After three months of living in a new country, I see my own in a fairly different light.
I remember Geography lessons in school often had really general statements like: Culture: French people enjoy doing so and so, or African people are known to be so and so. And I always found it weird that you could make such a generalized bracket for such a large group of people -- a whole country! Especially because I really couldn't think of many such brackets for Indians in terms of habits or recreation. (Ok, maybe Cricket and Bollywood, but not that much more.)
Living here in the USA for the past three months though, I've drawn up a few observational statements myself. Of course, these are very limited to my limited exposure and experiences in this time. (Not a lot so far.)
1) Americans are great at managing their work/personal life balance. Again, maybe I'm mistaken, but it certainly feels like people here have the right balance of not getting too crazy about working long hours, long weekends, and late nights. Back home it is so much more competitive, stressful, probably accentuated by the long hours of commute most people have to put in.
2) Indians are more self-conscious, and that, sometimes leads to social awkwardness. Americans on the other hand, are mostly way bolder, more confident and comfortable talking to complete strangers. I met a guy who while interacting on a purely business situation, used the word fuck in our first encounter. Certainly wont see that happening a lot in India.
3) American businesses are, quite majorly, swindlers. Watching all the TV ads that I have while being here, and the experiences in shopping complexes, I come away with a strong feeling of being lied to, and just plainly, feeling trapped. Having to pay more than things are worth, and not necessarily getting a healthy or great deal. Indians are of course, (and famously) lot, lot, lot more cautious with their money.
4) Americans have been trained by habit, and marketing to use many more products as "must-haves" than they actually need. And, I've fallen for a bunch of them too. Right from disinfectant wipes for cleaning kitchen counters, to lint-rollers to pull pet hair off your jackets, a trip to the super-market for the monthly shopping includes way more products than we see in the average middle-class Indian household. I must say, many of them are ingenious, bring comfort and convenience, are deceivingly cheap and so fall easily into the must-have category.
5) The American education system is an effective system that produces
confident young people. Never having been to school here, I maybe completely off-target, but it's the feeling I get when I see kids here. Even though the (urban) high-school drop-out rate maybe higher here, and cases of bullying and peer pressure maybe a lot more frequent and intense, kids here have a much greater sense of self-confidence and comfort in expressing strong opinions. Personal expression and unique interpretations are encouraged and valued, as compared to the learn-books-verbatim pressures in Indian education. The scene is definitely changing dramatically in India though, in the past decade at least.
6) The average English-speaking Indian's enunciations and pronunciations are well, below-average. The regular govt. school's curriculum doesn't stress on phonetics. Something that I personally feel really shitty about, although it is amusing and entertaining (as nicely highlighted by Russell Peters.)
That's all for now, I'm sure I could think plenty more if I tried, but it's been a long enough post anyway.
PS: To further establish point number 5; I have been hesitating the past few minutes if I want to publish this post or not in apprehension of what my Indian and American friends will think of it. But I'm just going to hit the Publish button and get on with life, because IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I HAVE, DAMN IT.
When I just had to go out for a few hours, and left her alone, and later came back to discover the house was completely intact. No cushions on the floor, no half eaten chapstick, no ballpen chewed up. Instead, wagging her bottom at me in a mad, mad frenzy, and trying to climb up my leg, was my adorable little puppy.
