We Americans live in a pretty amazing country, but being here all the time make it easy to take for granted. So it’s nice sometimes to hear a perspective on America from people who weren’t raised on multiplex popcorn and outlet malls.
Via Instapundit, here are some of those people on things they couldn’t believe about America until they moved there:
- Awesome Traffic – Coming from India, I found it amazing the way traffic behaved without any intervention from traffic policemen. Just everyone following the rules. It was a bit bad in NYC, but not even comparable to where I live right now (Kanpur, India). People don’t try to cut you off. People let pedestrians cross. Also, the parallel parking is really efficient! The roads are so well maintained, and the scenery is always beautiful.
- It is easy to find obese people in USA. Some people are so obese that they require a special electric scooter to carry them around. This sighting can be seen easily in Walmart where obese people use scooters to shop more … food.
- Speed limits – The US has really high speed limits for us people following the metric system. The highest speed limits are around 75mph or 121 kmph which seemed like gross overspeeding to me. But it contributed to great drives!
- That, American foreign policy is a very inaccurate reflector of public consensus. [No kidding – j]
- Majority of high and middle schools have sport facilities of very high, almost professional quality.
- Many children, even in well to do families, work in fast food, car washes and do a lot of other things to get money and it is not an embarrassment.
- Doctors tell their patients everything.
- That I have never, ever, ever seen anyone firing a gun from a moving vehicle. They [friends back home] think this is happening constantly.
- That our showers are hot water. Always. Boggles the minds.
- I was shocked to see the amount of obese people in the U.S. I can fully understand it though: the portions are big, everything has cheese in it, refills are free, purchases in bulk are cheaper, etc.
- The sheer size. Tried to explain to a friend that my state takes 6 hours to drive across at 120kmh and that it’s not even the biggest state. A few told me driving through the plains area made them a bit agoraphobic.
- A lot of couples adopt children, sometimes in spite of having their own, and treat them exactly like their own. (To me, this alone is a marker of a great people)