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.
I guess here in Korea it’s eating with chopsticks. In Sweden it was Swimming (especially for my Indian work mates). In Germany it was opening a beer bottle with anything you just happened to have in your hand at that time. In Poland I’m not sure, but probably making those elaborate sandwiches for parties.
Is the chopstick thing a dexterity issue? I’m so more inclined for chopsticks that, if eating alone, I’ll use the other ends of my silverware like chopsticks (and I’m not a part of any chopstick culture).
I dont think it’s so much an overall dexterity issue just a practice issue. Someone who doesn’t regularly use chopsticks might have really high hand dexterity but they just haven’t practiced that finger coordination. I.e. its easier to teach an athlete a new sport but a football players gonna have to practice to play hockey well.
The most common mistake I see with infrequent chopstick users is overgripping and a low grip. If you squeeze too hard it not only fatigues your hand but it actually makes them harder to control, same for choking up on them. If feels more secure but it actually gives you worse control. For any one wondering a high grip and only as tight as you’d hold a pen should make it easier to use chopsticks.
Yeah, opening a beer (or other bottpe with a capped lid) is a very cool skill to have (one which I haven’t really mastered since I drink beer very, very infrequently).
This goes for Denmark too.
Used to be the case in Switzerland, now most beer bottles have a twist-to-open cap that still looks like a normal beer bottle cap.