The etiquette mistake you only learn by making it

There's also a generational layer to this — the handshake and eye-contact norms I got comfortable with among people my age turned out to be completely wrong with elders. Different rules depending on who you're actually talking to, which took me a while to notice.

Wore completely the wrong thing to a funeral because I assumed 'formal' meant the same thing it does back home. It very much did not. Learned to just ask directly about dress code now, even when it feels like a silly question.

same. thought i was being polite, was very much not

Found this thread months late but it's exactly what I needed after a fairly cringe dinner last night. Marco's line about nobody telling you the rule until you've broken it is painfully accurate — and Rajesh's point further up about it depending heavily on where you are matches my experience too. Wish I'd found this sooner.

Japan has given me a whole collection of these, so here are my greatest hits.

Wearing the toilet slippers back into the living room at a colleague's house. There are separate slippers for the toilet, and I didn't know, so I walked the toilet slippers all the way to the dinner table. Nobody said a word. Someone's grandmother quietly pointed at my feet and smiled, and I have never moved so fast in my life.

Blowing my nose at my desk in the staff room. Completely normal at home, apparently quite rude here. You step out.

Receiving a business card with one hand and putting it straight into my back pocket. Two hands, look at it properly, put it on the table in front of you during the meeting.

What I love, though, is that people are so kind about it. Almost every mistake was corrected with a smile and a quiet demonstration, never a lecture. Marco is right that you only learn the rule after you break it, but here, at least, breaking it is forgiven quickly.

Chloé, the toilet slippers made me laugh out loud. Mine in Portugal was walking into the doctor's waiting room without greeting everyone. Here you say good morning to the whole room when you arrive, and I sat down in total silence, like an Englishman on a train. The room stayed silent in a very pointed way. Now I greet everyone, the plumber, the baker, the waiting room, the people in the lift, and I've never felt more Portuguese.

Both of these are perfect examples of exactly what I meant, Chloé and Ben. Nobody tells you until you've done it, and then they're kind about it.

Dutch birthday parties: you congratulate everyone in the room, not just the birthday person. Congratulations on your aunt's birthday. It took me a while.