The biggest culture shock you have ever faced?

Amey Sharma

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Singer, IT Engineer, Writer, Artist, Composer, Gadget freak Updated 7y

• I was in Budapest, walking on a road just beside the footpath. There was a car behind me and I was unknowingly walking in the middle of the road, until I realized and made way for it. The person didn’t honk even once and kept driving behind me at the same speed I was walking. Really? Hats off to their patience?
• In Amsterdam, a cab driver asked me if I wanted a ride till hotel. I told him I wanted to call my colleague who was supposed to pick me up. He took out his iPhone 6S Plus and asked me my colleague’s number. Then dialed him and we spoke for couple of minutes. I then told this cab driver my colleague is coming; he said ‘no problem’ and left with a smile.
• Somewhere in Europe I was walking in a huge park. There was a wooden bench in the pathway. A girl sitting in a boy’s lap and they both were kissing each other passionately. It continued…like they are the only 2 people there. When would I have such freedom?, I mumbled… :)
• In Amsterdam Decathlon shop, I saw an Orange headset. I love orange color and I wanted only that piece which was for around 14.99 Euros. Then I noticed its right side clothing was bit peeled off. It wasn’t that noticeable so I asked him I’d have this one. He said, “Sir, I’d look for another piece. This has a slight defect.” Pointing towards peeled cloth. He searched for several minutes, but did not find an orange piece. He then billed it and handed me. I saw the bill with 11 Euros. He said, “Sorry about the piece. Since there is no other available and this one you see has slight defect, we offered 4 Euros discount”. He smiled and I really didn’t believe him. I was so happy! :)
• I was in Singapore this Feb 2017. Our tour guide proudly asked us in the bus to look outside and tell us what they notice or see different than our country - India. Everyone looked outside, few minutes passed by and people shouted “Traffic police?”. She said, “Yes! We have no traffic police. Everything is monitored on the CCTV cameras. One of the reasons there is so much obedience in public”.
• When I was in Manila, Philippines, on my last day my colleagues threw a party for me. They asked me which beer I want and I said I don’t drink. They insisted, so I asked for something on the menu. To my awe, there comes a 2 liter vessel full of beer for only me. My colleague said we drink this whole thing alone. I just had few sips after which I just couldn’t take more. It still had more than 80% beer left in there. To my awe, he drank his own beers and then drank from this vessel to empty it in next few minutes. I never knew humans could have such capacity! :)

Libraries in China

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Posted by 

Peter Wade

 

9mo

Jordan Zhouyi

Lives in China (2022–present)10mo

What is the biggest culture shock you have ever faced?

Libraries in China.

The very first time I entered a library on campus, I was imagining something like this:

Shelves upon shelves of books. Chairs. People sitting around reading.

The library was about seven storeys, so I was psyched about all the books it could contain. I didn't bother to check for a building map, I just entered the first floor, walked into a room. I saw: tables, chairs, textbooks and notebooks piled on tables, people busy studying.

“This must be the study room", I thought to myself. I checked the next floor.

Same.

And the next.

Same.

I grew tired and checked the map in the elevator. The actual book-containing part of the library was apparently on the sixth floor.

“Oh finally, “ I thought.

Come to find, the “library” was just one room with about nine shelves of reading books.

A whole seven storey building called the library and this is the actual library?! A small room hidden away in the sixth floor while everyroom else were barebacked study rooms?!

The college is humongous. It has two campuses and four libraries, the smallest library having seven floors and the biggest having eleven.

You can bet your bottom the majority of the rooms in these libraries are just study rooms. What are even reading books, anyway? What kind of moron reads those things?

The study culture here is no joke. Kids pile their books on their reserved spots in the library and sit there studying for hours on end. They keep snacks, water bottles, power banks on site.

This library opens at 7 AM and closes at 11 PM. My deskmate, I think he lives here. He's always here before I arrive and leaves after I do.

I took this picture one morning because it was a rare occurrence that my study room was bare. I felt like a real champ, a stellar scholar, to be one of the first to arrive.

Across is my deskmate's side. We “reserve" our tables by keeping our books on them. We also reserve our chairs by doing something similar. He has an orange cushion on his chair to reserve his. I have a small bag draped over the back of mine. Others normally put a spare jacket over theirs.

Need a nap? Sleep on the desk, everybody else does.

Thirsty? Water machines on every floor will give you piping hot or ice cold water for ¥0.1 (0.014 USD) per litre.

Hungry? Bikes will deliver food straight from the mess to the library, you can use your phone to order. There's also a canteen on the ground level. Their pot noodles aren’t the best but they have good ice cream. They have good bread but they're always running out of those.

Need some fresh air? There are comfy seats in the court.

It's like everything is conditioned to keep us here studying hard as much as possible. Libraries in China are truly something else; it was quite a culture shock for me.

What is the longest and most exhausting single train route in the world?

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Posted by 

Peter Wade

 

8mo

Extremely interesting facts

Answered by 

Alessandro13

 

9mo

What is the longest and most exhausting single train route in the world?

It's Lagos-Singapore.

Almost 19 thousand kilometers in length (double the Trans-Siberian), the Lagos-Singapore is the longest international railway route in the world: it starts from Portugal (city of Lagos) and reaches Singapore (capital of the Sovereign Republic of Singapore).

In the photo you can see how the itinerary ends in Saigon, Vietnam. However, a high-speed line has recently been inaugurated which connects Kunming (China) to Ventiane (the capital of Laos): from there it has therefore become possible to reach Thailand without interruptions passing through Bangkok and then going down to the end of the Malaysian peninsula, with terminus - precisely - Singapore. 

The case of instant noodles

Hantani Sadahiko

Former Embedded Programmer 8mo

I want to try doing an only eating ramen challenge to save money. I’m going to be doing it for like 2 months. Do you think its viable and what do you suggest I add so it’s more nutritious?

You shouldn't do that.

If you want to do it cheaply, you will eat instant noodles.

In the case of instant noodles, the calories are sufficient, but the protein and vitamins are insufficient.

So add eggs, meat and vegetables.

If this is difficult, simply add a raw egg. Boil the eggs in hot water.

Japanese raw eggs are especially good because they are fresh enough to be eaten raw, but if you live in a country where you can't eat them raw, you should cook them by making them fried.

As for vegetables, it is better to stir-fry bean sprouts, carrots, onions and cabbage.

Some people think that cooking vegetables is also troublesome.

At that time, I recommend frozen boiled spinach for bento.

In the case of bag noodles, you can eat them just by putting them in hot water.

After that, if you drink all the soup, it will be too salty, so don't drink the remaining soup and throw it away.

If you do these three things, instant noodles will be a very healthy food.

1.Add eggs or meat, which are proteins.

2.Add a vegetable source of vitamins.

3 . Do not drink leftover soup (to prevent excessive salt intake).

In other words, eat it like the cooking example on the package of instant noodles.

In other words, eating three meals of instant noodles without any ingredients like this for days on end will cause health problems.

Some people simply get it wrong, but instant noodles are not unhealthy.

Since the nutritional balance of instant noodles alone is skewed, adding ingredients with proper nutritional balance to instant noodles makes for a very healthy meal.

How many recognized countries are there in the world today?

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Answered by 

Peter Wade

 

8mo

How many recognized countries are there in the world today, and which one is the smallest by land area?

You would think this is a simple question. But with no mutually acceptable definition of what constitutes a country, there is actually much debate on the subject. The United Nations (UN) recognizes 193 countries and those of us who are extreme world travelers agree upon that number. The UN also recognizes two additional observer states, Vatican City (a non-member city-state) and Palestine (a non-member state). The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has established country codes for 249 nations, 56 of which are not UN members. But this is not generally recognized as an appropriate country count.

(Vatican City)

Arguments arise as to whether nations like Taiwan and Kosovo are truly countries or not. Neither is unanimously recognized as a country by the United Nations despite supporting both nations in spirit, with only 6% of the UN recognizing Taiwan and 54% recognizing Kosovo as independent countries. Niue is another example of a nation not contained on the UN’s list of 193 countries (despite President Joe Biden recognizing them as independent in 2022). Even the International Olympic Committee (IOC) won’t allow Niue to compete in the Olympic Games, reserving that honor for nations they deem independent. So the country count of 193 is pretty widely accepted. Of course, if we really want to muddy the waters, the IOC does allow Taiwan to compete as a separate team from China. But that doesn’t disprove the information I’ve provided here.

(Kosovo)

Regardless of debate, the majority of geographical experts can agree that the world contains 193 official countries. That list hasn’t changed since the admission of Montenegro on June 28, 2006, and South Sudan on July 14, 2011. As further evidence, there tends to be a consensus among extreme world travelers that in order to lay claim to visiting every “country” on earth for the few who have done it, they must visit all 195 UN-recognized members including Vatican City and Palestine. This further confirms the 193 country count, but also respects the existence of the other two non-member states.

(Lexie Alford, the youngest person to visit all 195 UN-recognized members)

To make this even more maddening, the Guinness Book of World Records and Lexie Alford herself both state that she is the youngest to travel to “all 196 sovereign nations.” But despite countless articles on her accomplishment, no sources seem to address the obvious question. What is the additional country she and Guinness are counting that isn’t a UN member? Nobody knows. Despite all this confusion, when someone learns I’ve been to 79 countries on my way to 100, they inevitably ask, “how many countries exist?”. And my answer is always the same. “There are 193 countries, and 195 UN members including Vatican City and Palestine, not all of which are countries, per se.”

The smallest country

To answer your other question, the smallest of those countries is Monaco which only contains 0.77 square miles (2.08 square km) of land and a negligible amount of the Mediterranean Sea. By comparison, Monaco is only 9.5% the size of the second smallest country of Nauru, a tiny Pacific Island nation. So Monaco is the smallest country by a significant margin! It’s also 0.00001% of Russia’s size, the world’s largest country. Hence, 85,736 Monacos fit into Russia.

(Monaco)

Vatican City is even smaller at 0.19 square miles (0.49 square km), only 25% of Monaco’s size by comparison. But again, Vatican City is not recognized as an official member of the United Nations and isn’t technically a country by most acceptable standards.