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Hacking and spitting in crowded public locations.
No deodorant…in particular, not using it knowing you will be in DisneyWorld…..standing in line…,in July
They were my neighbors.
We have mandatory garbage pickup at our homes. You can’t *not* pay for it. It is part of your watermelon bill.
These people were disgusting rich kids from China. Instead of using their city supplied garbage cans for weekly pickup they piled their trash next to their house. And randomly hired people with trucks to take it away. Piles would mound up over weeks. Getting torn apart and spread around by wildlife. Include piss and shit covered dog pee pads.
They all drove luxury cars. And kept running into the neighbors fence with them. I’ve never been into calling the cops but I started to on their 4AM parties.
Fuck those international students. I tracked down their homeowner and started mailing pictures of everything to his houses.
In college, foreign students from Turkey, the unbelievable body odor. Then they would just douse themselves in eye stinging cologne which made it worse. Not just the guys either, the women too. Oh and they had lots of money too so nice cars, leather jackets, jewelry…it was like every awful stereotype. I remember this one girl was unbelievably hot, but you couldn’t ride on an elevator with her because of the stench.
Getting out of the car when pulled over.
I had a young intern from Lebanon who was incredibly handsy with the female employees. Treated them like inferiors and would get pissy if a woman told him what to do.
I sat him down and told him that he wasn’t in Beirut any longer. That meant that women in the office weren’t there for dating. And how, if he couldn’t cheerfully take directions from a female supervisor, I would fire him immediately.
To his absolute credit, my talk came as a complete shock to him. He apologized in staff meeting on his own volition and became a great intern. I still hear from him from time to time as he progresses in his career.
And when I was in college, my Russian professor had literally been in the country a total of three months. So when she was trying to make a point, she would extend her middle finger rather than her index finger. I had to tell her after class how that was an obscene gesture. She was incredibly embarrassed.
This wasn’t a big deal, just something I think about sometimes and have a chuckle over, but when I was younger I worked at a restaurant in a small city that got a lot of international tourism in the summers. One day an Indian family was sitting at a table, I was just kind of standing around waiting for tables to clear, waters to fill, etc, when I noticed one of the ladies at the table was eating spoonfuls of the condiments that were on the table. I think she thought they were some sort of appetizer haha
Standing too close to strangers. We really like our personal space. And we hate the smell of sweat, musk, general body odor, etc. so don’t u dare smell strongly then stand too close to me on the train.
I have worked with a few Indian guys who all seemed to know better than to talk down to American women, but either they didn’t understand or couldn’t help themselves talking in a belittling fashion to our Indian female coworkers. It was tolerated at first under the “it’s undermining to fight a woman’s fights for her” principle, but a few egregious episodes and some of the American women brought it to HR. They had to have it explained to them that Americans will be offended on someone else’s behalf, it’s not good enough simply to avoid condescending to *us* – we just don’t want to see that, period.
Please let me clarify there were a LOT of Indians at this shop, and only a handful acted like this. The overwhelming majority were nice guys, enjoyable to work with, and behaved with perfect professionalism.
I get a fair amount of people from certain other countries that try to haggle for the price of products and seem upset when I it’s made clear that prices are firm.
Years ago I dated a German guy who was studying here for a semester.
I could not get him to stop peeing on pubic sidewalks. We would leave a restaurant with a perfectly functional restroom and five minutes later he’d be watering the bushes in the next block.
Maybe not a faux pas as much as a cultural mismatch. My roommate for a year in grad school was wealthy and from from India, and had literally never done any basic household chores or tasks for themselves.
On various occasions, I would come back to the apartment and find them trying to heat a canned product of food directly on the stove burner (no pot or pan), or putting foods such as lettuce that are very much not freezer-compatible in the freezer. They also regularly needed help with laundry.
In the US, even reasonably upper-middle class families tend to teach their children basic household tasks. My roommate explained to me that where they came from in India, if you had the money, it was considered altruistic to hire help to do the cooking, cleaning, etc. because it was essentially employing those that were less fortunate that needed the work, often for decent pay.
This roommate also moved into the two-bedroom apartment we were splitting before I arrived, taking the master bed and bath for themselves, without any prior agreement or explicit discussion of how we would be splitting the physical space or monthly rent.
Spit inside the building. It’s gross to do outdoor, even worst to do indoor.
This is pretty minor, might not even count, but this German exchange student in my highschool asked the teacher for a rubber. He meant eraser and was confused when the class burst out laughing lol
In the 90s, 2 men from Slovakia were staying with a family member. It was a hot day, and they were playing soccer outside. They shocked us by stripping down to their underwear (one was boxers and the other bikini style). They were from a rural area, and I think that might be why? I asked a Slovak friend if it was normal, and they told me no.
Not queuing up in line, but rather push their way to the front. That may be the way where they come from, but could seriously lead to anger and even violence here.
Throw garbage over a scenic overlook in a National Forest.
This definitely isn’t common, but I’ve had a couple of students from Taiwan and South Korea with terrible breath – garlic? Onion? Anyway, it’s not the norm, but it’s happened often enough that I’ve ascribed it to their background or upbringing as opposed to just an individual issue.
When I first moved back to the town I had to get a new battery for my MacBook. I’d been in LA for 15 years and had everything I needed within a mile or so bubble. Well, here there’s no real Mac store. I went to an “authorized” Mac place and there was this guy there. I don’t remember exactly what part of the world he’d just moved from but he asked me if I needed him to replace the battery for me. Now at this time it was one you’d just push the button and it would pop out then you just pop the new one in. He asked me if I needed him to do it for me because “women aren’t good at these kinds of things.” His co worker looked at him like “oh shit.”
In the end I’m guessing he got the message that he was an ass. Dude didn’t even know how to drive and he’s telling me women aren’t good at things. 🤦🏻♀️
My personal favorite was the guy on reddit who asked how much to bribe US police to get out of a ticket.
That’s a fantastic way to get arrested.
E: oh, my least favorite is the Saudi royals that go to West Coast universities. One of them literally killed someone and hired a private jet to flee justice back to daddy.
E: [Here’s the story, guys.](https://www.oregonlive.com/news/erry-2018/12/9b5b1eff724150/he-was-accused-of-killing-a-po.html)
Brazilians trying to jump the que at Disney, and acting shocked when they were threatened with physical violence by people who had been waiting for hours in the line.
Also, the French seem to enjoy humiliating their subordinates in professional settings. I nearly resigned on the spot over one incident. They backed off for a bit after that but it never really stopped. It just got more subtle.
Bringing lots of friends to a party without asking. This happened alot when I was in my twenties and doing a lot of couchsurfing meetups. More than foreigner would be invited to a small party and show up with 6 other people and not bring anything
Arab college student from Kuwait: “I know how to make white people feel really uncomfortable.”
Me: “how?”
Kuwaiti starts yelling: “N * gger! N * gger! N * gger! Hahahahahaha. How can a simple word do this to you? N * gger! N * gger!”
The whole room was silent and super shocked and he just thought it was hysterical getting that reaction from us
Edit: oh yeah another one from a different Kuwaiti, that I’ve seen happen a couple times: Trying to haggle with retail people.
The best was this exchange:
Arab: “Man can’t you do better than that. This is a total rip off” (after already trying to bargain with the guy for a minute, which is totally socially appropriate and expected in his culture)
Retail employee: “look, do you want to buy the product or not?! I’m not playing games. Either buy it or get out of here”.
Being far too forward with American women, especial those in the North.
Had a foreign coworker get a little handsy with a female coworker. After he touched her butt, she clocked him in his jaw and he fell over. The manager essentially pushed him out the door and told him he no longer had a job.
I’m not saying all northerners are the same, but a good number of people from the colder states happen to have zero tolerance for bullshit.
A French exchange student could not believe I didn’t speak his language because my name is French. He was actually very cute and kinda nice he kept asking me out saying how I should speak his language. Finally gave up when I said I can hardly spell and speak English but thank you. It might have been fun!
Didn’t see it in person, but I saw a video of a woman stepping over the fence surrounding the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington and acting confused and offened when the guard told her to get out. Even more baffling were the several people in the comments defending her and saying “stepping on graves is seen as respectful in some cultures, don’t americans realize there are other cultures out there?”
Yellowstone is not a petting zoo. Stop getting too close to the elk, bison, and even bears. And stay on the trails. It’s usually a foreigner who goes dangerously where they shouldn’t, despite signs in many languages.
I was at Corning Museum of Glass with my mother when I was a kid and a large bus of tourists all from the same country were also there.
They were kind of just vaguely rude for the most part, but at the gift shop they kept grabbing things out of people’s hands to look at them, instead of picking up the identical souvenir on the shelf right next to them. We had to leave because my mom didn’t want to get into a fight with someone who didn’t speak English lol.
I don’t understand how any shopping gets done in countries where a normal visit to a store plays out like Black Friday.
Just rushing to the front of lines. Chinese tourists in particular seem to have a problem with this one. I’m not sure if you don’t wait in line the same way over there or if I just happened to meet multiple assholes/idiots who happened to be Chinese tourists.
I had an Iranian friend, who, upon seeing my husband for the first time in a number of months, exclaimed “You look great! You have gotten chubby!”
The town I’m from has a decent amount of Indian and Central American immigrants. Not a ton, but enough to know they’re there. I worked at a 7-Eleven while I was in high school and they’d come in all the time trying to haggle, run tabs and get free stuff. You don’t negotiate in a damn convenience store.
Asked a friend and me if he was allowed to sunbathe. We said “of course” and when we came back he was fully nude sunning on a rock. Oops.
First gen immigrant from China couldn’t figure out why using the N-word to describe the cashier at Costco was offensive.
Some old rude British lady started making tutting noises and glaring at me because I was apparently in her way. I was so confused that I looked at her and asked if there was something wrong. She wouldn’t speak and kept making the weird clicking noises with an annoyed look. I finally understood that she wanted me to move. I told her in America you just have to say excuse me because making those noises is considered rude. She just made the sound again!!
Had a guy come in to do sales training and was a French Canadian but instead of saying “ we really screwed the pooch!” In regards to a mistake he said “ we really fucked the dog !” I have never laughed so hard in a professional environment.