Winter driving and shoulder season driving. Snow, ice, black ice, freezing rain, slush, hydroplaning, driveway clearing, walkway maintenance, windshield scraping, and keeping an emergency kit for breakdowns. Stuff like that.
Or driving in general. As an American who didn't get a driver's license until I was 21 (gasp! so old) due to some reasons, I can attest that many, many people here simply can't comprehend the idea of someone over 17 or so not having one. I got turned away from a hotel once because they didn't know how to use a passport as an ID.
The only other people I've met with this problem were immigrants. And we were always able to bond over lamentations of how difficult it is to solve this problem... the entire system to get a license here is built around the assumption that everyone does it in high school, so every step of the way is some roadblock like "simply drive to your driving test appointment"...
Speaking more than one language. Being from Switzerland, we're required to study 2 languages (+ our native one) at school. So it's not infrequent to encounter swiss people who speak 4+ languages
In Germany it's also mandatory - but learning the language at school unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean you can speak it. LucasArts adventures contributed more to my language skills than my first English teacher. I'm always shocked about the lack of English skills in a lot of Germans when I'm back visiting. Rather surprisingly one of my uncles born in the 30s spoke pretty good English, though.
We're now living in Finland - me German, wife Russian, we each speak to the kids in our native language, between each other English. So they're growing up with 4 languages.
It's quite interesting to watch them grow up in that situation. When learning about a new historical figure my daughter always asks which languages they spoke - and few weeks ago she was surprised someone only spoke two languages. So I explained that some people only speak one language - she gave me a very weird look, and it took a while to convince her that I'm not just making a bad joke.
In the UK I was given the option of German or French, but I wasn't taught very well, and could barely speak a few basic sentences after 5 years of schooling. If this is a common experience, as I believe it is, it results in a populace who speaks english only. (Obviously an issue exacerbated by the commonality of English on the internet and popular media)
It blows my mind how inefficient my school must have been. Right now, I can't imagine learning something for 5 years and retaining nothing.
Knowing how to swim. Basic life skill in a water-rich country, but many expats can't.
Surprisingly, many Irish don't know how to swim, even though it's an island.
We learned swimming in primary school in Germany, no opting out.
But having lived in several African countries and now in China, it's surprising how many people not only can't swim, but are deathly afraid of water.
If you can't swim, bring desthly afraid of water is a good survival instinct.
After an incident of near-drowning as a toddler, my parents prioritized swimming lessons in my childhood. I can never remember not being able to swim. However, when I was in the military, there was a survival swimming section where you had to get in a pool with full clothing and a weapon, and swim a length. You were supposed to keep the weapon above water at all time. So you're doing a side-stroke with one arm holding a 7lb weight above water, in long-sleeved shirt and pants (I recall being grateful no boots or socks). Most of us California boys made it; lots of people didn't make it with the rifle the whole way, or tapped out without getting anywhere at all. The point is, near the end, when I was exhausted from fighting the water, and it was starting to get hard to keep my head above water, I felt an unexpected panic rising. I can easily believe that if it had gone on much longer, the panic would have taken over and years of swimming experienced would go out the window, and I'd have ended up thrashing futiliy in the water like the guys who dropped out at the start.
Drowning is a singularly frightening experience.
In Australia it's not just knowing how to swim but where to swim and when. A lot of tourists drown in the ocean here because they don't know how to read the waves / don't have an understanding of the local area.
Never swam in an ocean, could you elaborate?
As an Aussie what the person below has said is a big one here. We just call them rips. Basically if you just try to swim in them normally you won't go anywhere and will just make yourself tired. Same goes if you're caught in a rip and trying to get out. It can lead to people drowning from tiring out and going under. What you want to do is swim diagonally across the rip. Then you can go about your swim or swim safely back to shore. Another tip is if you don't know what a rip looks like then it can be hard to see them from the shore or while your in the water. They aren't waves.
Another one I think people usually have issues with or you hear of a tourist going missing is swimming in water inland. This is more of an up north Aus thing. Basically if you can't see into the water your going to swim in them don't. Crocs like to hang out in that sort of water. Very easy to not see them at all.
In Ontario, it’s often swimming.
Lots of lakes here, children need to be taught to swim
Dutchy here.
Most, if not all, children learn to swim when they reach age five. Lots of water here, it’s pretty much a basic life/survival skill.
Italy.
Cooking, every foreign person I know eats 20x more takeout and fast food than I do.
You remind me of chatting with a friend from Hong Kong and how surprised she was that I, as a young man, knew how to cook and did it for fun.
In the dry SW US the answer is drink water when it’s 100F or worse 115F+. Having a half liter of water from the hotel for the half day mountain hike, or pounding a half gallon of ice water and throwing up five minutes later. Your body doesn’t tell you when you should drink, it tells you when you are already behind on drinking.
Dealing with winter. I live in the rural upper Midwest, where winter can hit -20 with whiteout blizzards, week-long power outages, and car-burying snowdrifts. I've seen too many people move here from warmer places and think "I guess I'll buy a warmer coat and a snow shovel", rather than "I should have a backup generator, a backup heat source, a few barrels of spare fuel, a month's worth of stockpiled food, and at least two different pieces of heavy snow-moving machinery tested to be in good working order".
Here in Switzerland the question you ask is usually, "do you ski or do you snowboard"? It's just assumed that you can do at least one.
Makes me wonder, is there a higher rate of knee surgeons in Switzerland than in the rest of the world?
How to walk on ice is a big one. How to cross a street is another one here in Chicago (hint: look at the cars, not the lights).
For the ice one you mean taking a running start, sliding on it, and yelling weeeeeeeee... Right?
I guess here in Korea it's eating with chopsticks. In Sweden it was Swimming (especially for my Indian work mates). In Germany it was opening a beer bottle with anything you just happened to have in your hand at that time. In Poland I'm not sure, but probably making those elaborate sandwiches for parties.
If the country is big enough (aka Canada) these differences can be between provinces. People from Ontario can't ride bulls, but every kid in Alberta can. Newfoundlanders can fish but Manitobans are afraid of water. In British Columbia you are taught how to roll marijuana cigarette in high school but in Nova Scotia scotch is the bag lunch drink of choice.
Southern Georgia, USA.
This is more of a regional rationalization about occasional weather hazards. Here in coastal Georgia, we get snow from time to time, about a half an inch to two inches once every three to five years. There's a lot of people from colder climates that move here for work or retirement; they hear "a possible light dusting of snow" on the news or from a weather app and think that means nothing. Where they're from it's just normal, happens every year and there's often more. They'll even laugh at us for shutting down the schools and staying home from work for freezing rain. Here's the thing: no one here knows how to drive in snow and will likely only see black ice a dozen times in their lifetime. Further, we have no salt/sand trucks, we have no plows, we have zero civic infrastructure to meant to deal with our very occasional ice storm or light snow. It happens so infrequently that there's no way to justify spending taxpayers' money to prepare in that way for those kinds of situations. So we shut down the schools and most businesses for a day or so and everyone mostly stays home. We're not necessarily unprepared for winter weather, we just prepare in a different way that makes sense for the situation.
Just misunderstanding social cues. Where I live (Spain), there's a script you're supposed to follow for certain things and newcomers, understandably, don't understand the script. One famous example is buying new clothes. They all look great on. The idea here is that the poor person spent their hard-earned money on the new clothes. Damned right they look great on! Another would be birthdays celebrated in public venues. Perhaps someone you know is celebrating their birthday in a public venue and you had no idea they were celebrating their birthday on that day. You walk up to them and wish them a happy birthday, BUT you were not invited to this celebration. Since you weren't invited you did not come prepared with a present for the birthday person. The safe thing to do is to ignore, socialize with the people you came with, and make like that person isn't even there until they approach YOU. When and if they approach you, you make pretend you're all distracted and you have to be like, "Ahhh! I didn't see you! What's up?" The reason: that person is buying all the invitees the drinks and food. In exchange, the invitees have brought presents. It's a very nuanced and weird situation all of us have encountered. We err on the fear of not having brought a present because we had no idea because we were not invited.
Norway.
Cross country skiing. It's basically expected for every kid in school to be adaquate at cross country skiing. P. E. classes during winter could often consist of a ski trip, and a couple times per year the schools would arrange ski days with different acrivities on skis.
Cutlery.
Growing up everyone around me could use a knife and fork, whereas chopsticks were something most people couldn't use or only used badly. It never occurred to me that the opposite might be true until I shared a meal with some co-workers from mainland China and saw how clumsily they used our utensils.
It wasn't until that point that I appreciated the amount of dexterity and finesse that goes into using cutlery well, and that I took it for granted because it's something learned in childhood.
If you aren't from south / southeast Asia you'll struggle with our traffic. Our roads are a stream of everything from cycles to busses with no dedicated lanes. If you want to cross the road and can't find a zebra-crossing you gang up with other pedestrians, hold up traffic by shouting and waving, and cross.
Understanding languages you don't know - every city will have people speaking three or more languages, so you need to understand what someone is saying even if you don't speak their language. Broken English with gesturing is a lingua franca.
I'm Danish. Opening beer with a lighter or other things that aren't technically a bottle opener.
I grew up in rural Canada, but have been living in major metropolitan areas for most of my adult life. It still surprises me when I learn there are other adults that don't know how to chop wood, start a fire, work basic tools, etc.
Rural Japan.
My kids (2 and 4) can use chopsticks already. Plenty of restaurants around here where you won't see a spoon, fork or knife. (However, it's certainly possible to ask the staff for western cutlery, and in the main cities they're more likely to be prepared for that question)
Kinda reverse, but when I moved to Singapore I was amazed by how few people knew how to cook their own food. But then again you can get a meal outside for 3-5 bucks so not really an issue
Pooping in the toilet.
When I went to university with a lot of international students, there would often be poop on the seats.
My understanding is Asian toilets are different and a good few students from there were standing on the seat and aiming at the bowl from height, with mixed success.
The opposite happened to me in Japan. For the love of God I can't do an asian squat and there was only this old style squat toilet there. On top of that I really had to go because I had a bit of a diarrhea situation going on. I had no idea which one was the front and which was the back of the toilet. I figured if I try it I will just shit on my pants, so I had to completely remove them. Then I awkwardly lowered myself down no some kind of a weird squat, holding on to the walls of the stall for life, sweating like hell and bam, some of it went on the toilet.
I was relieved that I didn't shit myself but mortified how to clean up my mess. In the end I was able to clean it with some water and I was lucky that it was in the night (at a cheap hostel) and nobody came in why all of this was happening.
Pronouncing local place names. Lots of scattered areas here with place names that are spelled like other places names (for example we got a town called Egypt, a town called Binghamton, etc.) except that they're all pronounced differently. For example, we have a town called Leicester, named after the actual Leicester, and locals tend to raise an eyebrow when someone asks "how do you get to lester" (that would be the normal way to pronounce it)?
"Who's Lester? Is he the new guy in town?"
"What? No, the town."
"That's Leesester, not Lester."
"I'm sorry, wut?"
I of course just add to the confusion if I'm the one to break the news, as I have a Kiwi accent, which is atypical around here. So it becomes a "what do you know" kind of interaction.
The swimming lesson thing was interesting. I also assumed everyone learned how to swim in school.
How to stay safe in the wilderness. We get too many people that aren't from around here that think you can do a hike late in the afternoon wearing sandals and only bringing a water bottle. People don't realize that the wilderness is a dangerous place if you aren't prepared. Weather can change rapidly and you need proper clothing and footwear to account for it. Make sure you have enough time for the hike and bring the essentials just in case something happens and you need to spend a night outdoors.
Going by yourself under at least 13 is nonexistent in the United States.
Hiking and basic wilderness knowledge.
I live in the Mojave Desert. Simple stuff like knowing not to cut through bushes, wearing proper shoes, avoiding feral dogs, and always having something to defend yourself with when walking in the desert aren't common among a lot of people who aren't originally from here.
Male being good at talking and flirting with girls. Where I grew up (south of Italy) you have to be able to know what to do as a young heterosexual man, otherwise girls would completely ignore you. When I was young, italian girls expected "work" from boys, a lot of work. You could not throw money or take shortcuts (I don't know if it is still valid).
When I moved to north of Europe, in 3 different countries, I realized that for north european guys existing was enough to get many girls. It was so easy, girls flirt with you, they literally go after boys. You could do nothing and a girl would start flirting with you. And being decent at talking with girls meant that any average Italian guy abroad was a Don Giovanni.
Driving. Moved here from Bangladesh to UK. I did a big mistake by not learning to drive in my country. Now its too expensive here to learn. Here driving is required if you want regular job well paying jobs. Don't be like me. Learn how to drive.
I always think it’s weird when I run into people that can’t whistle or make a horn sound blowing a blade of grass. I’m not even talking like those ear-piercing 2-fingers-in-mouth whistles, just regular Andy Griffith style.
Definitely understand there are many whistling taboos(as there should be, Russia) and some bored rural-ness that factor in.
In my immediate surroundings: small-scale farming. The old folks all know how to run a few goats and sheep, will have a few pigs and chickens, a vegetable garden, some fruit and olive trees, grapes, small fields. Once you figure it out you can feed yourself comfortably, but it's a steep learning curve if you didn't grow up with it. Quite a few foreigners who move in because they dream of self-sufficiency overload themselves with new stuff and become overwhelmed. I still can't compete with my neighbors at gardening after 20 years but I'm getting the hang of it.
Can't ride a bicycle in my area without very insanely high risk of death. You don't see bikes on roads at all. None of my kids know how to ride. Ive ridden vast distances though. Makes me very sad.
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