This reminds me of a post by another Indian student visiting the US. The observation that that person made which stuck with me the most was his realization that rich people dressed in a manner that wasn't very different from folks in other social strata -- it was much harder to tell at a glance how much money someone had. I think this is broadly true.
Culture shock
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Re: Culture shock
#12> Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. Isn't the "powder" actually a bunch of tiny tiny cubes? Certainly tinier than tiny Indian cubes :-) One thing that seems to be smaller in the US.
Broccoli is another fractal food.
Re: Culture shock
#13Another big difference for me was the lack of people around and how empty US was.
I came to University of Illinois (UIUC) in the middle of winter (was starting grad school in spring). Granted UIUC is in a small town but still it was a campus town and yet I probably saw 50 people in the first week. Saw as in not said hi but just "saw".
Was the biggest shock coming from India. In India, walk into any market and you will see 100s if not thousands of folks.
Re: Culture shock
#14Some of the things listed are very specific to recently built up wealthy suburbs in the DMV area.
There's plenty of fat grumpy people living in un-air-conditioned apartments with doorbells, curtains, tile floors and single handle faucets.
Re: Culture shock
#15I grew up in a small town at the food of the Atlas mountains in Morocco! My real culture shock was when I first visited Casablanca, the largest city in the country!! I felt so far away from home, like a stranger. The US didn't shock me that much.. It was just a bigger version of something I saw before!
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#16Nice list, although I will say that a lot of it is dependent on personal experience in both locations. Having made the same migration, I'd rate some of them very different, sometimes even the opposite.
Re: Culture shock
#17Great read, so many interesting and relatable points. Not all though (bathing from a bucket?), which makes it even more interesting because you get to learn about the culture of India as well!
Re: Culture shock
#18> There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems.
Come to the Bay Area, or New Jersey.
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#19Very cool list, and interesting to see the differences from someone with very fresh eyes.
Little differences like this between countries makes me miss travel. One of the most exciting things about travel is those first few days in the new country where everything is still new and you're noticing every little detail. The ride from the airport is always a trip. When you return home, you notice even more things that are different in those first few days.
Re: Culture shock
#20Hey, as another Indian immigrant here I do want to say that most of these observations are spot on. There's a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young/wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public. I had quite a surprise when I started working at a smaller town and consistently started seeing older and grumpier peop…
> There's a couple of things in there that are just correlated to the fact that the author is around young/wealthy people, like the low obesity rate, fancy cars, shirtless dudes, book-reading in public.
I mean, he was on a university campus, so fit young people reading books isn't that much of a surprise. But I agree with you, US is a nation of extremes in some ways. There are places I've been in the US where quite literally every single person I saw was morbidly obese, including children.