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Culture shock

siddhesh.substack.com

81–90 of 260 posts

Re: Culture shock

#81
Will slightly disagree on the cash thing. absolutely US uses more credit/debit cards, but for paying at Kiraana shops, basic restaurants, other shops, a decent portion of India’s middle pay with QR focused apps such payTM. At least in Pune, Bangalore, etc.

It’s more cash than US but more China (in some cities) like in terms of mobile payments.

Re: Culture shock

#82
It's a total tangent, but this reminds me of one of my favorite novels, The Shockwave Rider[1]. It's all about this phenomenon, but dialed up to 11. Honestly, those of us who grew up in the USA long enough ago are basically immigrants now too. This is a very different country than it was 30 years ago. Not only that, but much like India, there is great difference between some of the individual States.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider

Re: Culture shock

#83
post #54

Lots of people don't like carpeting but I prefer it in the living areas. Benefits: Provides dampening of sounds Not freezing cold on my feet Comfy, welcoming and homely feeling (subjective) Spills are very rare and permanent damage can, in most cases, be avoided by cleaning the mess properly right away. Carpeting should be shampooed once in a while too. Carpeting does not last forever, however. I can't stand carpetin…

I'd take wooden/laminate floor over carpeting any day:

- it can be soundproofed, - it can be floor-heated (but generally isn't that cold to begin with), - maintenance and cleaning is really easy, - potentially damaged areas can be fixed/replaced relatively easily (but greatly varies with the system and the mounting used), - extremely pet-(hair-)friendly, - very robot vacuum friendly, - generally doesn't get affected that much with "clashes with my new x" issues (but that's individual, I guess), - can be tastefully decorated and accented with smaller rugs, - probably some other things I missed.

Basically, in my view, sans the "fluffy" feeling on one's feet, wall-to-wall carpeting is a nightmare, especially given the US prevalence of combining an inside carpet with outside shoes, which is in stark contract with majority of the rest of the world.

Re: Culture shock

#84

I worked at a multi-national company that frequently flew people to the United States HQ offices for short visits or sometimes longer stays. For many of the younger developers this was their first direct exposure to the United States. Interestingly, most of them had built up a lot of preconceived notions about the United States from social media sites like Reddit. Many of those sites project an extremely pessimistic…

> a multi-national company that frequently flew people to the United States HQ offices... > The people that I see day to day are generally extremely fit. (Or is it just students?) To be fair to your guests, replace "students" with "folks you'll tend to see around the HQ of a multinational / the places those offices tend to be located", and they hit the nail on the head. The US is interesting because it's a HUUUUGE si…

> I guess what I'm trying to say is that multinational corporate HQ campuses and their surrounding communities definitely aren't Real America (TM)(R).

The company actually moved away from HCOL cities, so this wasn't NYC/SF/Seattle or whatever top-10 city you might be thinking of.

But your comment is precisely the type of Internet comments that create the pessimistic view of the United States: Everything positive is dismissed or downplayed or discounted, while everything negative is brought to the forefront and presented as the norm.

When the topic of the United States comes up, why are you so quick to bring up rural MS or West Virginia? Those locations are notable precisely because they're outliers, not because they're the norm.

Re: Culture shock

#85
post #4

> 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. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has…

Depending where you are, curtains have a better thermal performance to blinds. I vastly prefer solid curtains that block light completely to keep rooms cool.

Re: Culture shock

#86
post #30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Indian in the states - my observation was that obesity in the US seems like a class issue. Most well-off folks are fit and working out is woven into their lifestyles. Others can't as they're probably working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet.

Another thing is india tends to be one of the fatter poor states due to its diet. If you came from east or south east asia, americans would seem fatter to you even if your in a fitter place. Same with many europeans.

(As an American) I used to think we had too much sugar in our culture, then a couple of friends extolled the virtue of and convinced me to try gulab jamun...

Re: Culture shock

#87
post #4

> 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. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has…

> There are, just not in big coastal cities. I'm biased, but I generally tell people that big coastal cities are not a proper representation of American cultures vastness. They provide a boxed and abridged experience of a very opinionated nature. Instead, traverse the states and see what each geography has to offer. You'll find those things are still alive in the Midwest and South. I find this literally to be the exa…

In my (limited) experience, really only New Orleans takes "no big box stores" seriously.

NYC and SF to a lesser extent: big box exist, but there are alternatives.

Can't speak to Chicago or the northern Midwest though.

Re: Culture shock

#88
post #4

> 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. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has…

From reading the list it’s clear it’s from living in a low cost suburban low rise 1960s-80s apartment complex — which tend to be the defacto standard for international graduate students - average frame construction, low cost electric appliances, cheap to replace mid pile carpet, the cheap vertical blinds, the cheapest glacier bay dual valve faucet [1] - all very efficient to manage and turn over. They have convenient parking and decent amenities for the price. In the rust belt/northeast these complexes are 90 percent (made up number) international and some domestic students and old people (there isn’t much difference in these places and most “senior living” places outside of what’s on the sign out front)

Re: Culture shock

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a multi-national company that frequently flew people to the United States HQ offices... > The people that I see day to day are generally extremely fit. (Or is it just students?) To be fair to your guests, replace "students" with "folks you'll tend to see around the HQ of a multinational / the places those offices tend to be located", and they hit the nail on the head. The US is interesting because it's a HUUUUGE si…

> I guess what I'm trying to say is that multinational corporate HQ campuses and their surrounding communities definitely aren't Real America (TM)(R). The company actually moved away from HCOL cities, so this wasn't NYC/SF/Seattle or whatever top-10 city you might be thinking of. But your comment is precisely the type of Internet comments that create the pessimistic view of the United States: Everything positive is d…

You can build a picture of the US based on chunks of similar land area, or on chunks of similar population.

A huge amount of the land area of the US, if visited, very much supports "the pessimistic view of the US". But these are not the parts that most people will tend to visit.

If you focus on the areas where the majority of Americans actually live, you get a fairly different story.

That's not to say that either version is "The Truth About America". Both stories are interwoven and interconnected with each other, and very interdependent.

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