The Expat/Emigrant Lounge

backslashbaby

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What are your light switches like? In the countries I've lived in they are all pretty similar - except in UK bathrooms, where you have a string to pull!

As for toilets -- well, the most -- interesting -- are Indian squat toilets; especially in--um--rural areas where people are not sure where they are supposed to squat etc...
WHat I love in some Asian toilets are the water squirts in lieu of toilet paper.

But never pull the red string! How embarrassing... of course I did. I'm like a cat.
 

Lauretta

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I really enjoyed all the bits above. I'm happy to read I'm not the only one who moved from her own country to settle somewhere else. I'm Italian, moved to Ireland 5 years ago, now house hunting.
I'm a city center girl, grown up in the city center, living in the city center now looking for a house in the suburbs. Not sure it will be the right decision, I'm afraid to get bored in a flash.

Anyhow!

Yeah, the food is the one thing I do miss. I tend to forget how good REAL Italian food is, and then I go back and I realize all over again what I miss... But then there's drama, chaos, unemployment, crappy politics and all that stuff that I do NOT miss...
This.

Ha, il bidet...
My kids never saw a bidet until we brought them to Italy and the first thing they said was: "Look! A sink for us kids!!"

And this.
I may get a toilet-bidet on Amazon, that kind of bidet that's used in Japan...

images
 

OneWriter

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I really enjoyed all the bits above. I'm happy to read I'm not the only one who moved from her own country to settle somewhere else. I'm Italian, moved to Ireland 5 years ago, now house hunting.
I'm a city center girl, grown up in the city center, living in the city center now looking for a house in the suburbs. Not sure it will be the right decision, I'm afraid to get bored in a flash.

Anyhow!


This.



And this.
I may get a toilet-bidet on Amazon, that kind of bidet that's used in Japan...

images

Woah.... :Hail:
 

Gabby

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Hey all! I'm new to the forums and was pretty excited to find an international section. I'm from Mexico, born and raised and still living here.

I've been lucky enough to travel a bit, and hope to actually live in some other country for at least a while. International is cool, after all.
 

Lauretta

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Welcome aboard Gabby!

ROFL Madder! I love it! We tried on our honey moon, around Japan. I wanted to take one of those back to Ireland!!!
 

Billingsgate

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I'm American, came to Hong Kong in 1985 intending to visit for two weeks and never left. Except when I left "forever" to move to London. Two years later I was back in Hong Kong and ready to kiss the ground (if it was a bit cleaner).

Speaking of toilets (why are we?), my main peeve here is that Chinese, especially mainlanders, stand on the toilet seats. Raised with hole-in-the-floor squat types, they believe that it's unhygienic to sit on a toilet seat shared by others (you got to agree) and unhealthy posture to sit on a toilet western-style, since squatting is much better for passing whatever out of your whatever (they have a point there too). So all the time I find footprints on the seats of toilets in any office building. Gross.

Well, they also think that spitting is much more hygienic than emptying your phlegm into a cloth and shoving it in your pocket. Hm, they're right on that one, too.

Vive le culture clash!
 

Krysondra

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When I lived in Japan for two years, the public squat toilets also came without toilet paper or bidets... So, you had to collect tissues from the advertisers who would hand them out and carry them with you for when you needed a public restroom. (Public like at the train station and scary places like that.)
 

aruna

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Indian toilets in cheaper hotels and many homes etc come with a tap next to the squat toilet, a bucket, and a plastic jug for ladling it out. You use your right hand for retrieving the water and the lft hand for -- you know what.

Hmmm. We've been on this toilet theme for quite a while now!
 

Bluestone

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I came to the thread with Poetinahat's question and all seemed to be going along well in the first page...fast forward to this page and all of a sudden we're discussing the nuances of toilets?? :crazy:

Since I have nothing to add to that (okay, I do like the one flush/two flush water saving option we have in Australia :) ) here's my journey:

born and raised in Australia
four months as exchange student in New Caledonia
one year in London
two years in Spain
twenty-five years in different states of the U.S.

I miss Australia a lot, try to visit as often as possible and intend to move back in the next five years. My husband, who is American, would move there NOW, but we have commitments over here. I love the US, have great friends here and it has been a wonderfully significant - and huge -chunk of my life, but I miss my sisters, Mum and all those things that say home more than anything else.
 

aruna

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One of the pleasures of being an expat is the ability to compare and contrast the way they do things in different countries, so that is a natural development on this thread.

Australia is one of the countries I'm keeping in freserve as a plaace to retire to. I have a cousin who lives there and she recently came to the UK -- I met her again after 40 years! I have several Autralian friends and friends who have been there and the praise is always in the superlative.

One thing I require from a retirement country is all-year sunshine, and Australia has that. So, you Ossies - beware! You might be seeing me one day! My cousin lives in Queensland and that's where I'd be heading -- if only for a visit.
 

Gabby

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Oh man, the few months I lived in Japan left me with an almost compulsive tic of storing toiletpaper in my purse. Wherever I went, if they had enough toilet paper, I would rip some squares, fold 'em, and place it in my purse for, y'know, harder times in public toilets.

A friend told me she had accidentaly peed on her shoes while squatting. That never happened to me, but I think I can understand how it happened...
 

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I came to the thread with Poetinahat's question and all seemed to be going along well in the first page...fast forward to this page and all of a sudden we're discussing the nuances of toilets?? :crazy:

It's the little things that we miss about our homes. ;)
 

Scriptissima

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I came to the thread with Poetinahat's question and all seemed to be going along well in the first page...fast forward to this page and all of a sudden we're discussing the nuances of toilets?? :crazy:
That's just the logical result of the predecessing discussion, when we were talking about foods we've been missing after moving abroad. After all, what goes in must come out. :D
 

madderblue

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I'm American, came to Hong Kong in 1985 intending to visit for two weeks and never left. Except when I left "forever" to move to London. Two years later I was back in Hong Kong and ready to kiss the ground (if it was a bit cleaner).

Speaking of toilets (why are we?), my main peeve here is that Chinese, especially mainlanders, stand on the toilet seats. Raised with hole-in-the-floor squat types, they believe that it's unhygienic to sit on a toilet seat shared by others (you got to agree) and unhealthy posture to sit on a toilet western-style, since squatting is much better for passing whatever out of your whatever (they have a point there too). So all the time I find footprints on the seats of toilets in any office building. Gross.

Well, they also think that spitting is much more hygienic than emptying your phlegm into a cloth and shoving it in your pocket. Hm, they're right on that one, too.

Vive le culture clash!

Billingsgate, I spent a little time in Hong Kong. Completely smitten. The energy there is unreal!

And in Japan they do the standing on Western-style toilets too. In our old house a warning was posted on the actual toilet stating (with stick figures) to sit down, not stand. I believe people lift that first lid though so they standing directly on the hard porcelain.

When I lived in Japan for two years, the public squat toilets also came without toilet paper or bidets... So, you had to collect tissues from the advertisers who would hand them out and carry them with you for when you needed a public restroom. (Public like at the train station and scary places like that.)

It's surreal, both extremes. There are still a lot of terrifying toilets without toilet paper and well, just nasty. And then there are the new fangled fancy ones with seat warmers and a lovely flushing sound (or music) to prevent your neighbor from overhearing you do your biz.

Indian toilets in cheaper hotels and many homes etc come with a tap next to the squat toilet, a bucket, and a plastic jug for ladling it out. You use your right hand for retrieving the water and the lft hand for -- you know what.

Hmmm. We've been on this toilet theme for quite a while now!


:eek:

I miss Australia a lot, try to visit as often as possible and intend to move back in the next five years. My husband, who is American, would move there NOW, but we have commitments over here. I love the US, have great friends here and it has been a wonderfully significant - and huge -chunk of my life, but I miss my sisters, Mum and all those things that say home more than anything else.

I've been in Japan twenty years and really starting to think about my parents getting older and me being and only child...and you said it perfectly, "all those things that say home more than anything else."

Oh man, the few months I lived in Japan left me with an almost compulsive tic of storing toiletpaper in my purse. Wherever I went, if they had enough toilet paper, I would rip some squares, fold 'em, and place it in my purse for, y'know, harder times in public toilets.

A friend told me she had accidentaly peed on her shoes while squatting. That never happened to me, but I think I can understand how it happened...

My big accident was when I was a student out drinking with the kendo club. I was wearing this cute pair of overalls (well, I thought they were cute) and I didn't manage holding on to the shoulder straps very well so that half the top half fell into the toilet. Yep. "Here's my money! I'm going home!" *dash~!*
 

Bookewyrme

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So far, I have never been to a country where I felt particularly comfortable in the public toilets. They gross me out and I hate having to use them. I'm not even wild about the UK ones which come with an attendant and you have to pay to get into (Only 30p for a pee! :tongue).

I do love comparing the way they do different things in the different countries I've been in though. I worry that it gets a bit tiresome to the people around me, but I love having my friends explain cultural things and then sort of working out what cultural practice from home it matches up to, if any at all and sort of fitting it into my frame of reference. I think of it as my inner cultural anthropologist (my minor in undergrad) at work. :)
 

backslashbaby

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I noticed the co-ed toilets in France really freaked out a lot of tourists. I love it. They are much quicker than waiting on women and women with kids all of the time (just a practical thing).

I did wonder what certain Muslims, etc. would do? I think there was probably a disabled toilet somewhere, unless I'm imagining the UK in France (in the UK, there is a whole sepaerate toilet room for the disabled, not just a stall that is wheelchair-ready like in the US).

The red string is for a medical emergency, speaking of disabled toilets :D I had one in a hotel room and pulled it out of curiosity!!

I had a well-travelled friend post on his Facebook status one night for help in figuring out how to flush the toilet! Folks from all over the world were trying to give him tips. It was the funniest thing ever :ROFL: And he was in NYC!! (The flush handle was across on the opposite wall!)
 

Bookewyrme

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The red string is for a medical emergency, speaking of disabled toilets :D I had one in a hotel room and pulled it out of curiosity!!
See I've only run into a second (non-light) string in private homes. In fact, there's a string pull in my bathroom (though the lights are switch operated). I have no idea what these things do, but they're always connected to a box in the ceiling with a little red light on it.

I had a well-travelled friend post on his Facebook status one night for help in figuring out how to flush the toilet! Folks from all over the world were trying to give him tips. It was the funniest thing ever :ROFL: And he was in NYC!! (The flush handle was across on the opposite wall!)
The opposite wall? Who thought THAT was a good idea? :rolleyes:
 

backslashbaby

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A space thing? A remodeling thing? I have no clue, but that's New York for ya :ROFL:

Yeah, with the red string, they were required to come check on me. I tried to talk them out of it. How embarrassing! One guy understood; another didn't.

I think there are two types of people in the world: those who'd pull the red string and those who think pulling it is crazy :ROFL:
 

Bluestone

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You guys slay me. I return three days later....and we're still talking about toilets!

But I get it. All the stuff that says familiarity, home, etc.

I was thinking about how I could easily make grilled asparagus and cheese on toast myself, but when I go home and order it in a cafe, it just tastes different, like they get you. Because even if you felt like ordering it here, you couldn't. Does that make sense?

Okay, as you were... :D
 

backslashbaby

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:D

I don't understand how cultures live without biscuits, myself. Not the kind with tea, but the hot, flaky, food-of-the-gods kind.

I've always been back to the US South again to visit at least before that became an emergency situation, but I could imagine it.
 

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This is an american light switch:

20060802110641-interruptores.jpg
hQnVlBTglkCdYr0EuldqwqiMqj3h6voIP55V4U_q2Rz3VveMkfJTWLLqpolLHfA2OSW7WmExfK4uDfwEoPSxeBwTaq0ebF_-R1mam_sRH0AOcnPhMIirbVOaZr0fsjaAVyiBFIAgFyZSiWXZyS3dZHEj61Vsop07luJ3eqHTcCd7MQemXl8MqiPrjSeQpchhgpt2BH8YskazElGMx3rfCnfY


This is closer to what portuguese light switches look like:

interruptores.jpg


Yeah, love those switches (the big ones)

and it is the little things which matter - dunno, hate this feckin rain, but...
 
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SaraP

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:D

I don't understand how cultures live without biscuits, myself. Not the kind with tea, but the hot, flaky, food-of-the-gods kind.

I've always been back to the US South again to visit at least before that became an emergency situation, but I could imagine it.

We don't have biscuits in Portugal. Our bread makes up for it though. Every american I have met that has lived here says it's one of the things they will miss the most when going back home. :D
 

OneWriter

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We don't have biscuits in Portugal. Our bread makes up for it though. Every american I have met that has lived here says it's one of the things they will miss the most when going back home. :D

I'm going to say something politically incorrect: Americans DO NOT know how to make bread. Sorry, guys. I really, really like you folks and that's why I've lived all over the place and now I live here in the US. But, man, do I miss bread!!!!!!