We see things so differently now, it makes us all feel like strangers in our own country to some extent. We’ve all been marveling at the contrast and differences between the US and the rest of the world we’ve just visited. There are so many differences that it bears highlighting just a few.
We drive big. Driving down our streets and weaving
through scores of giant SUVs and pick-up trucks is
really odd when compared to the scooters and tiny
cars we dodged in virtually every other world city,
especially when you’re driving one of the beasts
yourself. We will be making some changes to our
garage over the coming months scaling down our own "bigness".
We'll be driving the scooter a lot more often as well.
Walking down the “shampoo” aisle at our local grocery
store is an out of body experience. It seems we have
100 kinds of shampoo just for oily hair and 100 more
for dry hair. In Ghana, they had maybe 10 total, and
none of them were for oily blondes. I swear this one
aisle at Ralphs is bigger than most of the grocery
stores in which we shopped.
In LA, where we finally landed, the freeways are 10 lanes wide, filled with countless cars carrying only one person, while ride sharing or public transportation rules the day virtually everywhere else. The rest of the world has invested in mass transportation infrastructure, while the US has invested in highways which are arguably the best in the world. We have some catching up to do on trains and subways.
We are big. Folks in the United States are massive by comparison to virtually every other country we visited. Germans were pretty big as were Australians, but big in these countries means someone who is athletic and broad shouldered carrying a bit more than their age should tolerate. Our bigness isn’t because we were born into an athletic family, it’s because athletics is something we watch on TV. We get in cars and drive to the grocery store and then drive back home and sit on the couch, watch TV and eat. In most places we visited, you walked or rode a bike to the grocery store and you carried everything back home on your person. You could only take home what you could sling on your back or stuff onto your bike. This meant you were shopping for a few days and you would return to the grocery by foot or bike when your food ran out. COSTCO wouldn’t work in this environment. Huge packages for huge people who are driving huge vehicles just isn’t part of the world outside of the US.
The US always seems to be in a rush while so many
other parts of the world take their time. I supposed
this is good news for getting things done, and being
productive, but it seems that folks in Berlin,
Paris, Florence, Accra, or LiJiang are expecting
things to take longer, and so taking two hours for
lunch isn’t a big deal. Waiting is just part of life.
Europe Australia, and New Zealand seem to treat the
naked body and sex as a relatively harmless fact-of-life
that can provide entertainment and even humor, while
violence is something that should be kept from
children at all costs. In America we do quite the
opposite. In New Zealand, the kids weren’t allowed
to see American Gangster under any circumstance. It
would have been no problem in the US. We openly love
our guns and our rights to have them. Sex – not so
much.
The general ignorance of the American Public about our political system and our own history is incredible. In every country, we met folks that were acutely aware not only of their own politics, government and history, but of ours. We were stopped a number of times and asked whether we supported McCain, Barack or Hillary and everyone had an opinion that was based on reasonable understanding of the differences between each. It was pretty amazing. These were not the super elite or well healed folks asking these questions. The folks in the know and the folks deeply interested in US politics were shopkeepers, airline gate agents, cab drivers, or waiters. These were the rank and file citizens of the countries we were visiting. It is truly amazing to see how much influence our country has over these people and how much time our country occupies in their collective consciousness. Yet, most of our own citizens have only a vague sense that a whole other world exists outside the US. A suffering US currency? Whatever. Starving people in Kenya? Whatever. A dictator killing his Zimbabwean challengers? Whatever. Folks in the US don’t seem to know or care. I could rant about this for a while. I won’t.