An obvious answer for the UK are Core Anglosphere countries
Bonus question what country have you visited that felt most foreign to you?
An obvious answer for the UK are Core Anglosphere countries
Bonus question what country have you visited that felt most foreign to you?
Comments
Portugal to Poland.
It’s a bit of hard to explain, but I believe their idea of saudade is something very, VERY close to our sense of nostalgia. We do understand each other. I also noticed that people I know from Portugal seem… I don’t know, closer to me culturally that other westsern countries, even closer than Slavic countries.
There are many similarities in our history as well.
Argentina, this would also be the answer for Italians hahaha.
Most foreign Morocco despite being so close, but I have never been to Asia.
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Im from finland and i think there is something similar to japan, atleast i think so, they like us a lot
Funnily enough, after visiting I think Japan is a little bit too much for it to not be slightly surprisin similar to Czechia.
We both take off our shoes inside the house, we value our history and are fairly clean and safe countries, we both have loads of castles, we do have honorifics in our languages (though Japan’s way more complex than ours) – we even share a few words, like the ~ne at the end of sentences to ask for an approval, and the word “wata/vata” has basically the same meaning in both languages.
We are both reserved in the public but friendly in private settings, have good public transport system and actually know to let people off the train before getting on, we both have our version of a schnitzel, I could probably go on…
I loved visiting Japan and while it is undeniable foreign, and different, it didn’t feel as exotic as I expected it to be. It felt a lot like home in a way that’s very hard to describe.
I don’t think there is any. The closest thing is the anglosphere, since Denmark is relatively culturally similar to England, and then in turn to Canada and New Zealand. But that is really by process of elimination. I guess you could technically not even count Canada as being far away.
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Canada and Japan. Canada… Hockey, snow, cold, northern, forests, high social trust… As for Japan, it’s more of a deeper cultural thing. Introversion, silence, order, humility, minimalism, trouble dealing with failure, problems showing emotions…
edit: funny how half of the comments on here say Japan
Canada. They have a whole province named after us (and in said province they have a population that speaks Gaelic) and their military had a tradition of using kilts and bagpipes on special occasions like we do. In many ways Canada is the love child of Scotland and France.
Yet another country where I felt surprisingly at home was Taiwan. A shared history with communism, hiking trips, even tripe soup!
Lmao every second answer is Japan. What is going on here?
Maybe because Japan is a very advanced and western country, it shares some developments that come with it. But culturally?
New Zealand, specifically for Wales
Rugby is the national sport
Few major cities
We both have a native, non-English language
Sheep everywhere, so lamb is a well-known export
We get the same ‘jokes’ made about our relationships with sheep…
We both have a larger, more well-known,
annoyingneighbour 😛Mexico or Brazil are far away, yet very similar to Romania from my point of view. We work hard, mostly the jobs nobody wants in foreign countries. The food is similar, we love being surrounded by a lot of family members and friends, we love dancing and partying.
The most different country from Romania I visited was Austria. I cannot with all their inflexibility and rules. There’s a rule for everything. Romania is a bit more flexible and we do not depend on authorities to claim responsibility for every inconvenience.
US is similar to Russia in a way. Narrowmindedness, egocentrism, arrogance, hypocrisy, loudness and self confidence are what they have in common when speaking of mentality. Can’t think of any other country like Finland tho, it’s quite unique.
As a Finnish person, I’d say Canada. Otherwise, it’s a bit difficult to think of any similar countries. I personally don’t feel a high connection to Japan (other than musically perhaps).
I’ve never been to Iraq but have met some Iraqi people, and oh boy. I had really hard time finding a common ground with them.
Felt a bit similar with Portuguese as well.
Anglosphere a bit oversimplified IMO.
UK Australia – yes. Swearing, drinking, suspicious brown spreads on toast.
Canada yes.
USA no, for the most part taken as a whole not picking out certain cities or states. Heavily religious, loud, prude, barely drinking.
Culturally, Australia and New Zealand are more similar to Ireland than most European countries.
International Rules is only played by two countries, Ireland and Australia.
Horse Racing is huge in both countries, and you’ve had multiple Irish horses win the Melbourne Cup.
Almost one in three Aussies are of Irish descent.
Lots of Aussie TV programs, like Home and Away and Neighbours, have been very popular in Ireland for decades.
Lots of Irish artists and comics have been more successful Australia than in most other countries (JimEoin, Ronan Keating, Bwitched, Fergal Sharkey)
Ireland has a big rugby rivalry with New Zealand.
Agriculture, particularly dairy, cattle and sheep farming, are really important to both countries, both economically and socially.
I’d say Brazil and Ireland. Laid back, fond of a decent cut of beef, friendly, chilled out. For the most part I think Brazilians living in Ireland have integrated really well. Mexico is a close 2nd, probably because of the Catholicism as well to some extent. Not so much because of the religious elements but maybe culturally family and social rules developed along the same lines as well as being colonised by a foreign power.
Most foreign is Japan or China I think.
The most similar country to Sweden outside of Europe might be Canada.
We have a shared love of nature, hiking and being outdoors. We also generally have quite similar nature, with lots of forests and lakes, and long coasts with lots of islands.
Most of the population is heavily concentrated to the southern parts of both countries, while the north is sparsely populated due to snow and cold.
We also share some common winter sports, such as a great interest in both ice hockey and curling.
Australia is weird. You fly to the other side of the world, and you are basically in Brighton or Bournemouth.
Ireland, too. So similar to Scotland in so many ways, but sometimes like a laterallly inverted reflection.
I’d say Spain. Not just for the obvious stuff like beaches, Mediterranean food, and eating dinner super late, but also the general vibe. people are warm, social, and family-oriented, and life kind of revolves around food and hanging out.
Both countries also have really strong regional identities. Spain has Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia, etc., while Italy has Sicily, Sardinia, and even little places like Val d’Aosta and South Tyrol with its own language mix and traditions. Lots of autonomy in both cases, and people are very attached to their regions.
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Italy in the EU.
Argentina for far away countries.
When I chat with Argentines I feel they are similar culturally just with a different accent whereas when I talk to someone from Colombia, Venezuela, Caribean I can feel more disconnection, very religious vibes, gossipy and not interesting in general (I also think it has to do with most of these migrants in Spain being less educated and with a poorer upbringing which makes the differences even more prevalent).
Maybe Canada?
It is very high on the list for Swiss to emmigrate to. Cold country, lots of forrest, mountains and lakes. Multi-language, love hockey and winter sports in general. The quiet life.
Australia. We‘re so culturally similar that we might be the only two countries that sell shirts with kangaroos in tourist shops
Having a chilean friend, i found out that chileans, and latinos in general, have cultural coincidences quite often with russians. We often understand the same jokes, meaning of some expressions and even have same local phrases.
I heard multiple times South Korea – historically wedged between 2 empires that always wanted a piece of them.
nowadays the similarity is having the lowest birth rate on our respective continents :’)
Not the whole country, but the US, specifically the Midwest. Which makes sense because a lot of people there have German ancestry.
England and Japan if you actually look into it.
island nations
historically have been incredibly hard to invade – England hasn’t been successfully invaded in nearly 1000 years and it took 2 atom bombs to subdue the Japanese
have a proud maritime history with some of the most powerful navies in the world at their peak
cuisines heavily involving fish
tea lovers
former imperial powers that gave up their empires after WW2. Said empires famously committed atrocities in Asia.
constitutional monarchies with parliamentary democracy
known for queuing culture and stereotyped as polite
red and white flags
culturally associated with orders of honourable warriors that fought during their highly studied medieval periods (knights, samurai)
have, at various points in history, been at the beating heart of technological/industrial innovation despite being small nations
drive on the left
similar ancient beliefs and architecture dating back to prehistoric times
massive cultural exports within the TV and music industries
historically have been good allies and trading partners with the sole exception of WW2
have larger, continental rivals that they were constantly at war with pre-1945. Said rivals are world renowned for their cuisine (France, China)
are practically in the same geographical positions on their respective continents
I’m sure there are smaller similarities as well. England and Japan are unofficial twin nations.
Also, Australia goes without saying. They’re just us with better tans.
Politics aside (and people don’t like this answer but it’s true)– the answer is absolutely Russia. Same Soviet-Era architecture, same Slavic mentality. We both use a form of the Cyrillic alphabet (even though we are credited with the invention of it).
Canadian here.
Finland definitely feels similar in some uncanny ways. It’s different too of course, obviously language. But climate and culture have some parallels. Winter experience, hockey, lumpy box buildings (outside of anything old), landscape, and to an extent booze. We don’t do sauna much, true. And Canada is certainly more open and chatty. But there’s a kind of dry ‘just get on with it’ attitude that I guess cold climates foster.
Sweden and Norway have something similar going on in ways too, but Sweden feels (sorry, don’t know how else to explain this), very Americanized and EU. Very willing to embrace and adopt Americanisms, etc. Canada, like Finland, seems to have a bit more of a skeptical take to big powers beside them.
As a Hungarian, I genuinely have no idea. Maybe Mexico, because of the use of paprika, and there’s this Mexican girl who lives here and has a TikTok channel, and she says that we have some weird similarities, but I’m not convinced.
Hungarians, do you have another option?
As a (Southern) Romanian I felt surprisingly at home in Colombia. Have heard of similar experiences in Venezuela and Mexico. I think a lot of the things that define the broader Balkan culture are there too, from loud people and big families, to the partying and the humour, to corruption and a general penchant for somewhat disregarding rules or improvising in the grey areas between them.
As for the most different faraway country, I would guess Japan or South Korea.
Denmark/Australia: Easy going, laidback, beer loving, informal with a sprinkle of weird dialect. Some sense of egalitarianism/jantelov/flat hierarchy where you might grab a beer with your boss, but you don’t suck up to him or think he’s worth more than the new intern. The Australians I’ve met have also worked to live, not lived to work, valuing community, free time, family and friends a lot higher than money, status and climbing the corporate latter.
Greeks who have lived in Ireland or have socialized with Irish people say that we’re alike in some manner, personality wise more than culture. I don’t know if the Irish feel the same way, though.
I have the strange feeling that South Koreans and the Dutch have strong resemblances, despite obvious cultural differences. Spoken to some of them and it was so easy to understand each other.
New Zealand wins hands-down for Ireland. As a country and a people, they’re uncannily similar to Ireland: Farming is traditionally the economic backbone, they have a dry self-deprecating sense of humour, people have a casual but polite attitude and their existence is somewhat framed by their relationship with their bigger neighbour. Even the divide between the North and South island is somewhat parallell, if bigger, with the East and West divide along the Shannon in Ireland.
Plus in terms of being distant, they’re hard to beat as they are pretty close to Ireland’s geographical antipode.
Most dissimilar, and I mean this in a completely apolitical way, is probably Israel. Society there is built on the concept of “freyerism”: One assumes that they can only rely on themselves and that everyone else is competing with them, which manifests in a strong “me first” mentality and trying to get ahead of others in any situation. Plus people are traditionally extremely direct communicators.
In contrast, Ireland is traditionally very communal and a big part of our culture is “meitheal”, which is about co-operative coexistence with your peers and neighbours, and the idea that if you help someone today, he’ll help you tomorrow. We’re also notoriously indirect communicators.
Singapore for Switzerland.
They have a lot of things in common and Singapore inspired itself by Switzerland. The only difference is that the law of Singapore is really strict than Switzerland.
And for the country that made me feel at home the first time I was there I would say Czechia.
The Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world says that Russia is stuck in the secular-survival corner, the only countries close enough to us are European: Ukraine and Bulgaria.
I also checked the Hofstede cultural dimensions and our combination of extreme power distance with extreme uncertainty avoidance is unique to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Brazil and Mexico might be close, but we’re very different on the long-term orientation and indulgence axes.
For the UK it is obviously Australia, New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, Canada. People say the UK and US are similar, but in my experience of living in one and spending a lot of time in the other, the similarities between the US and UK are superficial at best.
In Europe, I found Germany but more so the Netherlands to be most culturally similar to Britain.
I don’t know how to properly explain this, but Portugal and Mexico seem extremely similar to Poland in many ways
Someone once said Australia is like if Britain and America had a baby by the beach and I’ve never heard a more accurate description – when Aussies get mad or are drunk you can really hear the Essex heritage
What counts as far away?
As a Dane, culturally Norway and the Netherlands would be the most culturally similar countries that does not border us directly via land or bridge.
As in not in Europe i would probably say Canada, but so would 99% of all western europeans i think.
Not Chinese but I am a resident, so I’ll say China and Singapore, for the obvious reason that Singapore is majority ethnic Chinese and has simplified Mandarin as an official language. The city is also run similarly to China (with a little more democracy) and was studied by the CPC as a potential model for Chinese cities to emulate.
Auckland appeared surprisingly similar to my summer hometown Lahti, Finland. Hilly, and few tall buildings. I tried to tell myself that at least I wouldn’t bump into Finns there, but no, the next traffic light.
Seoul, Korea, felt the weirdest to me. A step up in weirdness from Japan, even.
UK, Ireland, Canada
and one of the closest to us has a totally alien culture to our own (Indonesia….indeed SE Asia in general)
I would say Australia and Ireland are kinda similar. Yet 12 hour different in timezone.
My cousin moved there 6 years ago. Has an Australian boyfriend. She came back to visit with him and he slotted in like he was one of the lads here his whole life. Big ginger beard on him, understands Irish banter, loves a pint… top bloke. Not sure if all Australians are like this but he was very Irish-like