I’ll try to avoid stuff you know is weird.
- Adjectives. You can’t just have a thing. It has to have an adjective. For example: Milk. I wanted to buy milk. I get to the milk section, and there’s no such thing. There’s x milk and y milk and about a dozen other variants. Where is the basic milk (it turns out, I wanted “4% milk”) in this damned place?
- Fresh produce. In fairness you’ve gotten loads better on this one after subsequent visits, but beyond some basic staples like potatoes, carrots, corn etc it was really limiting what fruit and vegetables you could get in the supermarket. Also: baby carrots are weird.
- Your cheese is radioactive yellow. Cheese is not supposed to be that colour - but you seem expect it to be for some reason, so your producers add yellow colouring to their cheese.
- Your eggs are weird. I’m not sure what yous guys do to to them, but it’s like you blast away half the shell and are left with a porous super-white textured inner shell. They need to be refrigerated and last a fraction of the time they’d last if you just left them alone and sold them as they are laid.
- Your bread tastes weird. Maybe it’s sugar or preservatives in it, I don’t know. Bread is meant to have a really short ingredients list like flour, water, salt yeast and maybe a touch of oil and sugar. Take a look at the ingredients on your bread and it’s 5 lines long.
- Portions! Your food portions are ludicrous. I’d much rather pay half the price for half as much food as they offer on the menu.
- Money. You have this weird unconscious pecking order thing in your culture where you value people more based on their bank balance. You show a weird unconscious level of respect to someone who is rich. And similarly, unconsciously look down on someone poorer than you. Not in a mean way - just as a “I’m better than this person” way that is hard to quantify. You are aware at some level roughly how rich everyone you deal with is. I see this trait far less in people under 20. I hope there’s a cultural shift on this one, because money on its own is a weird way to measure someone’s worth.
- Your police are run by the local counties. I think your schools also? I know you have state and federal police also, but most places only have police and schools at those levels.
- I’ll mostly stay clear of health, because you know your health system is weird. But I will say that it’s weird that very few of your hospitals are run by government. They’re mostly run for profit. Health is meant to be a government service.
- Outside a few cities, you barely have public transport of any sort. LA is a mega metropolis, and it’s train network is a joke for that level of population - something like 100 stations for 18 million people?
- You have no idea what’s going on. Most of you couldn’t name the UK Prime Minister (this one has been hard to keep track of, in fairness), the German Chancellor or any of the G20 leaders aside from USA and maybe Canada/China. You don’t know about geopolitics beyond whatever you guys are doing. Your world news is literally stuff USA is involved in.
- I’ll finish on a weird one: you guys are lovely. This may because I’m white and have an exotic accent to you guys, but almost everyone I’ve ever encountered from the USA in or out of the country has been wonderful. You don’t seem to think of your fellow countrymen you meet as ‘good’ by default. There’s a lot less connection and respect to each other than other nations I’ve been to.
it turns out, I wanted “4% milk”
As a lifelong American, I don’t think we have 4% milk (reliably). Growing up we had Skim, 2% and Whole. Looking it up Whole is defined as 3.5%
I did look up a local store online and I was able to find it, but not universally at every store.
You’re right, of course - I heard the same stuff referred to as “whole milk”. But the only thing you’re correcting about the wider point is the appropriate adjective. Which I find very funny. 😀
It’s interesting that you picked this one out. I thought the money one in particular was going to be a controversial take.
3,5% milk is also the standard milk here in central europe and it says so on the packaging. People call it simply “milk”, but it clearly says 3,5% milk on the branding.
is the appropriate adjective
I just found it interesting that the thing you were looking for, most Americans wouldn’t have heard of. It makes me wonder why America has at least 3 milks.
If we ignore the 3.5% v 4% distinction and assume what we call Whole Milk, you just call Milk; what do you call Skim Milk? Or 2% Milk? And if you don’t have them, why do we?
As for the money question, I was curious to see if other non-Americans felt the same. I agree that there is a subset of people who believe that. That subset may be quite large, but I’m not sure how it’s perceived from an outsiders perspective. If you ask me, I don’t think it’s common, but I imagine some loud folks may make it appear that way. But I also acknowledge I’m an American in America, so maybe I don’t notice it.
There’s a health food craze in the US that stemmed out of rampant body shaming. Which might be largely because of American portion sizes. And they think that nutritional fat makes you fat. It doesn’t. Excessive calories make you fat. And even that has caveats, but it’s the best rule of thumb.
When did we start splitting milk? I know part of it is to make cream and high fat stuff while repurposing the skimmed off grass water. ::Googles:: WWII as a means of selling the byproduct of butter. Okay. Then in the 50s physicians started calling it health food despite the fact that the fat is used in your body during the digestion of many fat soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K, and thus skim milk is pretty close to the opposite of health food.
And the money thing is kind of rampant. It’s a big reason why things with larger price tags, like Rolex watches, are thought to more impressive by Americans than equivalent or better watches. Rolexes do have a very high quality, but then the mark up on top makes it strictly something I do not respect, and others do not share that opinion with me. Same for a lot of things.
Guns. Paying for being medically treated / not having a proper healtcare system. Weird relationship to Socialism.
Your public toilets are not private. There should never be a gap around the door. The height should be above what any reasonable person would grow to, and the lower height of the door should hide the person’s feet on the toilet unless you crouch down. It’s weird and very off putting to use one
The firearm culture, and how normalised it is.
I went into a Walgreens in Chicago, and waited in line behind two other people. There was a cashier free but the person in front of the line was waiting to be called. The guy behind the person in front politely said, “ma’am, the cashier is free” ‘I’m waiting to be called” was the response.
So the guy behind her just walked past her, and she pushed him and said, “Careful buddy, you’ll get shot for doing something like that”
I was taken aback at how quickly a simple discourtesy escalated to shooting someone. It just blew my mind that shooting someone over queue jumping was verbalised, and seemingly normal to each other.
That’s not gun culture per se, but gang culture. Gun “culture” in the US is something that trends far more right wing in general, and tends to be mostly white, mostly (nominally) christian.
I can’t speak to other cities, but the south side and west side of Chicago (esp. around Garfield Park, Douglas Park, and all of Austin) have a serious gang problem. If you aren’t willing and able to engage in violence at the slightest perceived provocation, then you tend to be victimized. The net result is that someone that jumps a line can end up getting a beat down, or killed. (And, BTW, the gang problem is a result of a century of institutionalized racism, combined with a few decades when CPD was exceptionally effective at jailing gang leaders; instead of just two or three major gangs in Chicago, you have hundreds of small ones, all constantly fighting over tiny patches of turf.)
I get what you mean, but this was in the central loop, in a business district, between a white woman in her 50’s and a black man in his 30’s. Very much gun culture by your definition.
Gang culture I can somewhat understand, but this was just wild to me.
Not saying it’s right or wrong… not my circus. But at a chemist?
Btw, it’s illegal to kill someone for checks notes cutting you in line. Had he wanted to waste the next three hours he could have reported her and if the cops decided to do their job it is a crime. I don’t think that criminal acts gun owners aren’t allowed to do are really part of the “culture” just because criminals sometimes do crime, like, people steal but theft isn’t part of “shopping culture,” y’know?
Thats mostly just Chicago to be real
You got down voted but Chicago is just a weird place. When someone feels the need to make a website with a comical spin on the violence then something is very wrong. They have a Shot-in-the-Ass-O-Meter and Shot-in-the-Junk-O-Meter which are at 96 and 31 for the year so far.
Edit:Had to fix link…
Well I’ve just read every comment on this thread and I’m relieved to realize that our recitation of our National Pledge of Allegience at every opportunity is in-fact seen as totally normal.
Do you ?
At a point I was travelling a lot to the US, the only time I heard the national anthem was before a Rodeo in Texas, and I never saw someone reciting the "pledge of allegience
Yeees, totally normal and culty at all…
A church and a MC Donald every 250 meters The sheer size of everything
everything is chlorinated. i get painful rash if i ingest chlorinated water, so basically everything was undrinkable. this was also true for soft drinks the time i visited Vegas, so my options for hydration were extremely limited.
Sugar in everything
Donald Trump. I mean seriously WTF?
See also Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Tipping
Oh we realize, but it’s difficult to stop once it’s been ingrained in the culture. Not only that, employers took advantage of that and therefore tipped employees have a much lower minimum wage.
Technically they have the same minimum wage. If they don’t get back up to minimum wage in tips, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. The issue is most people don’t know this, and so employers get away not doing it. This is one of the many forms of wage theft, the most common form of theft in the US.
Or the servers do know that and don’t want to collect on a few extra bucks to lose their job the next day.
Crocs
Same here in Australia
It’s not the healthcare that bothered me most, although it did.
It’s the cognitive dissonance around the unavailability of healthcare in order to avoid anxiety over the fact that a traffic accident can bankrupt you with no relief. Ignoring the risk takes some serious mental gymnastics and basic math failure to get there, but when brought up in this environment - where a TV show about a teacher who has to cook and sell meth to get hospital money is actually a plausible plot where no one actually examines the mercenary care at all and the main character just pays it - it’s just a part of their existence.
Not understanding that few other people live like this - cubans don’t live like this - is absurd.
Maybe that explains the amount of mental health issues in the population?
When I watch “alone”, it’s so depressing at the end when they ask them what they’ll do with the money they won. And they say “pay for my wife’s cancer treatment”. Like omg America
Yeah, as an American it’s disturbing and makes it hard to believe we can change things. You’ve described it very well.
Why were Cubans emphasized out of all people?
A natural impoverished (by us) enemy just a stones throw away.
Going out in public in your pajamas.
How difficult it is to find fresh produce in small shops (food deserts)
How much fat is in all the meat.
How old and badly maintained many of the roads and bridges are (I am from Africa, so that says something)
The levels of national arrogance.
Going out in public in your pajamas.
I have seen this on very few occasions, and each time, the pajama-wearing individual is very obviously only out in public so they can either stock up at the liquor store or meet their meth dealer. I don’t think this is common.
Go to Walmart (not the neighborhood Walmart, the super Walmart) and look around
This was in early 2000 New York and Washington DC. Spent about a month there and saw it daily.
Once upon a time not long ago
when people wore pyjamas and lived life slow…checks out.
I have seen thqt zero times.
But tbf I don’t live in a big metropolitan area.Ive done it before because im ill as fuck and need to go get food so I survive, I dont hate it.
It’s common at the high school level. It’s a byproduct of pandemic lockdowns.
I see that with adults, and WAY before the pandemic. First time I saw that, Bush Jr. was in his first term
I had coworkers in the early 2000s who would do this, working in a white collar profession, and pretty sure they weren’t alcoholics or doing (hard) drugs.
Signs telling you not to bring guns into shopping centers.
In some states, these signs don’t even mean that a person can’t carry a concealed weapon into the shopping center. In my state, for instance, assuming you are otherwise able to legally carry a gun (meaning you took a class and aren’t a felon), the list of areas where you can’t legally carry a gun is very limited: Federal buildings, courthouses, etc. If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business. If an employee sees that you’re armed, they can ask you to leave, and you’re trespassing if you refuse, but nothing legally stops you from carrying a gun into the establishment in the first place.
As a disclaimer, I’m not arguing this one way or another. I have a license to carry a concealed handgun, in fact. Just sharing information.
Does this give you any increased sense of security as a non-american?
The sign actually would give me an increased sense of security yeah.
Obviously a lunatic out to do a mass shooting would disregard the sign but your average gun wielder might be offended and take their business elsewhere – and statistically that’s the like who’s more likely to shoot me. That’s my logic as a Norwegian who’s lived there for just a year anyway.
Statistically speaking, people that have conceal carry licenses are less likely to engage in criminal activity than the average person, and less likely to shoot a person in general. The people to worry about are the people that carry firearms without having a valid carry license. (This doesn’t apply in the relatively few states that don’t require permits to carry concealed firearms.) Essentially, people that obey one law–getting a permit before they carry a firearm–tend to be likely to obey most laws.
the opposite for me
Being overly fake nice because you want a tip. Tbh I’d be more inclined to tip you if you left me alone and stopped talking to me.
The whole tipping thing in USA is weird. Everyone wants a tip, it’s entirely random (as a non-American) how much tip to give. Just pay your staff a wage they can actually live on ffs.
There’s actually a loose set of rules to it. Im not sure where the specific numbers came from, but 22% of the bill as a tip is considered “excellent service”, 18% or so is considered “mid” or “acceptable” service, and anything below that is a sliding scale of how bad you think they did. 0% is either you being rude and/or saying “i dont believe in tips”, but giving a $0.01 tip is basically saying “fuck you, you piece of shit,” (because fishing out a penny or writing it in takes more effort than opting out).
Those numbers used to be 12, 15 and 18. They’ve increased, but I’m not sure why, since they’re percentages. They keep up with increased food prices automatically. Not sure why tip growth has outpaced food prices.
Yeah but how do you consult those rules? How often are they updated? How do you get notified of updates?
The fact that there are no answers to these questions and therefore everyone is working with mismatching rule sets makes the whole thing useless. You can be totally well meaning and still piss off a server because somehow you don’t know what the currently acceptable magic number is.
I recently visited the states for the first time in a decade and didn’t find out until afterwards that 15% is now considered by some people to be “low”. Sorry everyone who I tipped, I shafted you without realizing it. 🤷♂️
As an American I agree it’s fucking weird. Tips should be for exceptional service and not an obligation.
