I spent the recent winter holiday with part of my family that lives in the US.
And although I’ve been coming there — for both personal and professional reasons — for almost a decade now, every time I visit, I can’t help but feel… slightly shocked.
You’d think that since I was born and raised in a post-Soviet country, lived in several Western European countries, and visited most continents on this planet, nothing can truly surprise me anymore. But not really.
While I’m no stranger to cultural shocks, there are many things about American life and how this country is organised that I don’t think will ever cease to astound me.
(Unless they might change one day, of course.)
Here are some of them:
I’m afraid I don’t recall it word-for-word — I saw it right after coming off a near-11 hours long flight from London — but it went more or less like this:
Come to America. We’re the greatest country in the world. Everyone wants to live here, and everyone is welcome. We’re great at accepting foreigners. You should move here, too. Just imagine how great your life would be if you were American.
It clearly wasn’t one of those tourism campaign videos some countries do to promote their natural resources, culture, heritage etc. and convince people to spend their hard-earned vacation money there. No, it felt much more like a piece of North Korea-inspired propaganda.
And a rather terrible one at that as well.
But while I wasn’t expecting to see that video there, I know it’s a common belief — especially among certain groups of Americans — to consider America as a ‘great’ and ‘free’ country.
This also explains another unusual thing: Americans’ obsession with displaying American flags everywhere. True, Europeans do it sometimes and on special occasions — like independence day or other national celebrations — but not every day.
And we don’t require kids to pledge ‘alliance’ to it, either. Or regularly sing the national anthem in schools.
So call me crazy, but if you have to actively indoctrinate children into having an extreme — and honestly quite scary — level of national pride, then perhaps your country is not really that ‘great’ or ‘free,’ is it?
And mind you, I grew up in what’s considered to be one of the most religious countries in Europe — Poland. Still, apart from occasional Catholic celebrations or events, you don’t see frequent displays of religiosity. At least not in public and not in big cities.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case in quite a few places around America.
And the fact that it’s the only wealthy country with so many people still identifying as religious makes it something of an anomaly in today’s world.
In particular, considering that while some developed countries are now finally moving towards suppressing harmful religious groups — like Norway recently did with the Jehovah’s Witnesses — the US seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. And it’s no secret that they don’t exactly keep religion — of the fundamentalist, Christian type — separate from government policies.
Because that always turns out just fantastic, doesn’t it?
What also baffles me is that the Christian denominations most commonly present in the US — like the Evangelicals — are much less like actual religious groups and more like cults. Plus, they treat religion as yet another product to be shoved down gullible American’s throats for the financial benefit of a few white men with a superiority complex.
Some time ago, I even went to a Christian ‘megachurch’ to see if it’s really as ridiculous as it seems. It was much worse than that.
Depending on the state in which you are, it’s also not that uncommon to see ad campaigns for… Jesus. And God. And all these ‘churches’ that hope to brainwash as many people as possible.
When I was there recently, I even got a few ads like that on my Instagram account, out of all places.
And no, that never happened anywhere else I’ve travelled to.
And it’s nearly impossible to move around unless you know how to drive and have a car.
As someone who never got their driving licence — simply because at no point in my life I needed to have it — I find it quite troublesome. You can’t just catch a bus or get the tube or a tram; you have to get a taxi or depend on someone to drive you instead.
It’s also not easy to do the former, even in the cities that technically offer some public transport, as it’s often poorly connected and organised. And it’s treated more like a ‘poor people’ thing, rather than what it really is, or rather should be: a vital public good, which could easily be founded if, you know, America stopped spending so much money on killing people.
But it’s not like you can just walk places, either.
I made that mistake quite a few times — yup, I’m one of those ‘crazy’ people who enjoy walking everywhere — and either ended up somewhere where there was no more sidewalk, and I had to go back or accidentally walked in on people shooting heroin in the middle of the day.
(And that’s yet another thing I’ve never seen happen anywhere else on this planet.)
But considering the amount of car-related fatalities, pollution it causes, energy waste, and exorbitant costs of ownership, I fail to understand Americans’ stubborn attachment to this archaic and inefficient transportation mode.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Even some parks, including the regular kind, charge you to enter them. Yup, parks. You know, the nice places with trees and bushes and greedy squirrels that allow people living in urban areas to access some nature from time to time.
But if you’re broke and unlucky to live close to one that happens to be run by people wanting to capitalise on every single thing imaginable, you don’t get to go there.
How lovely.
And although I’m not that shocked that museums and other cultural venues have entrance fees too — usually quite high in comparison to Europe — that’s still somewhat disappointing. In London, where I live, you can visit the city by taking a double-decker bus ride and go to some of the world’s most renewed museums, all for a little over ten pounds.
In other European cities, that would cost you even less, possibly even nothing at all, since not all of them charge fees for public transport.
I’m not going to try to estimate how much it costs to visit a big American city for a day. But it surely is way more than just ten pounds.
It shouldn’t be controversial, though, to suggest that countries as developed and as rich as the US should provide their citizens with easy and free — or at the very least, cheap — access to green and cultural spaces and the most important historical venues.
That’s how you make your society healthier, happier, and more educated.
But it seems like most American politicians definitely don’t want that to happen.
Grocery stores have so many options for a single product type they sometimes barely fit into one aisle. Pharmacies sell everything from foodstuffs to tobacco products. Some people have not one or two, but multiple heavily polluting, gigantic vehicles. And boats. And motorcycles.
Everything seems larger than life and utterly excessive.
But then that excess is sharply contrasted with lack.
While the first impression many Europeans have when they visit the US for the first time is that it’s indeed a rich country, it actually has one of the highest wealth inequality rates among all developed countries.
If you have money, you have access to many things that probably don’t even exist anywhere else, and you can happily consume yourself into oblivion. But the rest of the people are just trying to survive.
And that becomes pretty clear when you ‘stray’ from typically touristy places or meet Americans who aren’t lucky to be of the privileged kind and lack the most basic of things, like housing and food.
I once even saw an ad campaign in Germany that encouraged support for hungry… American children.
Well. If a foreign country has to start raising money to feed your kids because you’re unable to, then you’re likely doing something really, really wrong.
Obviously, the above isn’t an exhaustive list of things that shock me about the US.
Lack of affordable healthcare, fair workplace practices and gun control, the existence of for-profit prisons, systemic lack of respect and care for women and LGBTQ+ people, and many other issues shock me, too.
And I do realise that some Americans are acutely aware of it all. More than any of us, shocked foreigners, could ever be. But then, some others seem to be living in an entirely different reality.
One where their country remains the ‘greatest’ in the world, and it’s a place of prosperity, happiness and godliness and not poverty, heedless excess and lunacy.
As George Carlin once said:
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archive.ph
And although I’ve been coming there — for both personal and professional reasons — for almost a decade now, every time I visit, I can’t help but feel… slightly shocked.
You’d think that since I was born and raised in a post-Soviet country, lived in several Western European countries, and visited most continents on this planet, nothing can truly surprise me anymore. But not really.
While I’m no stranger to cultural shocks, there are many things about American life and how this country is organised that I don’t think will ever cease to astound me.
(Unless they might change one day, of course.)
Here are some of them:
The amount of pro-American propaganda
When my partner and I were waiting in line to go through US customs a few weeks ago, we noticed that right in front of us was a giant screen playing what can be best described as an advertisement for America.I’m afraid I don’t recall it word-for-word — I saw it right after coming off a near-11 hours long flight from London — but it went more or less like this:
Come to America. We’re the greatest country in the world. Everyone wants to live here, and everyone is welcome. We’re great at accepting foreigners. You should move here, too. Just imagine how great your life would be if you were American.
It clearly wasn’t one of those tourism campaign videos some countries do to promote their natural resources, culture, heritage etc. and convince people to spend their hard-earned vacation money there. No, it felt much more like a piece of North Korea-inspired propaganda.
And a rather terrible one at that as well.
But while I wasn’t expecting to see that video there, I know it’s a common belief — especially among certain groups of Americans — to consider America as a ‘great’ and ‘free’ country.
This also explains another unusual thing: Americans’ obsession with displaying American flags everywhere. True, Europeans do it sometimes and on special occasions — like independence day or other national celebrations — but not every day.
And we don’t require kids to pledge ‘alliance’ to it, either. Or regularly sing the national anthem in schools.
So call me crazy, but if you have to actively indoctrinate children into having an extreme — and honestly quite scary — level of national pride, then perhaps your country is not really that ‘great’ or ‘free,’ is it?
Religious extremism
The first time I’ve ever seen people praying together in public before eating a meal was in the US, during my first trip there.And mind you, I grew up in what’s considered to be one of the most religious countries in Europe — Poland. Still, apart from occasional Catholic celebrations or events, you don’t see frequent displays of religiosity. At least not in public and not in big cities.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case in quite a few places around America.
And the fact that it’s the only wealthy country with so many people still identifying as religious makes it something of an anomaly in today’s world.
In particular, considering that while some developed countries are now finally moving towards suppressing harmful religious groups — like Norway recently did with the Jehovah’s Witnesses — the US seems to be going in the exact opposite direction. And it’s no secret that they don’t exactly keep religion — of the fundamentalist, Christian type — separate from government policies.
Because that always turns out just fantastic, doesn’t it?
What also baffles me is that the Christian denominations most commonly present in the US — like the Evangelicals — are much less like actual religious groups and more like cults. Plus, they treat religion as yet another product to be shoved down gullible American’s throats for the financial benefit of a few white men with a superiority complex.
Some time ago, I even went to a Christian ‘megachurch’ to see if it’s really as ridiculous as it seems. It was much worse than that.
Depending on the state in which you are, it’s also not that uncommon to see ad campaigns for… Jesus. And God. And all these ‘churches’ that hope to brainwash as many people as possible.
When I was there recently, I even got a few ads like that on my Instagram account, out of all places.
And no, that never happened anywhere else I’ve travelled to.
The car is the star
Apart from some big American cities like New York, public transportation in the US is almost non-existent.And it’s nearly impossible to move around unless you know how to drive and have a car.
As someone who never got their driving licence — simply because at no point in my life I needed to have it — I find it quite troublesome. You can’t just catch a bus or get the tube or a tram; you have to get a taxi or depend on someone to drive you instead.
It’s also not easy to do the former, even in the cities that technically offer some public transport, as it’s often poorly connected and organised. And it’s treated more like a ‘poor people’ thing, rather than what it really is, or rather should be: a vital public good, which could easily be founded if, you know, America stopped spending so much money on killing people.
But it’s not like you can just walk places, either.
I made that mistake quite a few times — yup, I’m one of those ‘crazy’ people who enjoy walking everywhere — and either ended up somewhere where there was no more sidewalk, and I had to go back or accidentally walked in on people shooting heroin in the middle of the day.
(And that’s yet another thing I’ve never seen happen anywhere else on this planet.)
But considering the amount of car-related fatalities, pollution it causes, energy waste, and exorbitant costs of ownership, I fail to understand Americans’ stubborn attachment to this archaic and inefficient transportation mode.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Everything and anything costs money
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if I’d be forced to pay for just breathing the next time I visit the US.Even some parks, including the regular kind, charge you to enter them. Yup, parks. You know, the nice places with trees and bushes and greedy squirrels that allow people living in urban areas to access some nature from time to time.
But if you’re broke and unlucky to live close to one that happens to be run by people wanting to capitalise on every single thing imaginable, you don’t get to go there.
How lovely.
And although I’m not that shocked that museums and other cultural venues have entrance fees too — usually quite high in comparison to Europe — that’s still somewhat disappointing. In London, where I live, you can visit the city by taking a double-decker bus ride and go to some of the world’s most renewed museums, all for a little over ten pounds.
In other European cities, that would cost you even less, possibly even nothing at all, since not all of them charge fees for public transport.
I’m not going to try to estimate how much it costs to visit a big American city for a day. But it surely is way more than just ten pounds.
It shouldn’t be controversial, though, to suggest that countries as developed and as rich as the US should provide their citizens with easy and free — or at the very least, cheap — access to green and cultural spaces and the most important historical venues.
That’s how you make your society healthier, happier, and more educated.
But it seems like most American politicians definitely don’t want that to happen.
Excess and lack
Whether you’re in an American mall, a supermarket, or any other public space, it feels like everything is organised around encouraging people to engage in a constant orgy of reckless consumption.Grocery stores have so many options for a single product type they sometimes barely fit into one aisle. Pharmacies sell everything from foodstuffs to tobacco products. Some people have not one or two, but multiple heavily polluting, gigantic vehicles. And boats. And motorcycles.
Everything seems larger than life and utterly excessive.
But then that excess is sharply contrasted with lack.
While the first impression many Europeans have when they visit the US for the first time is that it’s indeed a rich country, it actually has one of the highest wealth inequality rates among all developed countries.
If you have money, you have access to many things that probably don’t even exist anywhere else, and you can happily consume yourself into oblivion. But the rest of the people are just trying to survive.
And that becomes pretty clear when you ‘stray’ from typically touristy places or meet Americans who aren’t lucky to be of the privileged kind and lack the most basic of things, like housing and food.
I once even saw an ad campaign in Germany that encouraged support for hungry… American children.
Well. If a foreign country has to start raising money to feed your kids because you’re unable to, then you’re likely doing something really, really wrong.
Obviously, the above isn’t an exhaustive list of things that shock me about the US.
Lack of affordable healthcare, fair workplace practices and gun control, the existence of for-profit prisons, systemic lack of respect and care for women and LGBTQ+ people, and many other issues shock me, too.
And I do realise that some Americans are acutely aware of it all. More than any of us, shocked foreigners, could ever be. But then, some others seem to be living in an entirely different reality.
One where their country remains the ‘greatest’ in the world, and it’s a place of prosperity, happiness and godliness and not poverty, heedless excess and lunacy.
As George Carlin once said:
Five Things That Shock Me Every Time I Visit America as a European
It really is a place like no other
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Five Things That Shock Me Every Time I Visit America as a European | …
archived 15 Jan 2023 13:09:10 UTC
