people who travel abroad often experience aspects of other cultures that are unexpected and catch them off guard, but I’m wondering if anyone’s experienced the reverse, where a place is so similar to the US in a certain aspect that it is equally as surprising?

39 comments

  1. A little bit. Sadly a lot of places have dumb stores I don’t go to here like Dunkin’s and Victoria’s Secrets.

    I guess I started on the West coast of Ireland with zero expectations — and it seemed so quaint. Then I got to Dublin and went to the touristy spots and there were a lot of mall stores.

    I just hadn’t traveled too much and didn’t know what to expect.

  2. Yep, Israel. Malls have many of the same stores. Same fast food restaurants and other chains.

    And worst of all, all the cars are automatics.

  3. Much of my life I had wanted to visit Ireland. Several years ago I finally did, but after a summer in Croatia. I found it to be disappointingly familiar, and uninteresting.

  4. Sort of. There was an uncanny valley experience I had the first time I went to Seoul and seeing a KFC with a statue of a clearly Korean Colonel Sanders out front. I don’t know if that counts but that’s what comes to mind.

  5. No, but I saw a 68 Camaro in Oman once.

    Edit: Carrefour is just an American Mall in a foreign language which was a bit surreal.

  6. In Tokyo about a decade ago, I was rather surprised to encounter a Krispy Kreme shop in Shinjuku, and a mariachi band in Ueno Park.

  7. There were definitely a few times in Lisbon when I felt like I was in San Francisco: the hills, bridges, cable cars, seafood, etc.

  8. I’m in Copenhagen right now and was surprised to see northern Alabama white bbq sauce at an American style craft beer and bbq place.

  9. As a teenager I went to Italy and one of the places we went to was a really prestigious shopping center in Milan. McDonald’s was one of the anchor stores in the main area.

  10. Not the most exotic place ever but Quebec.

    I feel like everyone goes in there expecting it to be very different from English speaking North America, but language and political/historical differences aside, it’s really just North Americans who happen to speak French.

    I’ve found that people from New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont get on quite well w people from Quebec, bad winters, shitty roads, maple syrup, hockey, going to the lakes, and drinking whatever alcohol w your friends at some crappy field are all some things that we all do and deal with.

    I like it so much up there I go up at least 2 or 3 times a year to see friends and to make my yearly visit to Montreal.

  11. Iceland. I have never eaten more hotdogs and pizza than I have when I was in Iceland for a few months. I also didn’t get a chance to learn as much Icelandic as I was hoping, because everyone spoke fluent English.

  12. It’s worth noting that “culture shock” isn’t literally “being surprised”. It’s a specific psychological phenomenon that is more about disillusionment and a type of depression that sets in once the honeymoon period of living in a new place wears off.

    Edit: but to answer the question in the spirit it was asked, Florence was this way for me. It felt like there were more vacationing Americans there than actual Fiorentini. Also, the first time I went to Europe, in the 90s, I was like “woooow, the shopping, amazing” and now it’s like “wow yay another Zara who would have thunk it”

  13. Just got back from Sydney, Australia…everything seemed so familiar. More than any place I’ve ever been outside of our borders

  14. When I went to Canada for the first time as a kid I was shocked that it felt exactly the same as home. We all talked the same and there were lots of restaurants/stores I was familiar with. I remember feeling weird about it cause I had been told that Canada was sooooo different but it wasn’t! I’d love to go back now that I’m older 🙂

  15. Yes, London was quite a shock as someone coming from NYC. I had traveled all over Europe before and coming to London it was clear how much closer in culture the UK was to us.

    -They have an actual proper fucking breakfast unlike 90% of Europe. Im sure we got the tradition from them. Breakfast in Europe is a very frutstrating affair. If its a normal weekday and you just wana grab a pastry then its great but unlike the Brits and Americans most Europeans dont have the concept of a nice heavier breakfast when you got the time.

    -At least from a north east perspective very similair humor

    -They are more chatty then most Europeans

    -A ton of the names of random places and people we got from the UK

    -The english language really does make people non direct. The UK has the same reputation of being non direct as the US does.

    And alot more stuff

  16. Costa Rica. There are so many American tourists there, as well as Western tourists in general, that it felt really Americanized in many ways. Also went to Nicaragua on the same trip, and it definitely felt less Americanized in comparison.

  17. I’ve traveled and lived internationally a lot in my life (starting 35 years ago) and everything was so much more exotic and interesting back before the internet and social media made everyone at least a little familiar with pretty much everything. Like, I would meet people in more remote parts of China who had literally never seen a foreigner. Ever.

    Doesn’t happen much any longer and more people have formed opinions about everyone else than used to be the case.

  18. For me it was the UK. I was raised in New England and both London and Glasgow felt weirdly familiar to me, especially because there were so many chains you also find in the US. The place that felt the most like New England was northern England. Newcastle and the towns in Northumberland really reminded me of urban spaces in New England

  19. 🤔 South Africa maybe, like the specific area where we stayed with my cousins in Sandton. Richest part of Africa and feels very American

  20. Mexico was more similar to the US than I thought it would be. It was different enough there wasn’t a shock but I did have some mild surprise at the similarity.

  21. Melbourne Australia is indistinguishable from my home town of Raleigh NC except for the accent and the side of the road they drive on

  22. Panama. It’s very much a Latin American country, but maybe the most Americanized one (aside from the tourist hubs of Mexico like Cozumel/Cancun).

    They only accept American dollars and speak English in a lot of places. There are obvious reasons for it, but it caught me off guard since it was my first time traveling internationally on my own

  23. Yeah, definitely. Everywhere I’ve lived in Japan, a car has been a necessity – the laws governing the roads here are *about* the same as the US but drivers here are *much much* **much** worse about following them.

    So you kinda start out driving around thinking everything’s normal, but then suddenly there’s a guy tailgating you with a 2-year-old standing in the front seat, honking at you because you stopped at the red light, and in the other lane, you see five cars – including a cop car – cruise right through the red. When the light turns green, the guy behind you angrily pulls around and passes you and you look over and see – *he’s watching TV on the dashboard.*

    Ok, now imagine something like that happening at every other traffic light. Every day.

    My favorite was the way you’d be driving on a completely empty country road and see a car pull up to an intersection down the way, waiting for you to pass. Except, every single time, instead of waiting for you to pass, they wait until the last second to pull out *in front of you,* cutting you off and forcing you to slam on the brakes; you are the only two cars for 10 kilometers in either direction.

    Two things: while American drivers *in general* are lightyears better than Japanese drivers, the bad outliers are much more extreme (this is true of so many things); and 2) the speed limits here are absurdly low – main roads will be 20-30 mph, and the expressways (which *all* have very high tolls) are usually around 50.

    So as terrible as the drivers are here, there are fewer accidents because the speed limits are so low and traffic lights choke the flow of traffic – but also everyone’s expecting everyone else to just do random shit so they’re ready for it (you can *feel* when someone at an intersection half a kilometer away is going to pull out in front of you for no reason), and there’s just a lot of stop-and-go congestion and no real chance to have an accident.

    But the problem is that everything is basically supposed to work pretty much the way it does back home, but it just…doesn’t. You’re constantly dodging people tailgating you, cutting you off, and keeping you from entering an intersection because they’re running the light.

  24. I went to Germany last year and as someone who grew up in the Midwest, it made me realize how strong the legacy of German immigration is there.

    Not so much in Berlin since that’s a major international city, but when I went to Hamburg and other outlying towns, you could have easily told me I was in a Midwest US city and it would have taken me a bit to figure out I wasn’t.

    The brick-front architecture in the cities and the German-style barns in the countryside. Pale, portly people walking around in jeans and sweatshirts with tennis shoes- no makeup. The bland diet of breaded, fried meats and potatoes with beer and buttered vegetables served in huge portion sizes…

    It felt weird.

  25. When I was 19 I went on a study abroad to the Netherlands.

    I swear, we asked every local we interacted with if we stuck out as tourists. The answer was no. I’m really not sure what we were expecting to stand out, but it was somewhat of a surprise that we were blended in as well as we did. Also, a lot of dutch words sound similar to english, even if they’re spelled really differently. There was also a lot of familiar food, thought plenty of different stuff too.

    Oh, I’ve also been surprised to see a Claire’s in both the netherlands and spain. It didn’t seem like a brand that would go international lol.

  26. Today I saw a post of a joke from 30 Rock where they say Toronto is like NYC, but without all the stuff. Funnily enough that was exactly my impression of the city when I was there earlier this year

  27. Yes, The Netherlands. It felt American in a lot of ways when going to a bar, for example; it’s not pub culture and it’s not Italian bar culture. People were pretty accepting of differences. Most people speak English. And my friend’s boyfriend was into western style horse riding so he dressed like a cowboy, haha.

    I felt comfortable living in Italy and the UK and enjoyed these places, but I felt REALLY comfortable in the Netherlands. It also probably helped that I am tall and fit in, so I didn’t look like a tourist.

  28. Yeah. Tokyo made me very uncomfortable and depressed because of how well things were maintained, how lacking it was of diversity and how serious everyone was.

    A bunch of obedient people of the same ethnicity gives me serious creep vibes.

    You suddenly realize that this country has no idea what it’s like to navigate the beautiful and massive challenges of many different groups of people learning to live together.

    You wonder why it’s stayed like that when it’s such a desirable place. And you realize it’s ruled by a bunch of quiet, conservative, obedient calitalist NIMBYs.

    I need to see hooligans, arrests, conflict, drama, yelling, dirty streets, car crashes to feel at home. It was very boring in that repsect.

    And those thoughts continue to spiral and you get a mild panic attack.

    End!

  29. When I left the airport in CapeTown, South Africa I could’ve sworn I was in Miami. It just looks like Miami! The trees, the buildings, the heat, all of it.

  31. The UK’s already been mentioned but London feels a LOT like the US, so all the little differences stand out more. Also, in London there are lots of people who look VERY British as well as tourists who look VERY American, but in Paris by contrast it seems like American and British tourists are basically indistinguishable

  32. Rural Sweden, only difference between there and northern Michigan is alcohol is harder to get and weed is nonexistent.

  33. Pop Radio in Europe really depressed me at first. It’s very much almost like being in the US. Then they’ll pull out some deep cut that never made the charts in the US or something else that’s super obscure.

  35. This has happened twice to me:

    The first time was in January 1995, towards the end of my first day in Rome, when in a daze trying to figure out where I was staying, suddenly it felt like I was transported to the Upper West Side (Broadway and 79th, to be precise). It was a damned odd feeling, but in the days after I got that sense in small doses; from the graffiti, care evasion, the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude…..it’s like I was home again!

    Years later, I real Bill Bryson’s “Neither Here nor There”, where he made the same comparison of Rome to NYC and it felt great to see someone agree with me 😁

    The next was in August 2002, Kuala Lumpur. It was my 3rd day and I was getting lucky at 2am, when all of a sudden I felt like I was back In Brooklyn again, from the nearly identical radio station pumping out the same tunes (even the late night DJ’s sounded the same!), to the parquet flooring, even the apartment as seen in the shadows….it’s like I was back at school all over again – sans the getting lucky part 🥲

  37. It is super common in Japan to hear American songs playing in Japanese shops.

    I’m talking Lynyrd Skynyrd. Stuff that’s overwhelmingly American.

    I was making copies at a 7-11 in a place very far from Tokyo, and Barry Manilow’s “Copa Cabana” came on.

    In a fancy donut shop in Tokyo, a disco remix of the original Star Trek theme song came on.

    I don’t even know how to react. Yay, America?

  38. I was very surprised to find that Tel Aviv felt very western. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but it sure wasn’t what just another big city with coke on the menu. I visited at a time when the internet was still just becoming a thing. I was going in kind of blind. The clients we were working with acclimated to us quite well, but I still expected it to be more different there for some reason.

  39. I was surprised to see Walmarts and Taco Bell in Mexico. I didn’t expect so many American chains down there.

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