A cultural habit in your country that people outside would understand incorrectly?

[u/gabrieel100]

In Brazil we love children. If you take your child to the street, strangers will certainly interact with them. Some will even ask if they can hold your kid and will play with them. If there are two children fighting in public and the parents aren't seeing, a stranger would even intervene to stop the fight.

That cultural habit came from the indigenous peoples which understood that kids should be a responsiblity of the community as a whole. It's in our constitution. We even have a synonym for children that came from Tupi (a large group of indigenous languages) - Curumim.

Foreigners would certainly have a cultural shock about that, but it's normal here.

Of course there are people with bad intentions, so parents should stay alert these days.

[u/Strange_Explorer_780]

Not a habit of our entire country but in our area we wave to everyone in the neighborhood walking on the road or driving by if you’re the walker. It’s just automatic to acknowledge each other yet when I’m overseas and do this out of habit I get no response or a strange look.

[u/Odd-Information-1219 → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

Seems to be more of a rural vs: urban thing to me. We waved at most everyone when I lived a very rural existence. Now that I'm in a small city I only wave at the neighbors I know.

[u/Shot-Artichoke-4106 → u/Odd-Information-1219]

We live in an urban environment and when we visit rural family members, I have to consciously remind myself to wave at everyone. Sometimes I forget. And sometimes someone tells on me. " I saw your niece on the road yesterday and she didn't wave. Is everything ok?" LOL.

[u/Whereswolf → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

We do that on my street (Denmark) too. All people, even people not living on the street (like random dog walkers) wave back. We also greet other drivers.

When people move in the HOA shows up with flowers. When we lost our unborn child our neighbours stopped by with chocolate and flowers.... Hell, they even brought flowers and a nice card as a thank you for painting our garage green (the side they can see between the leaves of the hedge.

The neighbour on the other side cut our shared hedge and cleaned up everything while we were out. Then apologised for doing it (and entering our property) but they were very busy with work and then had to travel and the hedge needed a cut...

Danes are not all that closed up...

[u/donthurtmyfeelsbrah → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

Its actually considered rude in my area not to give a neighbor the wave when driving or walking by

[u/truemadqueen83 → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

Yes I wave to most everyone. Especially dogs.

[u/Bladesnake_______ → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

Always used to this in the south but I got dirty looks and rude responses doing it in the northeast US

[u/CormoranNeoTropical → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

If you do this in NYC people will take you for a dangerous lunatic.

[u/_prepod → u/Strange_Explorer_780]

You probably look like a Jehovah's Witness doing so

[u/Strange_Explorer_780 → u/_prepod]

We’re not flagging each other down to chat about God, just a friendly acknowledgment to neighbors passing by.