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What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad? (kyu.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aard@kyu.de to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

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[–] doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Canoeing is definitely a big thing in the US. At least in the east, I suspect it's much less common in the Midwest and desert states. I think that tourists are disproportionately likely to be canoeing for the first time, though.

That said, if you can't figure out the physics of a canoe within the first couple strokes then maybe boating as a while just isn't your thing

[–] Faresh@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That said, if you can’t figure out the physics of a canoe within the first couple strokes then maybe boating as a while just isn’t your thing

I have no difficulty with the "basic" canoes, but I struggle with the long and thin ones, where I can't even keep myself upright for longer than 30 seconds, before capsizing, having tried a few times. Is boating not my thing?