I certainly found living and working in Singapore to be much more of a culture shock than I expected. I was considered, politely and never to my face, to be a vast musclebound juggernaut. Nice, smart, but not to be trusted with anything delicate or breakable.
I remember the first day of corporate training, when they took us out in a boat to the straits, and then ordered everyone to jump out of the boat. They suggested that, since several of us couldn't swim, that we take turns making sure no one drowned.
As the token white guy, I was expected to be wild, impulsive and ultimately unreasonable, just as the Indonesians were expected to be violent and used to gunfire, the Malay were supposed to be mystical and bit lazy, the Indians were supposed to see in the dark, be obsessive compulsives, and pride themselves in fixing their own electronics, and the Chinese were supposed to be arrogant, clannish and superstitious. None of these attitudes were regarded as racism, which was taken quite seriously, but rather as banter.
Germany was also weird. I remember moving into my flat, and having the neighbours turn up with grim little smiles and a snow-sweeping schedule. Since I wasn't a tourist any more, they wanted to know which days I would be clearing the sidewalk outside our building. I choose a little cluster of days in early January, and then they closed my curtains, warned me to never again leave them open if I was leaving before sunrise, or wasn't going to return home before nightfall, and left. Not what I was expecting on my first day, in June.
