in all the things.”
16.
“I went with my friend’s sister to cash a check, and it was a drive-thru situation where she stuck it in some kind of pod, which got sucked up and over to the cashier. I guess they put cash in it, and then it got vacuumed back over to her in the car! I was so impressed!”
17.
“Free water and ice.”
18.
“The imperial system. It’s useless and makes no sense.”
19.
“No annual leave. How do you go a year with like five days off?”
20.
“You are all sooooo loud!”
21.
“You can learn ‘English’ in another country and still not understand what people are saying to you, especially when traveling from state to state. Everyone has a different accent and different words they use.”
22.
“Pulling up at a set of traffic lights, looking to my left and seeing a person sleeping in a small tent on the road island next to us. Living next to a couple of other tents between two lanes on each side of them. Every underpass has a little mini village.”
23.
“Fixed showerheads. Every hotel I’ve stayed in has had it. In Ireland, we have handheld showerheads. To be quite honest, not sure how you are to clean yourself with it fixed, as it is.”
24.
“My family says having to specify they want ‘hot’ tea.”
25.
“They say a pledge of allegiance to their flag in schools, which is super weird and culty.”
26.
“The teeth. The perfectly-aligned, impossibly white, overly large teeth. They’re kinda used to it from TV or movies or whatever, but holy shit that looks weird.”
27.
And finally, “The toilets are full of water and weirdly shaped.”
Now I’ve gotta know — if you’re not American, did these things ring true? Did they leave anything out? Let us know in the comments. And if you’d like to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.
Related
Discover more from InstiWitty Media Studios
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
