An instance in which I encountered culture shock while traveling through Asia was when I discovered a difference in habits around napkin consumption between me (an Asian American) and Asians. In America we have a lot of natural resources (especially per capita), a lot of paper plantations (and biogeography conducive to farming paper trees), and a culture inclined towards greater waste of materials (which can be explained largely in part by our natural resource availability). These three characteristics of America are simply not as true in many Asian countries, and so in America we treat napkins with a careless (carefree?) abundance mindset, but in Asia they are regarded much more scarcely.
For starters, the napkins in Asia are very thin, and they're not given out as freely. In Singapore, locals don't even use napkins. Every restaurant has a "basin" (sink), often separate from the bathroom, where you go to wash your mouth after eating. People just finish their meal, then wash their face and mouth at the basin. Even the Changi Airport mall had basins in the food court, near all the tables and tray returns, not like out of the way. It is a little bit of a culture shock because I'd never seen people wash their mouth in public, especially with such normalcy. I think because in America at the most you'd see someone wash their mouth in the bathroom sink, and so it's like a private or semi-private thing you do. And you know how rich and proper Singaporeans are, those businesspeople.
The thing is that I have an American habit of bite, then wipe. Bite, then wipe. But Asians eat and then wash at the end.
Napkins, tissues are more expensive in Asia. They're thin, as mentioned, and they're also not nearly as soft. You often have to buy a personal pack at the convenience store, or pay a few cents at a restaurant to give you a pack. Or you might get exactly one tiny napkin with your dish served.
I feel like a wasteful monster because by the end of a meal I've used quite a few napkins but my dining counterparts have not even used napkins once at all. But it's not comfortable to have food on your face. You know, it feels greasy and itchy and then irritates your skin. You might even get a pimple if you let it sit too long. I don't know whether the Asians just tolerate the food on your face feeling or whether they just have learned to land the food so perfectly in their mouth that it's not touching the rim of their mouth the way it is to mine. Frankly, I don't know.
Restaurant staff are willing to be more generous with tourists like myself, because they know we North Americans like running through napkins. But through Singapore, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Korea, and Japan, you don't have anywhere near the level of napkin consumption you do have in America.
Right, like in America, it's just normal to go to Starbucks and just "steal" for yourself 20 napkins from the dispenser and put it in your backpack, just in case. It's not even regarded as stealing or anything in the ballpark. It's just an Americanly habit. I recognize not every American does this, but I grew up with this being normal. I imagine American businesses might not necessarily appreciate this phenomenon on their books, but they know it's better business for them to be generous with napkins rather than being stingy. It's kind of the same thing with going to any drive thru in America where you ask for ketchup and the give you a million extra packets that end up in your kitchen drawer forever. It's this abundance mentality around these condiments and disposables, etc.
It's just super handy to have that pack of Starbucks napkins in your backpack in case you need to blow your nose or clean up a spill. That's also why the napkins are branded, so that even if you take a glob from the store you're still promoting their brand wherever it is you're going.
I just love this contrast, the American Starbucks visualization vis-a-vis what goes on in Asia. I brought this up with my Singaporean friend, a tech cofounder, while we were in his Saigon branch office. His perspective, naturally, was that America was the crazy place. He thought it was crazy that during his first trips to America, he'd see napkins blowing in the streets, like, "Wow! That's amazing!".
That still leaves a very important question unanswered: How do the Asians eat spaghetti?!?! Without losing their sanity.
