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What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad? (kyu.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The opposite happened to me in Japan. For the love of God I can't do an asian squat and there was only this old style squat toilet there. On top of that I really had to go because I had a bit of a diarrhea situation going on. I had no idea which one was the front and which was the back of the toilet. I figured if I try it I will just shit on my pants, so I had to completely remove them. Then I awkwardly lowered myself down no some kind of a weird squat, holding on to the walls of the stall for life, sweating like hell and bam, some of it went on the toilet.

I was relieved that I didn't shit myself but mortified how to clean up my mess. In the end I was able to clean it with some water and I was lucky that it was in the night (at a cheap hostel) and nobody came in why all of this was happening.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hadn't thought about the trickiness the other way. Before I visit I will definitely spend some time googling how to poop in Japan.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Most bathrooms in Japan have either western style toilets or a choice of both, especially in urban areas. But better to not be caught unawares.