cultural diff ro-uk

Cultural Differences Romania – England	Tips for a Romanian while in UK	Tips for an Englishmen in Romania
Initial meeting	Initial meeting with an English living person should happen without any major concerns. People are friendly and making acquaintances is easier than you thought. Still, is important not to import your habits from home, considering that once you met someone you can call it for any help you would like her or him to offer to you.	In Romania is appropriate to be introduced by someone for a first meeting. Direct approach is considered likely as an assault behavior and should be avoided. You may politely ask someone for directions or other type of help, and you will get answers even you have had enough opinions already. People are willingly to help but you should be aware that too much help might get you confused. In northern territories people are less sociable on the street.
Conversation topics	Socializing in England should first start considering weather as conversational topics appropriate for any person or place. You can also discuss: - buses/train timetables and costs - cheap places for shopping - places to visit - local socializing events - sportive events (cricket, football, other)	Most conversation topics are covering: - shopping - new gadgets - football
National quirks (the value of keeping “face”, how long a handshake should be etc.)	Look the person directly in eyes when talking to someone. Always smile and be polite, even you are unhappy with something, there is always better if try the amiable way to solve a conflict. Don’t handshake in force. Be attentive to the conversation; do not talk about you and your habits only. Respect the differences in values and attitudes without considering something as less important or of a reduced quality.	Catch up with latest news, and you will be considered worthy for socializing with others. You will get invitations to major private reunions this way. Don’t handshake in force but be strong enough. If you are a woman, you should not use handshakes, unless you want to put people in a wondering mood. Fight hard for what you believe in, people tend to disqualify you whatever you say, mainly because they lack sufficient self-esteem for their own believes.
Space, (how close you normally stand to a person when talking)	Avoid the half meter circle around a person, that’s personal space.	Although some people respect personal space, when talking to someone is often usual to stand close and even touch the person as a communication gesture. This means the communicator has a lot of attention for you, and you should be satisfied being touched like that.
Touch (children, friends, strangers … when if ever, how)	Touching a person is unusual and more likely undesired. You should avoid playing with unknown children or asking them anything, this is considered as child abuse.	Touching persons is permitted, used and abused a lot. You need to get used with that and discover friendship beneath this gesture. Playing with unknown children and touching them is considered a sociable and positive gesture helping them being included as full members of society.
Attitude to pets, children, members of the opposite sex	It is habitual to collect animal dirt from your own pet. Use proper tools and small bags. Do not let your pet using private gardens or places where you see the “Do not litter/No pets allowed” sign. Do not touch or get in contact with unknown children. This might be considered abuse. Do not offer them candies or money, this is rude and might be considered an insult instead of gentle gesture. Treat members of opposite sex with equal respect. Do not help them if they do not ask for, this is considered impolite.	It is not habitual, yet, to collect animal dirt from your own pet. Avoid walking with your pet inside fence protected public spaces. Some people consider you should use only the public space allocated to the residential area were you are currently living. Expressing affection for a child through touching or offering candies is considered a sign of politeness and appreciation even you do not know the child. Rarely, this is though considered as inappropriate behavior.
Dress codes (home, work, etc)	Wearing clothes that are not quite well clean is not impolite. People tend to appreciate more what you have to say than what you are wearing.	Doing business or working at office – dress code mandatory: business attire. At home and going to market, dress code at will. Avoid going out wearing not-cleaned clothes. People will remark you in an undesired way. Wearing well-known manufactured clothes is a sing of wealthy and intelligence.
Daily timetable (when get up, have meals, go out, go to bed)	Get up early in the morning. Nine o clock means you are quite lazy. Breakfast is main dish. Going out for lunch and dinner is quite common and people tend to establish relationships at restaurants. Dinner parties are commons. People get their own contribution to make the dinner looking good and tasting fine.	It is usual top have three meals a day. Breakfast start early in the morning and is the easiest meal of the day. Lunch should be main dish. Served between 1 o’clock and 3 o’clock. Dinner is not easy at all, and starts at seven. Is habitual to have dinner in town.
Typical meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, other)
Alcohol consumption (in the home, out, ref driving etc)	There is a strong drinking culture in UK. All served drinks are trustable. You can get foreign imported wines from major flavored origins, almost everywhere. Do not be afraid you will have to change your local preferences while in England.	Alcohol consumption is not permitted if you are under-aged or when you are drinking in public spaces. It is usual to go in bars or pubs to get drunk. Drinking at home is not very habitual. You can get drinks at almost any hour of a day. Make sure the bottle has local stamp applied, otherwise you will drink home fabricated alcohol, (without proper license, made in questionable conditions).
Hygiene	Romanian men are less educated to maintain the hygiene rules in public spaces. You should clarify this in advance if you share rooms.	Spotted clothes does not mean the person who wears them has lack of hygiene, as you could be tempted to think. English personal hygiene is related to intimate rules when taking care of you, like having all teeth looked up for, as well as having daily showers and things like that. It is not about clothes at all.
Body behaviour (all forms, especially hand and arm signals)	English persons are retained in body behavior. It is difficult to interpret their reaction based on nonverbal gestures or body movements.	In Romania people express themselves with a full palette of colored body behavior. Learn them in detail to have a meaning clue of what is going on in a conversation.
Illness	Romanian people are used to treat illness with less scientifically proved and less formal rules and means. Although all this looks like coming from dark ages, they are 99% efficient and really cost-effective.	English persons are really stressed up when they get ill. Try to calm them down; things are not as black as they all think they are.
Homosexuality	Everything appears to be ok with people when encountering or talking about homosexuality. Should anyone knew you are one of them? Only if you try to get specific information, otherwise there nothing different between you and other sexuality types.	It becomes a cool thing to talk about, but avoid disclosure, if you are one of them.
Queuing	It is common to form regular Indian type queues either you have a queuing machine or not. Respect the distance between you and the person in front of you; nobody will try to get in front of you.	If you need to queue, you should be aware of dense queuing types and the fact that people will try to get a place in front of you if they will see an empty space there. There is only one queuing machine working in Romania, at the national tourism agency in Bucharest. Sometimes people make their own list of waiting at queues, but they do not always stick to them.
Bathrooms (use of bath/toilet, toilet paper, bidet, showers etc)	Many bathrooms are equipped with traditional two taps at sink or bath. This becomes difficult to use when you need to mix hot with cold water, because the distance between them is too big to enable real dynamic mixing. If you would like to avoid getting your hands burned or freezing, try the English way: put the sink stopper and collect the hot and cold water. Then wash your hands in this static mix.	Bathrooms are modern at both homes and public places. It is usual in some public toilet to receive paper from the toilet lady serving the bathrooms, in small quantity they think is enough for anyone. Please do not argue for that, just pay more if you want to have some more paper in case you need it. Showers in homes with private heating systems may not work all the time. You should expect alternation of hot and cold water.
Taboos (what is normal back home, but would cause problems in England)	Relationships between men and women are quite informal in the UK and many men and women are friends. You will often see men and women holding hands and kissing in public	Relationships between men and women are subject to gossips about the sexual nature a too close relationship hides. It is more common to keep relationship between sexes less friendly, without public display of affection.
Things that happen only back home, not in England or even anywhere else (pantomime, for example, is quintessentially English … outside England, most confuse the word with mime)		In weekends people go by car to nearby green grass place to have a family retreat. They consume “mici”, meaning a quintessentially Romanian dish consisting of sheep and pork meat rolled up and barbeque prepared, and small beer.
Areas of possible confusion	When you will speak bad or incorrect English in UK you will often receive correction. When it happened at home, this is considered rude, but in England is a friendly attitude of help.	Avoid thinking in politeness terms while in Romania. This rule does not apply here and this is not a rude attitude, but another way of living.
Areas of likely misunderstanding (of gesture, phrase, noise)	It is not uncommon to see people publicly cleaning their teeth, their noses, or sneezing. As long this does not perpetuate any viruses around, anything is permitted.	It is highly unlikely to get straight answers and full justification of acts, phrases and gestures used in communication. Romanians tend to think that justifying these would make them appear guilty as possible liars. Dignity is often measured by bravery and fully egocentric perspectives of communication. It is also considered impolite to make noises related to flu, or other illnesses.
Areas of possible conflict	Wash your dishes and clean up after you, even you are a man. The “men exception” rule, you were used to practice in Romania, is no more applicable in England.	Try to avoid asking a police representative for any kind of help. This is not part of their job, as you were used to back home. Police in Romania often acts an incriminatory body and that’s all they know to do. When you need to approach a police, make sure everything is all-right with you, otherwise you’ll get fine for anything you haven’t expected.
What might cause embarrassment (to the student, the host family, an adult, a child)	Avoid talking out loud, you will embarrass your host, as this is a sign of a low civilization and disrespect for audience.	Over-politeness is considered an offence addressed for regular politeness attitude. As a polite English person, avoid getting too polite while in Romania.
The weather	The weather in the UK is very unpredictable and changeable; sometimes you can have rain, snow, sun and smoggy morning in the same day. It is not unusual to take your umbrella with you even outside is a plain sunny day with no clouds out on the sky. It will become really useful few hours later.	There used to be four seasons in Romania, but latest climate changes made two out of four glamorous seasons. Spring and Autumn are less long and less different than Summer and Winter. In summer you have extremely high temperatures, sometimes you\ll heard about floods at country. But you should not think using t-shirts or short pants while at the office or going to exams. Winter is less cold than is used to be. But is common to see people wearing thicker clothes than they really need. Probably it takes time to adapt to the new winter type and accordingly change their wardrobe.
Smoking	Smoking is banned in many public places and on public transport in the UK. The place where people smoke most is in pubs, but people prefer to stand crowded outside pubs and smoke and drink on the street.	There are many non-smokers thinking smoking has no reasons to be banned, than smokers that are thinking non-smoking is a cool attitude. Legislation has been changed, although people are still far behind regulations. It is usual to meet people dressed with clothes fully smelling from own smoking habits.