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american food

via Canva/Photos and Person with No Name/Flickr

A bathroom sign and a large billboard for a lawyer.

Americans who haven’t spent much time abroad are probably unaware of the culture shock many people feel when they travel to the good ol’ U.S.A. The interesting thing is that it provides people who live in the U.S. a unique perspective on the American way of life that we may not notice otherwise.

People love many things about the United States, whether it’s the freedom to start a business, its gregarious people, the world-class entertainment, or it's movies or theme parks such as Disneyland or Universal Studios. People also love visiting the U.S. because of the country’s amazing national parks.

However, as in any country, America does have some unique quirks that separate it from the rest of the world. People who come to America are usually taken aback by the large portions you get at restaurants, the brazen commercialization of everything, and the fact that we love having plenty of ice in our drinks.


A group of non-Americans who have recently visited the country sounded off on some of the “strange” aspects of American life that people born here may overlook. They did so in response to a Reddit question on the Productivity Cafe subforum: “Non-Americans who have visited the US: What’s the strangest thing about America that Americans don’t even realize is weird?”

Here are 15 things non-Americans find “strange” about the country that those born in the U.S. probably don’t realize are a little weird.

1. Bathroom stalls

"It's always the first time you head to the bathroom at the airport right after you land and see how the stalls are. You might not even be legally in the country yet and you're already having the most awkward sh*t of your life."

"Coming from a civilized northern European country.....the f**king public bathroom stalls! That is some weird and frankly disturbingly primitive design and aesthetic choice to force people to interact with."

2. Tax and tip

"Having to add tax to grocery prices and tipping at restaurants!"

"Absolutely infuriating, and the original point of tipping to reward exceptional service is completely lost. People should be paid by their employer for working."

"I'm not against the tax, but I can't stand the lack of transparency. I need to see the final price on the shelf, not at checkout."


server, restaurant, tips, waiter tips, customer service, tipping cultureA server carrying a tray of food.via Canva/Photos

3. Terrible walkability

"How un-walkable it is. What do you mean it’s easier to drive 10 mins than walk 5?"

"The horrific lack of sidewalks in my town minimizes where I can safely walk. It's infuriating."

4. The brashness of its culture

"How big and brash everything is. I used to drive from Ontario to Michigan. The highway in Canada was just farmland. The second I crossed the border there were big, loud billboards everywhere. With all uppercase letters, it felt like yelling. 'EAT HERE!' 'SHOP NOW!' The portions are huge. The number of fast-food restaurants in a one block radius is huge. Everything just feels so big and loud."

5. The homeless population

"It's shocking to see so many homeless people and drug addicts everywhere, it's worse than many third world countries."

"People convinced themselves that shutting down the state hospitals was the compassionate thing to do, then they went about their lives patting themselves on the back, ignoring the consequences. Even today, the groups that want to feel like they are helping are really just enabling further human suffering. It's very sad, but the solutions that other countries find perfectly reasonable (essentially committing people against their will) Americans are resistant to."

6. Americans are loud

"I live in a Canadian tourist town frequented by U.S. tourists. They are so incredibly loud everywhere; restaurants, museums, galleries, on the street. They always stand out. It's like the entire country is hard of hearing. It's very unpleasant for the rest of us. I have a friend who worked for an American cruise ship line. He had to quit because he could not stand how loudly the U.S. passengers spoke. Americans should be told this. It's very unpleasant."


7. Gas station commercials

"The ads blasting [at] you at gas stations stress me out so much that I have to leave the vicinity."

"Legally, every Gas Station has to have a mute button for this! It’s usually not labeled, but I just press buttons until the video is muted. Works everytime!"

8. Huge portion sizes

"The portion sizes! My 2 daughters and I learned to only order 1 entree. And we are all big eaters."

"Some restaurants here won't let you split an entree. Or they will charge you extra to split it. Absolutely everything is monetized."

9. The number of guns

"In states like Texas? It is best to assume they are. I have lived in 7 states and this is the first one where I see open carry everywhere I go. Nothing like Denny's after church with being strapped."

"I've had a customer accidentally leave their gun behind at a RESTAURANT before."

10. Paper plates

"I found Americans using paper plates in their own homes very strange."

"I am American and only used them for picnics and don't understand how many people use them exclusively, either."


paper plates, dinner ware, us culture, fruit, fruit on plates, Fruit on paper plates.via Canva/Photos

11. Pharmaceutical ads

"I always hear from foreigners that it’s weird we have ads for medications… And I can’t stop thinking about it. Because it is freaking weird."

"Ask your doctor about... Shouldn't the doctor be asking me?"

"Advertisements for medicines. They come across as really cheesy and bizarre/shonky. In the UK, it just wouldn't need to be advertised. If you need it, your healthcare professional gives it to you, and if you don't need it, you don't need to know about it. You wouldn't base your medical care decisions on what has been advertised at you."

12. Litigation

"The result is there are so many rules concerning what you may not do in case you hurt yourself."

13. Cinnamon rolls

"I don't know if it's still a thing but when I visited in the '90s, there were cinnamon rolls everywhere, even in Taco Bell. And i loooved them omg. Everywhere my mum and I went we ordered cinnamon roll thingys and ate them until the last day if the trip where we turned totally sick of cinnamon, like the very smell made us nauseous. They don't seem to exist in Australia...or maybe they do in specialist bakeries... but after that trip I did not eat one again. And i never see these delicious desserts in any Hollywood movies or Netflix TV shows. So even now, I wonder if I dreamt them...."


14. The sheer number of flags

"Flags, flags everywhere. I get it at government buildings, maybe international sporting events. We do it there too. But I feel there’s no spot I can stand in public without at least one flag in eyeshot. Or even on clothing. There also seem to be a lot of secondary flags besides the main US one, I assume for state?"

"Not necessarily that weird but you guys sure love that flag. It’s god damn everywhere."

15. Ads for lawyers

"The first thing I noticed was all the billboard advertising for compensation lawyers. Almost no other type of advertising. Like, I knew that suing people was a big thing in the US. I just didn't realise that most of those cringy ads would be on giant billboards. I suppose it's not something that makes it to a tv series."

Identity

Sorry Italian food lovers. America is about to have a new favorite ethnic food.

"This was the first time that we have ever seen...this change happen in a generation.”

Girl in a denim top enjoying some pizza

Italian food has been a staple of the American diet for the past 200 years. We eat pizza when we’re having a party. When it’s time for a romantic dinner, we break out the checkered tablecloth and sip some wine while enjoying a fine bolognese sauce. Heck, one of the best characters on “The Sopranos” was the food.

However, even though Italian food is such a big part of American culture, it appears as though it’s going to be taking a backseat to other ethnic foods in the near future.

According to Datassential, a Chicago-based market research firm, millennials (ages 27 to 42) rank Mexican food as their favorite ethnic cuisine over Italian, and Gen Z (8 to 23) agrees, with Chinese in second and Italian in third. Baby Boomers and Gen X still say that Italian is numero uno.


“This was the first time that we have ever seen, since we've been studying consumers, this change happen in a generation,” Mike Kostyo, associate director of Datassential, the Chicago-based market research firm that released the report, told VOA News. “I think the most surprising thing was just how passionate Gen Z’s affinity for Mexican cuisine was…and to see that happen in a relatively short amount of time. I mean, that was huge.”

A big reason for America’s sudden palette change is the country’s changing demographics. Latinos are among the fastest-growing population segments in the United States, having nearly doubled in size since 2000. So not only are more people eating Mexican food because of their culture of origin, but people who aren’t of Latino descent are being exposed to the cuisine and falling in love.

Another reason is social media, where younger people are exposed to different foods because people love sharing pictures of what they eat.

Chinese people are also well-represented in the U.S. and are the third largest origin group among U.S. immigrants, behind Mexico and India.

America’s growing love of Mexican and Chinese foods is another example of the beautiful benefit of living in a country where people are all about sharing their cultures.

Enjoying the tastes of other countries and regions is a lovely experience and it also opens the doors to greater cultural understanding. What starts with food can lead to an appreciation of language, music, fashion, and history. One of the biggest reasons why people travel to other countries is to enjoy their cuisine, and once their stomachs are full, appreciation of their culture is sure to follow.

“Where before maybe the go-to comfort food item, or classic traditional item, might have been a pizza, if you were opening a classic, everybody-loves-it restaurant...it would have been a pizza operation,” Kostyo says. “I think in the future, it's going to be a taco operation. That will be the go-to.”

Italian food's declining popularity in America isn’t a knock on the cuisine itself but more of a positive note in the history of American culture. As our population becomes more diverse, so do our food choices, leading to a broader tapestry of experiences for us all to enjoy.

Things non-Americans just don't understand.

A recent viral Reddit thread revealed the everyday American customs that people in other countries have a difficult time understanding. There were so many things that were perplexing to people from other countries that the thread had more than 28,000 responses.

But don’t worry, it isn’t a long list of America bashing. It’s a fun list of things people across the world genuinely wonder about that gives a unique perspective on things we all take for granted.

The thread was started by Reddit user Surimimimi, who asked, “What things do Americans like and the rest of the world not so much?” Many of the responses were from Europeans who have a hard time appreciating certain American customs, cuisines and public facilities.


A big thing that non-Americans find unusual about Americans is our outspokenness. The commenters noted that Americans love speaking their minds on bumper stickers, lawn signs or telling somebody in public how they feel.

That’s probably because Americans are much more individualistic than Europeans. A Pew Research study from 2016 found that Americans are much more likely than our friends across the pond to believe they control their destiny and that it takes hard work to get ahead. Americans are also a lot more tolerant of offensive speech.

The American diet is also confusing to a lot of people. A lot of commenters pointed out that they have a hard time understanding America's love of ice-cold drinks and odd food combinations such as peanut butter and jelly or chicken and waffles.

But if everyone in the world was the same it would be a pretty boring place. So, as they say in France, “vive la différence!” which, in American English means, “Do your thing, man.”

Here are 19 things that Americans like and the rest of the world, not so much.

1.

"College sports. Particularly football and basketball. The rest of the world loves soccer, but nobody gives a hoot about it at the university level." — Scrappy_Larue

2.

"Opinion signs outside their houses. Like 'in this house we support...' I find it weird and unusual." — Bitten Onion

3.

"Bumper stickers." — Back2Bach

To which assortednut added:

"Sometimes I get the impression people put their entire political philosophy in the space of a bumper sticker."

4.

"This used to be much more prevalent in the US but food coloring. When I moved from Japan to the US, I was surprised at how colorful their foods were. These days Americans are now more keen to organic natural stuff so I see it less but it took me a while to realize that blue raspberry is not a real thing." — Awesome Asian

5.

"Root beer and ranch dressing. I brought some to Germany and had my friends try it and they said the root beer tasted like medicine. They politely tasted the dressing with celery and said 'Hmmm, interesting' but the look on their faces was that it was terrible ha." — nargleflargle

6.

"Cheerleaders." — liebe_rootBete

7.

"ICE. Filled till the brim before you pour any drink." — locoliga

8.

"24-hour stores. I was in Chicago working with a colleague from Switzerland who suddenly realized around midnight that he needed a network cable to configure a mobile router for a job the next morning. I told him that I'd meet him in the hotel lobby to drive him out to Walmart. He was happily surprised, as he had forgotten about the US's famous chain of Walmart stores." — Fondren_Richmond

9.

"Waffles with chicken." — glori-hallelujah

10.

"MM-DD-YYYY Date format." — javapyscript

11.

"Peanut butter and jelly." — FlyBuy3

12.

"Flags. So many American flags everywhere." — justmyfakename

13.

"Free soda refills at dine-in places." — Lostarchitorture

14.

"Free public restrooms. I know they're gross but they are nice to have." — vebidib774

15.

"Marching bands. If you’d played the flute in a marching band at my school you would have gotten pelted but in the US you can become a state hero." — Fuzzie_Lee

16.

"Handicap accessiblity. Old buildings/towns in Europe are nice, if both your legs work." — boxatel499

17.

"Lawns...what a waste." — TheFarce_Sighed

18.

"I'd like to say optimism, even if it's blind sometimes. The CAN DO attitude is extremely strong. I would also put belligerence up there for better or worse. That 'Get the f*ck out of my face, I'm not paying for / doing that' attitude. Whether you actually can or not, the American culture makes you feel like you can really do anything. Again, it's a double-edged sword but you'll seldom find an American who's just going to lay down and take someone's sh*t or heed someone who says (to your aspirations) 'You can't.'" — facobi8356

19.

"The switch for the bathroom is INSIDE the bathroom." — [deleted]