How Traveling Makes You Rude, an episode from our archives, looks at the cultural differences that can make travelers commit etiquette mistakes without realizing it.
Have you ever walked into someone’s house in Japan with your shoes on and had a room full of people laugh at you? (Katy has.)
Have you ever traipsed into a room in an Italian home that has been freshly mopped and been given the evil eye by the lady of the house? (Tiffany has.)
Part of living in a foreign culture is learning (often the hard way) that some things that are totally acceptable back home are, at best, a faux pas in your adopted country, and, at worst, a humiliating gaff. Picking up on the social rules of your new country is part of adjusting to life abroad. Inevitably, all expats will go through it.
But what makes things rude in one culture and acceptable in another? What does it say about the people of those countries, and what they value? Why is it ok to litter on the street in Italy, but not ok to wash your hands in the kitchen sink? Why is it fine, in Italy, to wave to get your waiter’s attention, but unspeakably rude to leave a shop without saying “grazie, arrivederci”—the exact opposite of which is true in the US?
And what happens when you pick up habits that are perfectly acceptable in your new country, and take them back home with you, where they are seen as downright rude? (Case in point: after a one-year stint in Rome, polite, mild-mannered Katy has taken to cutting lines, a heinous crime in America and merely an eye-rolling annoyance in Italy.)
We discuss these social conundrums and etiquette paradoxes and try to make sense of it all on this episode from our archives.
***The Bittersweet Life podcast has been on the air for an impressive 10+ years! In order to help newer listeners discover some of our earlier episodes, every Friday we are now airing an episode from our vast archives! Enjoy!***
You can listen to the episode right here, or find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.
Related Episodes:
Epiosde 350: Daily Life: Italy vs America
Five key takeaways from the episode:
- In Italy, it’s considered rude to wash your hands in the kitchen sink; you should use the bathroom sink instead, especially when visiting someone’s home.
- Italians are generally more comfortable with strangers touching their children compared to Americans, but they’re also more likely to offer unsolicited parenting advice.
- Hugging is less common in Italy compared to the US, with Italians preferring cheek kisses as a greeting, even between men.
- Line-cutting and aggressive driving behaviors are more tolerated in Italy compared to the US, though not everyone approves.
- Cultural differences in politeness and etiquette can lead to misunderstandings, such as the German tradition of offering guests items they compliment in one’s home.
Full Episode Transcript:
Katy
Hi, it’s Katy here to remind you that we’re in the midst of our Share a thon. Hey Tiffany.
Tiffany
Hey Katy.
Katy
So if you want to participate, and really, why wouldn’t you, all you have to do is convince five friends to subscribe to the show.
Tiffany
The best way to do this is.
Katy
Just steal their phone from them while they’re not looking and just subscribe. No, I’m just kidding. But honestly, once you have gotten their permission, if they don’t know how, show them a little bit of help and just click on their podcast app and subscribe or explain to them how to do it. Once they’re subscribed, send us an email with their five first names. We don’t need last names, email addresses or anything like that.
We trust you guys.
Tiffany
So just send us the first names of your five friends who have subscribed. And what will they get for this, Katy?
Katy
Well, they’re going to get the best prize I can imagine personally.
Tiffany
Wow.
Katy
Number one, they’ll be entered in a drawing to win a copy of your book Midnight in the Piazza. Secondly, everybody who participates in the Share-a-thon by sending us five names of friends who they’ve gotten to subscribe gets to hear a secret episode of the show that no one else will get to hear. The Truth or Dare episode. Now, by participating and getting your friends to subscribe, you also can submit a question or dare that you want Tiffany and I to do out in the world. And we will be drawing those out of a hat and doing all sorts of ridiculous things in a secret episode that only those of you who participate get to hear do.
Tiffany
Remember that word of mouth is always the best way to share things like this. Sending an email is great and go ahead and do that. But also when you’re hanging out with friends, you can just bring it up and as I said, grab your friend’s phone out of their hand and just subscribe for them. So get on it.
Katy
We’ll be watching for you. Welcome to Rome. This is the Bittersweet Life with Katy Sewell and Tiffany Parks. Hello. This is the Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewell.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
We’re sitting here, what? Right during child playtime hour in Piazza de San Cosimato.
Tiffany
Exactly. Piazza San Cosimato. Lots of kids around because there’s a playground in this square. It’s 6pm. People are doing their evening walk, pre dinner walk. So I was thinking, Katy, about things that are rude in one country that are not rude, considered rude in another country. And how this can be a possible pitfall for expats because you’re in your own home country and what you’re doing is not rude, but you go to another country and it is. Right.
Katy
So did you have an example that came to mind?
Tiffany
Well, one came to mind that sort of gave me the idea, and it has to do with washing your hands. In Italy, you should never wash your hands at the kitchen sink. The only exception might be if you’re, like, in the middle of cooking something like, let’s say you get raw egg on your hands or you’re cutting a piece of raw meat, then yes, you can go and you can clean your hands if you’re in the middle of cooking. But if you. If you walk in, even to your own home, you don’t go into your kitchen to wash your hands. When you get home, you go into the bathroom. But especially if you go into someone else’s home, you shouldn’t wash your hands in their kitchen sink. You should always, you know, ask to use the bathroom sink. And I didn’t know this until my husband pointed it out to me. And I mean, hey, it could be that he’s really nitpicky about this stuff, but I have seen other Italians, you know, when they come to my house, say, you know, may I go wash my hands? And they go to the bathroom and wash their hands. So. So I guess maybe it’s an Italian thing. Would you have ever even considered this as a floor? No.
Katy
Well, no. You think a sink, the sink you’re nearby would be the place? I mean, I can understand why it might be rude if someone’s in the middle of cooking a big meal in a kitchen, to go in there and be like, excuse me, and wash your hands. But at the same point, even that might not be considered rude in most places.
Tiffany
Yeah, I think it’s not just about being rude. I think it’s about, like, the idea is that you have really bad germs on your hands. If you’ve been out in the city, like, let’s say you’ve been on public transport, like, you’ve got some gross stuff on your hands and you don’t want to contaminate the kitchen sink, which should be clean, because you clean vegetables and stuff in the. You shouldn’t contaminate it with the dirt of your hands. Yeah. So you should go into the bathroom where it’s not as necessary for a bathroom sink to be clean.
Katy
I suppose since we have a bunch of kids walking around, one staring at us currently Sucking on her finger. Ciao. Hi. Is there anything that would be considered a faux pas when it comes to children that Italians do? Maybe that an American mother would find a faux pas, or that a British mother would find a faux pas, or anything that I could do with these Italian children as a. As a visitor to the city that would be. I mean, I’m not talking about crass, like abduction or molestation. I’m talking about slash, the children.
Tiffany
Katy.
Katy
Interaction that would be considered inappropriate.
Tiffany
I don’t know. Nothing comes to mind specifically, but I do think that it might go the other way. Italians might be a little bit less uptight about their kids than Americans in the sense that I know a lot of Americans. You don’t touch other people’s babies or even their kids. You just don’t touch them. Even if you know them. You’re not kind of supposed to put your hands on a child unless, like, you know them really well. Whereas here, you know, like, I remember when Aurelia was a baby and I’d have him in the wrap, I would be standing in line somewhere, and someone would like, oh, cute. And, like, kind of like pinch his toes or something. Usually he would have socks on. So. But I just feel like they were a little bit less worried about people touching their kids than people in the States are. Like, as far as strangers, I know.
Katy
We’Ve talked about in the past that they’re much more willing to give you ways that you’re parenting wrong.
Tiffany
Oh, yes, that’s totally true.
Katy
We do that probably in the United States, too. But we do it online.
Tiffany
We don’t do it in person to strangers in the supermarket.
Katy
Exactly.
Tiffany
I have had so many strangers tell me, oh, the baby is cold. You know, you’re in the supermarket, the baby doesn’t have a hat on. Like, what, are you crazy? You’re like a bad mother, More or less. I don’t use those words, but yeah. Or if you’re carrying the baby in a wrap, they’re like, your baby can’t breathe. Whereas Americans know that that’s rude. Even if you think it, you hold your tongue. I think Americans, they don’t engage. You know, they’re like, not my business.
Katy
There are entire books written on this stuff. I remember not even sure if I can come up with any examples because it’s been so long, but we’ve talked about me traveling a lot to Vietnam, and there was a book I read before I went to Vietnam that was called Culture Shock Vietnam. I think it’s a whole series, but it was basically Breaking down some of these things, stuff that’s gonna seem extremely abnormal to your experience and that you’ve gotta roll with and things to not do that would be terribly rude. And I wish I could think of some examples. I mean, some of it’s just gestures. We all know that making the gesture of come here with your fingers up and gesturing to somebody, like come toward me is in some countries considered a very lewd gesture. It’s indicating some unsavory sexual stuff or whatever. So you’re supposed to beckon to people with your hand downward.
Tiffany
Do that here too, actually. Yeah.
Katy
And so there were things like that. But I also just remember that occasionally if I was in a photograph with a Vietnamese woman, sometimes she would just put her hand on my butt, you know, which was. I don’t know what that was. I don’t remember like how they would have explained that. But for them it wasn’t any weirder than putting your arm around the person’s waist. You just lightly put your hand on somebody’s butt cheek as you’re taking the photo.
Tiffany
Gosh, that’s. Well, tell that to Al Franken. Maybe he grew up in Vietnam and. Yeah, right, that’s funny. Also, I remember watching the Olympics, the gymnastic Olympics. I don’t know if this is the Romanians, but I want to say, yeah, the Romanians, the coach, after the girl did her dismount or whatever, they would kiss on the mouth. A totally innocent, non sexual peck. Of course, now after all that stuff that’s happened with the US Gymnastics, I’m like looking at that with a side eye, but it seems totally innocent and it seems like the way that an Italian would kiss on the cheek. It’s not sexual. Everyone does it. Here’s something speaking of kissing and other forms of greeting, in Italy, hugging is. You don’t see people hugging very often. When you come to Italy for the first time, you might think it odd that people are going to go and kiss you on the cheek. Especially men to men, they’ll do the kiss on the cheek. And a lot of American men are kind of like, put off another man kissing their cheek. But when you go and hug somebody that you’re not that close to, and Americans do this, they hug. Maybe not someone you’ve just randomly met, but like, let’s say it’s like your second cousin’s husband, you might hug them if you’ve just met them, even that’s much more intimate. You feel their body, they feel your body just the front of it, but still, you know, And I think that I’ve come to the point where to me hugging someone is way more intimate than kissing them. And I wouldn’t prefer not to hug most people.
Katy
See, I do hug people. I’m a hugger. I’m a good hugger. I’m not like a indiscriminate hugger. It’s not like I everybody I meet up, I go hug, oh, hugs before we go or whatever. But I do hug people, I think, and sometimes you can kind of tell when you have a hugger. I mean, I’ve even done interviews where the person hugs me afterwards because sometimes it’s a very, very intimate experience and you had some sort of friendly connection.
Tiffany
In Italy, I’ve gotten to the point where people are not comfortable hugging. Even my mother in law. Maybe the only time I’ve ever hugged my mother in law was when her mother died. And even then I felt her kind of stiffen a little bit. And she’s a very warm person. She’s not like one of those off putting people. It’s just not a thing that they do over here.
Katy
Yeah, it’s interesting. Same with Vietnam. The Vietnamese don’t like to hug either. And then of course they moved to America because I went to Vietnam so much. I knew so many Vietnamese people in the United States and some of them embrace the hugging and some of them, you know, never get quite beyond. But then they put up with it because they know Americans want to hug. That’s interesting. Another thing that I picked up here when I lived here and still employ because it’s so damn convenient is line cutting. Yes.
Tiffany
You can kind of get away with line cutting in Italy now. It’s not, not to say that it’s completely okay. People will roll their eyes a little bit and not be very happy about it. But you’re not going to get shamed as you would in the States. I mean, I haven’t lived in the States for so long. Like what would happen if you cut a line blatantly in the States?
Katy
I wouldn’t necessarily be super heightened. But a person would say the line starts back there.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
You know, they would say something like, oh, this isn’t the beginning, the line is back there, stuff like that.
Tiffany
So they wouldn’t start yelling at you or something like that.
Katy
I mean, depending on the person, you never know. I mean, some people are high strung and we’ve had really bad days.
Tiffany
I see the same, the same issue with the line skipping. I see it in the driving too. In Italy. You know how you got your exit coming up, and everybody in the right lane is gonna. It’s gonna exit, and they’re all way backed up. And the other two left lanes are, like, going nice and quick. There’s always that juice jerk rides that middle lane until the very last second and then cuts in. And in the States, you can’t get away with that because nobody will let you in. Like, you just. They don’t. They won’t let you. In Italy, everybody does it. Not everybody, because if everybody did it, it would be total chaos. But just enough people do it that I come across this every single day on my way to work. When I first started driving to work, I would, of course, you know, get myself in that right lane and wait in my turn. Good Seattle girl. And I would get up there, and these people are trying to push in. And I think pushing in not right in front of me, but, like, three or four cars in front of me, and I’d be like, hey, like, don’t let them in. Don’t let them in. And they always let them in. I guess it’s just not as much of a faux pas here, which I can’t really get the point. I can’t get it because obviously the people there are people who wait in line, because otherwise there would be no line.
Katy
True.
Tiffany
What do those people think? Those people who do wait in line, what do they think of the people who don’t? Aren’t they annoyed?
Katy
Well, in some cases, too. I feel like after living here and after being in more chaotic places, I feel like sometimes people, and at least in the United States, I don’t know about other places in Europe, I feel like they just sort of queue up, not always knowing what they’re queuing up for. You see a line, it’s somewhere near where you need to go, and you just get in line. They’re so used to having to patiently wait in line. The other example that I remember from going through the uk, I was in London, and maybe they do this, I don’t know here, but in the uk, if there’s an escalator, if you’re going to stand on it, you stand on the right, and the people who are going to walk, walk up on the left. Americans just cover the path. If they’re going to stand, they and their partner, whoever they’re with, will stand side by side or with their bag next to them so that nobody else can get past. And I find that terribly obnoxious after traveling for so long. But Americans would never think to have a. Right away.
Tiffany
That’s funny. That you say that because. I guess I haven’t taken a lot of escalators, at least not recently in the States or in places where people are trying to get somewhere in a hurry. Because in Italy, it’s kind of like half and half. I would say more than half and half. I would say about like 75% of Italians, at least Romans, like, will do that. They’ll stand on the right, walk on the left. But there’s just enough people who don’t that it’s very common that you get stuck. There’s like 20 people waiting and they want to walk. And there’s that one jerk who’s standing there. And I always thought in America, they don’t do this in America, but maybe not.
Katy
They do. America probably taught them that.
Tiffany
My thought was that Americans didn’t do that. That Americans were more polite and that they knew to stand on the right.
Katy
No, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t you know Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian? Every single time I’m on the escalator and Americans are covering it up like they always do, I think of him, his one comedic line that he said, it’s not a ride, people, because it’s not. They get on it like it’s walking up. It’s not even an option.
Tiffany
Well, I mean, I think that you can. Everyone has the choice. If they don’t want to walk up the escalator, they have the right to stand, especially if they have a suitcase or they’re tired. But they should stand in a way that allows other people to get by. That’s what annoys me. It’s not the fact that they’re standing. It’s that they’re covering the whole thing.
Katy
Well, what about Japan? Walk into certain rooms and keep your shoes on. We’ve talked about that. I did that on accident once. I’m good at playing the stupid American too, though. What else? This is part of what’s so great is also it’s kind of a microcosm of how you break down cultural stuff, because we all have cultural things that influence what we do, but we also have cultural things that are what’s appropriate. And part of traveling that’s so interesting is realizing that what’s cultural, culturally inappropriate where you’re from is like a non issue in other places that you go.
Speaker C
Yeah.
Tiffany
I mean, it makes you wonder, what is it about that culture that values this over that?
Katy
Why?
Tiffany
Why do Italians value hygiene so much? And they don’t value pasteurization. Yeah. Or they don’t value people’s time. I Feel like. I feel like Italians do not value other people’s time.
Katy
How so?
Tiffany
Well, they make you wait, you know, they’re always late. That’s a totally Italian thing that I think in America is not acceptable. Like to keep people waiting for long periods of time. Italians do that. And it’s not really considered rude, it’s just considered normal. But even like not letting somebody buy on the escalator, although you say that’s an American thing too. I just feel like it’s not being considerate to other people’s temporal needs.
Katy
Can you think of an example of when you made a. A large faux pas in the country while you were traveling?
Tiffany
Oh, geez. I don’t know if it was cultural, but I just remember we had these foreign exchange students come from Paris when I was in high school and I went over to stay with them one summer. And I just remember the mother, she was a little bit, a lot anal. Like she was, I think OCD or at least obsessive compulsive personality disorder. She was obsessed and she was always getting mad at me for something and I just felt like I could do nothing right. It was awful. I felt so self conscious. But I don’t necessarily know that it was cultural stuff or if it was just her. But she definitely made me feel bad. And also same sort of situation. When I first moved to Rome, I was living with these distant relatives of mine. And the mother of the family was also very, very clean. It’s common for Italian women, I think, to be kind of obsessively clean in their homes. And I didn’t know that when somebody washes the floor because my mom never. I mean, I honestly don’t remember my mom ever washing the floor. I mean, ever mopping. I mean, I guess she must have, but it wasn’t the kind of thing where like, oh, you know, you can’t go in this room now because the floor, floor has just been mopped. Like, I just don’t remember that. And this woman had just mopped the floor. And I walked into the room, not with shoes or anything, like just with socks. And she just like gave me this look of death, like I was evil. Like I should know that you don’t walk onto a floor right after it’s been washed. So I. Oh, and also, same family later that year. I was really late. Okay, Now I just gave people, just people who are late. But it wasn’t technically my fault because my phone wasn’t working. And I didn’t know that her husband, this distant uncle of mine, was downstairs from my apartment waiting for me because my phone wasn’t working. It was Christmas day and I was supposed to go over their house for Christmas lunch. And I got there and she was just mumbling about under her breath all night, all day about how 2:00pm we’ve never had Christmas dinner at 2:00pm I mean, 2:00pm like, oh the.
Speaker C
God.
Tiffany
I mean how the. It’s a hot. It’s like a scandal. 2:00pm I mean, Christmas dinner at 2:00pm it was just, you know, maybe that was cultural. Like that was just not the right time to have Christmas dinner. I don’t know. Again, that could have just been her personality. I think it’s probably always a combination of both because somebody who’s really polite and really kind is never going to make you feel bad for a faux pas like that. I don’t think.
Katy
Yeah, I do think that there are certain cultures that have certain types of interactions, slightly more passive aggressive cultures. I don’t know that this is also a cultural faux pas, but sometimes there’s like a lack of awareness or scale. And what I’m thinking of is I met this girl once in Vietnam who, she was poorer than a lot of the other people I knew there. So she sort of felt and expected she would never ever be able to afford to go to the US but she was very interested in like what kind of common life was like in the US and so we would talk about it. But because I went to Vietnam back and forth multiple times, I decided that one time I was going to bring her a book that I had made of very common things. What an advertisement from inside the paper looks like what a leaf that I knew didn’t exist in Vietnam that was in the United States. Looks like just sort of common things. What a. Cartoon strips were like in the, in the paper. And she loved it. Next time I went to her house, she showed me, oh, here it is. I look at it all the time. Next time, however, when you give me something like this, can you make it smaller? Because it was like a. Not a photo album size, but it was like a, a journal sized book. So I was tall. And she lives of course in a really tiny place with eight other people or something. And so this book, while she loved it, took up so much space. And this one shelf that they had for me, of course I wouldn’t, coming from big grand America where everybody has too many rooms in their homes, I wouldn’t have even thought that a smaller journal would have been the way to go.
Tiffany
Yeah, that’s true. That’s interesting. Just you telling me that story made me think of one more story, and then we’re gonna have to end. It’s gonna be a short episode today. This story was told to us by our mutual friend Suzanne. And I don’t think it’s her story. I want to say it’s like her mom’s story or something, but whoever it is, she was a young woman. She was living for a short period of time in her distant relative’s home in Germany. She was complimenting everything in the house, you know. Oh, what a beautiful teapot you have. Oh, this is such a beautiful chair. Oh, I love, you know, just, you know, your art. Yeah, she was just complimenting everything, which isn’t a very American thing to do. It’s just to give people compliments.
Katy
This room is beautiful.
Tiffany
I love this little. This little box that you have here. And at the end of her time there, I don’t know if she spent a month there or something. They asked her into the living room, and all of the things that she had complimented were laid out. And they said, please choose one of these things to take back with you. Because in the German tradition, which this girl, whether it was Suzanne’s mom or grandma, I don’t know, didn’t realize that in Germany, or at least at this time in Germany, if you compliment something in someone’s home, that person feels obligated to give it to you. But of course, she was, like, complimenting everything in the house.
Katy
You know, like, she wants everything we own.
Tiffany
Well, I think they must have known that. She couldn’t have known that. You know, she couldn’t have known that that was a tradition. But they did honor that tradition by offering herself something of those things. So I thought that was a great story.
Katy
That is a really, really. Did she take anything? Do we know?
Tiffany
She did. I think she took something. And I think Suzanne was like, look, and this is it, you know, and she had it. I’ll have to ask her who it was.
Katy
Most people have missed it ever since. It was, like, one of their. One of their family heirlooms.
Tiffany
Diamond wedding ring.
Katy
Well, this looks the most valuable.
Tiffany
I’ll take your Monet. Yeah.
Katy
Oh, man. Well, just to end. I mean, I remember really briefly when we talk about lining up and pushing and shoving. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to change planes in Korea, but, I mean, if you don’t shove, you’ll never get on that plane.
Tiffany
Oh, I bet. I bet. And, I mean, that’s kind of the way it is. Driving in Rome as well. Like I always say, you got to push your advantage in Rome. Like when you got space in front of you, you move because you’ll never, if you have to turn left onto a two way street, you go. You don’t wait until people stop for you. You just got to go, well, we.
Katy
Got to leave it there because you.
Tiffany
Got to go, I got to go.
Katy
And being late is not rude in Italy but it is rude in your particular relationship and partly because you’re an American.
Tiffany
So my husband was like I’m going to come pick you up at 6:00. He, he texted me at 6:00 promptly.
Katy
He should go into radio.
Tiffany
Okay.
Katy
So until next time, this is the Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Se.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Join us again. Bye. We welcome your feedback, show topic, ideas or questions. You can always reach the show by emailing bittersweetlifepodcastmail.com or through the bittersweetlife.net.