Posted on 11/13/2013 9:34:38 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
A lot of people around the world have ideas of what America is like, possibly thanks to Hollywood, or their local news channels, and maybe from what theyve heard from families and friends. But then, they came here, to the grand old United States and their minds exploded. Taken from Quora.
I am originally from Bangladesh and here are a few things that I find hard to explain to peeps back home.
- Fruits and vegetables are way more expensive than meat and poultry.
- That, generally speaking, the poor is more obese than the rich.
- A lot of couples adopt children, sometimes in spite of having their own, and treat them exactly like their own. (To me, this alone is a marker of a great people)
- By and large, people do not carry cash.
- That you address your boss (and some of your professors) by some abbreviated variation of their first name. And that applies to pretty much everyone, regardless of how much older they are than you.
- Parents can get arrested for physically punishing their children.
- Severe poverty, homelessness, etc, no matter how limited, actually exist. Even in America.
- A name as common and as easy to pronounce as mine is almost invariably incomprehensible to most Americans.
- America is literally HUGE. My home country is roughly the size of Florida, one of the fifty states.
- In spite of the society being openly hedonistic and liberal, the social norms and standards still have very strong conservative religious influences.
- People don’t really care about the FIFA World Cup even though USA qualifies.
- The importance of credit rating/ credit score.
- Return policy.
- The history behind Thanksgiving.
- Black Friday and the frenzy associated with it.
- Amazingly friendly, hospitable and helpful people. Yet, a very conveniently private lifestyle.
- That, American foreign policy is a very inaccurate reflector of public consensus.
- Grinding. The dance form.
- That you cannot purchase alcohol unless you are 21 but can purchase a gun if you are 18.
You're saying that like it's a bad thing.
Virtually every house in England is a brick house (you cannot get insurance for a wood house) and virtually every house in Scotland is a stone house. I didn’t find the sameness an awful burden. I’ve had great times on my visits to Britain without complaining about the sameness of houses.
I’d like to have a .50 cal machine gun mounted on the roof of my car with controls on my steering wheel. It would come in very handy numerous times.
Yep, I guess we all did stuff like that back in the day when we were actually free. In 1956 my brother and I bought a Model A(1928)for $60. We drove that thing all over our area which was a small rural county in Northern CA, a far different CA than exits now. One day we had a number of our friends from school decide they all wanted to ride in our Model A. A small town, there six kids besides me and my brother, 8 altogether. We all crammed into that model A, believe it or not and went tearing down the road with my brother driving. Hard to believe today we got that many HS age kids into that Model A but we did. No cops saw us but even if they had, it is very doubtful they would have stopped us. A year later we sold that same Model A for exactly what we paid for it, $60. I have regretted selling it every since, wish I had it now.
Removing plates and silver once a diner is finished is correct but done unobtrusively. More and more I find even supposedly decent restaurants basically bussing the whole table while you’re enjoying your coffee or after dinner drinks and conversing, which is obtrusive bordering upon offensive. It’s as irritating as overly chatty waitstaff bounding up and demanding to know if your food is good when your mouth is full. Maybe their being a little more observant would help, most seem sincere, but it happens more and more to the point that really good service is hard to come by. Effort isn’t everything if you’re bumbling and getting on your customer’s nerves.
cf. Pete Seeger's Little Boxes. Man, that song grinds me. I mean, where does he come off ? ... But hey, don't get me goin' !
a few things I remember from listening to people from other countries..
Portions of food are huge, houses are huge here, cars are huge and houses are made of wood meaning they are cheap, why are poor people fat?
“Little boxes” - apartments - are exactly what libs WANT most people (other than favored elites, such as themselves)to live in. They are banning all new construction in undeveloped areas and tearing down single family homes for apartments. Welcome to the hive.
My son in law’s parents from England actually said the opposite; that they could not believe how different every house was!
Mark my words, in 7 years jai alai will become bigger than baseball...
I've recently learned why, but I'd have to kill you if I told you...
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