55 Shocking Moments When American Tourists Took Cultural Clashes to a Whole New Level
But if you’re heading abroad soon, do yourself a favor: brush up on local customs, lower your volume in public spaces, and skip wearing your oversized college football jersey to a European cathedral.
It always baffles me how few accents most Americans understand. It’s probably because they have much more insular media so they’re only really used to hearing their own accents and maybe a few British ones every now and then. I think in the rest of the English speaking world we’re used to hearing a much broader range of accents and you become kind of fluent in them over time. I had an American exchange student tell me she could hear no difference between my (Irish) accent and any British or Australian accents, we all just sound “foreign” to her. That stunned me because I grew up used to knowing and distinguishing between a huge variety of accents. It makes me feel like they miss out on a lot of great content, especially comedy.
What bugs me most and I hear a lot is when they say “you have AN accent” like they just speak normally and everyone else sounds strange. The American accent is one of the most distinctive and easily recognisable accents in the world so it seems even weirder that they lack the perspective to see that.
I realise that might come across a bit angry and hateful towards Americans – I promise it’s not! I have no ill feelings towards Americans that accent thing just completely bewilders me.
Going to non-touristy parts of the city and country and demanding to pay in dollars.
We don’t set our prices in multiple currencies, so I can’t just accept your dollars without having to account for exchange rate, distance to the nearest bureau de change, or the rates that bureau de change will charge for exchanging the money. Besides how am I supposed to give you change? Yes I understand dollars are worth more. No, there’s nothing I can do about it. Complaining to the manager will just yield the same result.
When I used to work in the restaurant industry, an American family were absolutely livid that I didn’t serve them water. For us, if you want water you just need to ask. It comes two ways, bottled (still or sparkling: paid) or what we refer to as ice water (tap water with ice and lemon that you don’t pay for).
They lost it when I brought them bottled water. Then they lost it because I brought them individual glasses of ice water. Then they lost it because I brought a pitcher of water and left it on their table (apparently, you’re meant to carry it with you at all times and top them up without them needing to ask). All the while they were telling me, “that’s not how it’s done in America.”
We’re not in America right now. This is how we do it here. Slow your roll, boet!
I didn’t get a good tip. 😕.
Overheard at a Scottish castle, “Now I know why they built the castle here on top of this hill”. Looking out of the window the lady could see the television mast, so had assumed that it was built before the castle – which was build because there would be good tv reception. The guide did try to explain a bit more about dates and so on, but gave up.
There’s a lot of US soldiers in South Korea and some of them think US dollars are used off bases. They aren’t. I’ve seen quite a few cab drivers get p***ed when they are given US dollars and they guys just leave the cab. To be fair, it’s usually more than than the meter once converted.
One time, I was in the Lake District (NW England). In particular, Far Sawrey where Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit, Gemima Puddleduck) used to live. Her house is now a museum dedicated to her and her works. It’s very popular with the Japanese and American tourists. One of the US tourists asked me for directions to the Beatrix Potteries. He clearly knew it was a tourist destination, but no idea why.
A drunk kid from Boston spent the evening talking about his Irish ancestors and attempted to sing Go on Home British Soldiers but forgot the lyrics.
Rented our house through airbnb to some Americans doing ‘the two week tour’. Got complaints that we didn’t have mattress toppers like they have in America, and they were shocked we didn’t have ‘bug screens’ on our doors and we really should fit some urgently.
Didn’t have the heart to reply I’ve only ever seen ‘bug screens’ in America and literally nowhere else in the world, we certainly don’t have them here. They stayed in a 100 year-old countryside cottage in Britain and expected it to be like a normal average American house. Pretty sure we were the first place they stayed and they were heading north afterwards, so hopefully Edinburgh didn’t shock them toooo much.
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