This entire post is an excuse for this. You caught me.

The bowl itself was not a concern. The disposal of paper into the bowl was easy to get used to. That’s fine.

Filling your drinking water 25 cm away from the crapper? I didn’t like that conceptually. But it’s running water. I get how people can be used to that.

The problem was the lack of bidet.

This is what I want to know too. I'm from a first world western country but the USA toilets made me feel like there was still a long way to go and I'd been living mid my whole life.

What’s the most obvious “That’s bullshit” you see westerns fall in line for?

I always thought that we in the Middle East really fall back too much on Great Man theory when talking about politics, and I didn't expect it to be so common in a place with a (your thoughts on electoralism aside) nominally pluralistic democracy. People acting like one leader's replacement or changes to individuals can be enough to change systemic problems. I didn't really talk politics with people I don't consider friends but I found some of it WWE-esque. The prospect of simply voting some systemic evils out of existence is cute, almost. People died for weekends. People still die to save their homes from invaders.

Granted I come from a country running on Ottoman Feudalism with unlimited capitalism settings. The liberal fantasy might be a naive, cowardly reading of "democratic" governments to you, to me it really is simply a fantasy. I think most Hexbear users are a bit too irony poisoned on electoralism, if that needs pointing out. I personally think some of what can be criticized as entryism can still be good as harm reduction. When the worst people seize any iota of power they do bad shit, you can put in every backstop you can without betraying your belief in a better world.

What gave you the most culture shock?

Bidet aside.

Might sound weird, but I immediately noticed a lot more signage than I'm used to. Notices not to touch things, to stay away from cables, where not to throw garbage, even simple things like looking after your belongings. Normally I'm only used to seeing no smoking signs if anything. Tons of signs, audio cues. Accessibility is cool, and accessibility helps everyone, I was looking for wheelchair signs when I was lugging my suitcase.

I have some thoughts on how social norms are a bit different in the city center. I'm used to the nights out being more insular (you mostly interact with your friends and meet people through them), and, paradoxically, people out and about in the day being friendlier. I said hello to cashiers and bus drivers and it was basically just me doing that. If this one is a faux pas I'd rather keep doing it.

There's obviously very different attitudes to sex, casual sex, sexuality, even things like how/how little people are willing to dress. I don't think I'm in the right place to package how I felt about this kind of thing, much less discuss it on Hexbear. Yeah it would be funny to put a spoiler block for a content warning for "cis-hetero-dude discusses sexuality". But frankly despite being quite happy for everyone else to do their thing, and hoping I've been mature about friends who move exploring that realm without judgement, I find it extremely intimidating. A few years ago I had a bit of a weird internal discomfort when women friends of mine would confide about some experiences after moving to such countries - like I in principle am supportive but feel weird about it just given me not being used to these things being discussed. People do have sex here obviously, but I'm not very sexually/romantically outgoing, so it was weird. This trip gave me a bit of that? A childish feeling like I have a lot to learn socially and that includes navigating this side of socialization and it just being a normal part of other people's lives. Any more than this would require that "joke" CW.

I'm somewhat comfortable enough with Lemmy/Hexbear to admit that I think of things I might write or say about this side of the social contract as somewhat incel-adjacent and quite frankly that freaks me out to see in my thoughts. I guess more in the original academic sense. It's explicitly not something I wallow in or try to seek community in.

What counts as too much or too little garlic is very different in Europe. That's funny right?

How do you feel about corn?

Frankly not at all. I think when I was a libby teenager I had built up this image of social democracy and transit and the arts scene and all that in my head, which I deconstructed over time as my politics developed. I also spent a lot of time in Gulf cities that are transparently/parodically designed as a response to a deep inferiority complex towards “great western cities”. I came in with a very jaded view of the west and was very very pleasantly surprised.

The arts scene, sports stuff, functional public transit actually used by everyone and not just designed to get laborers out of rich people’s way, I don’t know, it gave me a good feeling. I don’t know if this constitutes seduction by treatlerism or not, what I liked isn’t as product-centric, I’d like to think. The artistic scene blew me away and I came in with pretty high expectations for that.

I think you guys see a lot of things as inseparable, that’s what I mean by vantage point. I’m glad your societies are capable of critical reflection on their destructive obsession with treats, but spend some time in the Gulf States and you will really see the difference between your problematic consumption and straight up worship of capital, ritualistic consumerism, and hyper-alienation of labor.

The short answer is that I was mostly either in the city center or the woods so I was probably not going to get in trouble with the bad people.

The city center I saw was ultra diverse. I only worried about getting shit from racist white locals when I went to a football match, but no issues came up. I even ordered food at a restaurant in a “foreign” language when I saw the server’s name and heard their accent, and I thought it was cool! I don’t think I’m going to the places the racists go, for the most part.

The thing is, in Lebanon we think of these cities as dangerous places full of crime (implied to be mostly from minorities). But honestly, waiting around for public transport among a bunch of people, who look like they’re from every corner of the world, felt safer than the football crowd, like I felt like I blended in. I felt extremely welcome in that sense. I did not expect this at all.

I honestly had a great time. Like surprisingly. Like the concept of moving to Europe suddenly became less scary.