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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]

495 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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] 53 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Cutlery.
Growing up everyone around me could use a knife and fork, whereas chopsticks were something most people couldn't use or only used badly. It never occurred to me that the opposite might be true until I shared a meal with some co-workers from mainland China and saw how clumsily they used our utensils.
It wasn't until that point that I appreciated the amount of dexterity and finesse that goes into using cutlery well, and that I took it for granted because it's something learned in childhood.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Did you know the details on how to eat with knife and fork differ across different countries as well?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In the American style, also called the zig-zag method or fork switching, the knife is initially held in the right hand and the fork in the left. Holding food in place with the fork tines-down, a single bite-sized piece is cut with the knife. The knife is then set down on the plate, the fork transferred from the left hand to the right hand, and the food is brought to the mouth for consumption. The fork is then transferred back to the left hand and the knife is picked up with the right

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this since it's cultural, but I feel like if it is possible to use cutlery wrong, then I think the American style is definitely one of the wrong ways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No one does that. In America we eat the burger or pizza with our hands, like GOD intended. Fries too.

Every American dish can be eaten with your hands: burritos, sandwiches, pitas, hot dogs, fried chicken, BBQ, etc. What do you eat with? A fork, like some Euro pansy?

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

Never before have a I hoped that a Wikipedia article is part of an elaborate joke.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I had no idea that I'd adopted the European method because fuck all that transferring back and forth.

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

in the American style the fork is held much like a spoon, a pen or much like an excavator

Shots fucking fired.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My family-in-law, all 4 generations, are like 462874th generation American. They use cutlery in their fists like they're cavemen stabbing at the last mammoth chop.

I definitely do not think chopstick experience is their problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That's fair. Funnily enough, in the discussion that resulted from the meal I mentioned, my Chinese co-workers did say there are plenty of people who can't use chopsticks well either.

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

This is definitely a generational, regional, ethnic, and class thing.

As a non-Asian kid on the US West Coast in the '80s, I learned to use chopsticks only slightly after learning to use a fork or spoon, even though we rarely ate food from cultures where chopsticks are standard. Heck, I'm pretty sure I was given chopsticks to eat tortellini at least once!

I was somewhat baffled as an adult when a partner's parents weren't comfortable using chopsticks ... and they (the parents) were from New York City and had grown up eating Chinese takeout regularly.