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10 Things You Should NEVER Say Abroad! Unless You Enjoy Instant Cringe…
What seems like harmless small talk to you might be offensive, confusing, or the fastest way to kill a conversation in another culture.
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I once made a man in Ukraine go from smiling to staring at me like I’d just asked for his bank PIN and his grandmother’s secret borscht recipe in one breath.
All I said was, “So, what do you do?”
Seems harmless, right? In the U.S., that’s standard small talk, right up there with “How about this weather?” and “Did you see the game last night?”
But in post-Soviet Ukraine back in 1999, that question wasn’t just nosy. It was borderline offensive.
Big mistake!
Turns out, what’s innocent small talk in America can sound like an FBI interrogation overseas.
That was the day I realized that some of the most casual, everyday questions in one culture can come across as rude, invasive, or just plain bizarre in another.
