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Culture shock

siddhesh.substack.com

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Re: Culture shock

#221

Post by dkarl »

ameen wrote: post #24
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 l…

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.

It's not time (very few people who exercise regularly do so to an extent that would undo significant overweight) but more likely a combination of chronic stress and a cultural norm among their family and friends. For younger and more educated people, it's a strong cultural norm to be at a healthy weight, so even people for whom it doesn't come naturally have a very strong social incentive, and they are surrounded by cultural norms that support them. For people in other classes who find it difficult to stay lean, there's much less cultural support (serving sizes, "normal" foods, etc.) and also less social downside to giving up and allowing their weight to drift up.

Re: Culture shock

#222

Post by dartharva »

baby wrote: post #109

> Mobile internet is much, much more expensive here. Maybe that’s because it’s less needed due to Wi-Fi ubiquity, but the difference is still staggering. Mint Mobile gives me 4 GB of mobile internet per month, while back in India, Jio gave me 1 GB of internet per day. This is what gets me as a european, why do you get throttled so quickly in the US? I couldn’t find a plan that would give me real unlimited data.

High-capital industries like telecom generally end up in oligopolies making if left unchecked. Before Jio entered and disrupted it, India's telecom market was also very consumer-hostile and gave terrible prices and service despite being one of the countries that had adopted both GSM and CDMA.

For US it might also be the case that WiFi hotspots are everywhere and mobile data isn't used as much.

Re: Culture shock

#223

Post by throwaway0a5e »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #27

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…

>I have to admit, one of my guilty pleasures was watching people slowly realize that the United States, while not without problems, is actually not a bad place. This comment hit home:

I did some work with a university that sent a lot of grad students to Europe. It was always fun watching the fantasy that Europe has everything figured out crash and burn.

Re: Culture shock

#224

Post by ido »

dartharva wrote: post #216
ido wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's because I was obviously foreign, but I spent 2 months in northern India in 2004 and my impression was that the average Indian on the street was very happy to talk to me? The only bad experience I had was when I asked a lady passing by for some directions in Delhi and afterwards 3 young guys approached me and told me not to talk to "their" women (or something of that sort). I guess they assumed I was…

It's mostly curiosity. White people are perceived as exotic by most Indians. And if three guys approached you to object your talking to one passerby, they were most likely just roadside trolls looking for someone to bully. I've heard Delhi has a lot of those.

Yes probably! But they didn't actually do anything. I just said "ok" and went on and that was it.

Re: Culture shock

#225

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

Aromasin wrote: post #193
makerofthings wrote: post #148

I have travelled a fair bit in the US. I don’t think anywhere in the US gives a realistic representation of the US. It’s all different, you need to visit a few different states and types of city and think about the whole. It’s Vegas and NYC and Portland and Salt Lake City and Austin and Mountain View and a whole bunch of other places mashed together. I don’t get this as much with other countries. If someone on here t…

I think this honestly applies for every country though, however it's impossible to recognize unless you grew up in said country, or lived there for many, many years. I would say the UK easily gives the US a run for it's money - but again that's only because I've lived my whole life there and have learnt to recognize the differences. The cultural disparity between Newcastle, Edinburgh, London, Cornwall, Liverpool, Bel…

American who lived in the English Midlands for a half year.

Your hunch is correct: Britain absolutely has more cultural variation than America. You see it in the accents the most. I never expected to have difficulty communicating with other native English speakers, but I was comforted by the fact that other Brits from different parts of the island struggled to communicate with each other a bit as well.

Re: Culture shock

#226

Post by latchkey »

frettchen wrote: post #204
latchkey wrote: post #31

> No toilet jet sprays too, because Americans famously use toilet paper for poop stuff. But my roommate installed one even though it’s not allowed. Don’t tell our landlord. The infamous "bum gun" in SE Asia. That's because USA people believe that if they got poop on their hands, wiping it with only paper would clean it off. Why do you bring up hands?! Well, that is what is left on your ass when you wipe it with paper…

I've wanted one of the jets ever since I went over there - as soon as I'm out of an apartment, I'm putting them on any and every toilet in my home. I always kept some TP around, though, even when I was in places with the jets - but for the reason you mention the towel: it's handy to dry off with. Well, and for sticking on shaving nicks or blowing your nose.

No need to wait. It is just a T adapter. It screws into existing connections. There is usually a water shut off valve at the wall, just turn that off first. Just takes a basic wrench and some plumbers tape. It can all be undone just as easily.

Re: Culture shock

#227

Post by Firadeoclus »

Markoff wrote: post #210
sokoloff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they call “powdered”, we’d actually call “granulated” which looks like salt. Powdered here (in the US) is a much finer confectioner’s sugar that is more of a pulverized dust than a granule.

pretty sure it's same everywhere in world, you have it either powdered (flour like), granulated (salt like, but slightly bigger) or in cubes oh well and then there is China from what I remember, where they sell something like quite big rocks even in regular supermarkets, unseen in Europe

Depends on where in Europe. You can certainly find rock sugar/lump sugar in supermarkets in, say, Germany (where it's called "Kandiszucker"), whereas in the UK you're likely to have more success in small ethnic shops.

Re: Culture shock

#228

Post by perrygeo »

rushabh wrote: post #93

This brought back a lot of nostalgia. (I was Indian grad student in a state university in the North East in ‘01) For me the killer is the “master of the universe” feeling you get in the United States coming from India. Everything is in order and under control from the lawns in suburban homes, to supermarkets and libraries to traffic and restaurants. You see a lot more straight lines and perfect Bézier curves. This is…

I grew up in the US but when I visited India (Bengaluru) the first thing that struck me was the chaotic nature of the streets. Everyone seemed to be following their own personal set of traffic laws and it just worked out.

The nice side-effect of the chaos is that you have to pay attention. I find it too easy, in the more constrained US culture, to zone out and assume I'm not involved. It leads to a sense of isolation.

In India, I had to be present and mindful of everything around me at all times. It made daily life feel more vibrant, interesting and paradoxically more relaxing.

Re: Culture shock

#229

Post by orangepurple »

makerofthings wrote: post #148

I have travelled a fair bit in the US. I don’t think anywhere in the US gives a realistic representation of the US. It’s all different, you need to visit a few different states and types of city and think about the whole. It’s Vegas and NYC and Portland and Salt Lake City and Austin and Mountain View and a whole bunch of other places mashed together. I don’t get this as much with other countries. If someone on here t…

The roads, infrastructure, and general layout might make the US seem the same everywhere on the surface, though. Those are all built to essentially the same standard everywhere. It's deceptive.

Re: Culture shock

#230

Post by kangnkodos »

hguant wrote: post #119
e4d5 wrote: post #2

Hey, 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 The other issue is geographic - the author is a grad student in DC, which is one of the more fit areas of the country. This is one of the few cases where I'd say it's more a class thing than a wealth thing. Political staffers and the generic military types by and large,…

Near DC. He mentions Baltimore as a street near his house. That's the main street that runs through the University of Maryland campus in College Park. It's just a few miles outside of DC.
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