English people: What is a council flat? Is it public housing?
Also: is tea still a thing?
Not all the time – other greetings are possible, like “Hi” or “Morning” – but it’s common enough,
My father (English, aged 85) is one such European who regards corn in any form as animal feed.
And electric meters you put money into instead of just getting a paper bill once a month. [CC used to occasionally get disconnected and come back and admit it was because someone forgot to plug more money into the meter and the power went out.]
My brother the plumber installs higher “Handicap height” toilets by preference. And you can get non-standard sized toilets. A friend’s children’s hair styling shop had both adult sized and children’s sized toilets in the bathroom, and the company he worked for stocked an over-sized toilet for the very obese.
Ok, the current Bank of America thread prompts another one: is it really that big of a deal to use the same bank all the time?
In that thread, you apparently have to make sure there are banks in the same chain in all the places you do business, and you have to open a new account if you move somewhere with no bank in the correct chain. It’s as if you can’t access your money if you don’t have the right bank handy. Is it really that big of a deal?
I mean, sure, you’ll be hit with a service charge here too if you use a strange ATM, but all the banks talk to each other here. And they have online services and things. I don’t get it.
(Although, ironically, in Norway you may have trouble with foreign VISA cards, but that’s another issue entirely).
You get charged with really high fees if you want to deposit or retire cash. For many people, the hassle of opening a new bank account is much less than the money they’d lose in those fees (both by the other banks and by your own bank).
You also get charged if you have to deal with check cashing and in-person deposits in a bank that is not part of your chain.
Those were my main reasons for changing banks. I’ve changed banks 5 times, three because I moved, and 2 because of bank mergers/bought outs (BankOne to Chase, Wachovia to Wells Fargo).
I’m not sure if I understand you. Are you saying that you can deposit cash in a completely unaffiliated bank ? Because that’s the only reason aside from eliminating fees that I would need a bank with branches close to where I live. My paycheck is a direct deposit and even if a bank doesn’t have a smartphone app for check deposits (or if you don’t have a smartphone) checks can usually be deposited by mail. I might want a local branch to avoid mailing check deposits or cashing checks at a check-cashing service or if I frequently needed certified checks or other in-person services. But I can get money out of my account from pretty much any ATM.
There are other reasons to keep multiple accounts at the same bank (such as eliminating fees) but that has nothing to do with the location of the bank.
Makes a note to bring ensaimada if she ever has a chance to visit KarlGrenze
I can do it in any ATM in the country. Since it’s such a rare ocurrence to deposit cash it doesn’t even carry the fees I would get hit with if I use an “out of network” ATM to withdraw, but anyway 99% of the ATMs in Spain are part of a network - any Servired will not charge me, no matter which bank owns it. If my bank was on 4B (thus named because originally it was a network of four banks), then I’d be able to use any of them as if it was my own bank. It’s one of the things who use more of one bank look for: having banks in separate networks gives you more “free” ATMs.
They were as big as plates! Oh joy! We call them mallorcas (heh!) back home, and we eat them like croissants, for breakfast, with some powdered sugar, butter, and hot coffee. But those in Mallorca (heh!) were huge. My whole meal (broke student)!
Ah, so it may be less of an issue in other countries becaus they have fewer bank chains or geographically diverse bank chains. In the US, some chains were very concentrated, sometimes without any rhyme or reason. When I lived in Florida, BoA was big, associated with the university. When I moved to Louisiana, there was no BoA to be found around town, so I had to move to the big player there (BankOne then Chase). This created a bit of hassle if I visited another state, as some wouldn’t have ATMs for Chase when I needed them. Curiously, NYC had LOTS of Chase, even more accessible than the ones back in Louisiana, so it was easy for me when I had to live there. Then moving to GA, there is no Chase! None! I didn’t want to go back to BoA, so I picked Wachovia (Wells Fargo), which was the one associated with the university. Now, there are plenty of Wells Fargo ATMs in the Atlanta airport, not so many throughout Atlanta city.
I had a coworker who just ignored all of those and went with an online bank. Since the bank had no brick-mortar facility, they reimbursed him every month for all the service fees the other banks charged him for using their ATMs.
Those Spanish networks aren’t banks, they’re groups of banks, grouped specifically to provide better ATM service. A lot of the banks and specially savings banks here are very local; if you’re from say Logroño and want to make sure that your customers will be able to withdraw normally while vacationing on the Mediterranean coast what do you do? You form a network with banks from Catalonia, Valencia and Andalusia. Your customers don’t get hit when withdrawing from their ATMs, theirs don’t get hit when using yours, but they’re all still different banks.
Mind you: there are too many things for which they tell you to go to “your (brick and mortar) office”, but in most cases I’ve been able to badger the idiots into doing whatever I needed done, and nowadays many of those things can be solved via email or by having the people you’re with call the other office. For example, one time I needed a cashier’s check to pay for a car “‘my office’ is 400 km away. I need the car NOW and I happen to have 3x the funds I’m asking for - I would withdraw them as cash but I prefer not to. Either you draw me that check or this bank will stop being my bank faster than you can say ‘no’.” In that case, my office and the one where they were being assholes were part of the same bank.
Got it. I don’t think that sort of network exists in many US banks, except if they’re very local. I think some credit unions (the US equivalent of cooperativas de ahorro y crédito) have formed such networks, as they are very very local. But most chains do not, and you’re SOL and faced with fees if you happen to be in a place where your bank doesn’t have an ATM nearby and you need the cash.
Since there’s been a lot of posts about toilets, I wanted to say that for a couple of years growing up, we had a deep-drop outhouse.
3 holes.
That is, three holes in the bench in a large room, over a much larger pit.
2 sides to the building over the pit, one side for the house, one side for the servants and public.
This was not an unusual way to build an outhouse. If you are observent while reading, you will see references to this kind of construction in English and American Literature. (And if you’ve been to Italy, you might have see the ancient Roman public toilets)
Changing subjects, I’m sure there are thousands of American hotels in Europe and Aus, but I’ve never found one. That is, one that does American breakfasts. Not an issue because you can go to MacDonalds, but a decent American hotel ought to be able to do much better than that. All hotels are ‘American’ in the sense that they have private shower facilities, and that has bee the case for many years, but I wouldn’t say that the remaining few ‘traditional’ are all dives: I’ve stayed in a much larger room, had a much nicer breakfast, for much less money because I had to cross the hallway to get to the shower.
Is it their diet that I am noticing from this smell? A big section of the world can smell Americans. Diet is certainly a factor (particularly the high beef diet), but the toothpast is characteristic too, and there are a lot of people who think that showering once a day doesn’t meet the minimum standard.
Frankly, I can count the number of times I’ve had to deposit cash on one finger of one hand, and I did it at the post office. So, no idea on that one. Any other routine bank matter, most banks certainly will help you with, no matter where your account is, although they wont bend over backwards for you unless your account is with them (though some will do that too, funnily enough. I like banks).
Yes, and not just in England but the whole of the UK. It’s basically housing where the local council, or more commonly these days a housing association, is the landlord. Note that living in one does not imply living on benefits - most council tenants work and thus pay rent, and housing benefits are available to people with private landlords etc. I should also mention that “flat” = “apartment”, there are also council houses that are actual houses.
Anecdotally, it’s hard to get a council place these days, because long-term tenants have the right to purchase at a discount on the market value, so the stock is reduced.
It is! But the ritual of afternoon tea, with sandwiches and cake, is much diminished 
What’s an “American Breakfast” and why would someone in Europe want to eat one? Sell the idea to me.
Don’t think anyone’s picked these up, so…
Yes, specifically an apartment provided by the local authority (town council, county council etc) at low and controlled rent. They weren’t always flats, often houses, and were built in estates - groups of streets, or groups of blocks of flats. In the 80s council tenants were given the right to buy their council property at a discount from what would have been their market rate. Local authorities weren’t permitted to rebuild at the same rate they were selling off property, so council stocks dwindled. There are still council estates around, but increasingly this type of housing is provided through Housing Associations either with or instead of he council. Nowadays this type of housing is generally referred to as ‘affordable housing’ and most new developments only get planning permission on the condition some proportion of what they build is ‘affordable’ which always makes me smile since it implies the rest is unaffordable.
And tea? Oh yeah. We have tonnes of coffee shops, but most people have tea (as well or instead) at home, I’d say. It would be pretty unusual for a house not to have a kettle as a deliberate choice, but not everyone has a coffee machine of any kind.
This is not routine for most people. Supply of power in the UK countries is enormously complex. There are a whole bunch of power companies supplying gas and electricity, each advertising various tariffs and conditions. The cash/credit meters are pretty much the bottom of the heap, and usually charge the highest rates. They’re not always direct cash - often there’s a smartcard or key you take to a shop or postoffice and ‘charge’ up. Typically someone would be on a meter like that if they were not credit-worthy enough to be on a credit pay-monthly/pay-quarterly scheme. This is not always true, like all these things there will be a heap of exceptions.
Example - I moved into a rented house as my first adult address, from out of area. I had no credit history and no previous address covered by the supplier to the house. Either I had to pay a whacking great deposit up front and go onto monthly billing, or I had to have a key meter installed. Despite the fact that it was much more expensive in the long run, I had no choice but to go for the meter.
ETA: slightly beaten by the Baron, but stil…
Not so curious actually, since it was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until 2000. And there is actually a reason for the concentrations, although it’s not obvious. Most US banks were originally fairly local- you wouldn’t find a Chase in San Francisco nor a Bank of America in New York. And then they started buying each other up and merging- you ended up with Chase in Louisiana because Chase merged with BankOne and Bank of America (originally based in San Francisco ) ended up in New York because it merged with Fleet, which had previously acquired Natwest ,which had US branches only in NY and NJ.
Insomnia keeping me up – it’s 02.30 my time – but what the hell, a few of these subthreads are relevant to my location so why not?
Background: I’m an American, living in HK since 2008. Before that, spent most of my adult life in New York, which in many ways is the least “American” of American places. Since a summer in graduate school, I’ve never lived in a house, and I owned a car for only 10 months or so in…was in 1998? 1999? So I’m not always the best metric to go by.
That said, HK is very, very different.
Shopping. Most neighborhood supermarkets are tiny, not much larger than the suburban convenience stores I grew up near back in the 70s and early 80s. Even the largest are only the size of a New York supermarket. When I go back to the US to visit relatives (sometimes MD, sometimes Florida), it’s just shocking how much space the markets have. The aisles are three ginormous carts wide! Ohhhhh, spaaaaace.
The thing I miss most about New York shopping is the Duane Reade (which, I fear, is about to turn into Walgreen’s). There’s no real equivalent here. Local drug stores are, of course, proportionately tiny as well – I’m guessing the Mannings uphill from us is about 800 square feet, max. And since they’re covering a fair amount of Western health and beauty plus a decent selection of Chinese health and beauty, there’s not much space left for stuff like, say, paper products. I remember being shocked that drug stores don’t sell toilet paper here in HK – only supermarkets.
Language Hong Kong is, officially, trilingual: Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. Cantonese is overwhelming; I think the latest census showed that 94% of HK’s population is Chinese, almost all Cantonese-speaking. With the 1997 handover, moreover, Hong Kong lost thousands of English teachers who have never been entirely replaced. English instruction is therefore very politically sensitive, since every ambitious family wants their children to go to an English Medium of Instruction school (i.e. one with all classes taught in English). There are few of those. Old-timers tell me that English standards have fallen markedly over the last 15 years. I notice that English in Singapore is generally better (although Singapore is also only 70% Chinese, with significant European, Indian, and Malaysian populations. As a result English is a true lingua franca there in a way it isn’t in almost-all-Chinese HK).
I speak only a little Canto – enough to give basic taxi instructions home, but that’s about it. Since I’m white most people will start with English, even if it’s only a few words – embarrassingly more than my Canto, of course, but a help.
As English has declined, Mandarin standards have (reportedly) improved. I speak zero Mandarin so I can’t attest myself, but I have Mandarin-speaking friends who have an easier time in, say, local restaurants than I do.
Toilets. Thankfully, most places in Hong Kong have western-style toilets, usually of European design with the full- and half-flush option. The stalls in municipal bathrooms – which are ubiquitous here, a legacy of terrible water shortages about 50 years ago – are usually split 50-50 between Western and Asian toilets, but that’s partly because they’re pretty old now. Modern buildings such as shopping malls offer only Western toilets.
Oh, that water shortage? Right. It’s one of the reasons the handover was inevitable: Hong Kong’s water supply could never keep up with its population growth, finally forcing the British to import water from across the border. But as a result, our toilets use seawater.
Fast foodWe’ve got it all here. McDonalds is pretty similar to the US, with a few exceptions – from time to time it offers taro pies instead of apple, and the shakes are noticeably less thick and sweet. I prefer them HK style, the American ones now taste gross to me. Oh, and usually there’s soup of one kind or another, and sweet corn (off the cob) as an alternative to fries.
Pizza Hut is huge here, as on the mainland. It’s mainly a sit-down restaurant, much less pizza-centric – more like Olive Garden, come to think of it. A spinoff, PHD – Pizza Hut Delivers – is basically pizza-only, geared toward students. We live near HKU so of course there’s one right by us. Toppings: lots more seafood. Shrimp, mussels, squid, etc. Can substitute thousand island or barbecue for tomato sauce. But we have a better, locally-owned place that’s a little more expensive but just around the corner. The fun part there is they have an only-in-HK combo offer of pizza with a half or whole roast suckling pig.
There are a few BKs, but they’re recent. I think the first opened only in 2009 or so. My personal favorites, however, are the Canadian burger joint Triple O’s and the Japanese MOS Burger…
OK, finally sleepy…
Thanks for the explanation, mostly with BoA. I knew that Chase had merged with BankOne, but didn’t know about Chase Manhattan (I didn’t need a bank until 2001).