Things Immigrants Couldn't Believe About the USA

Yeah, we say that too. But I think Brits still get confused by the longer, "How are you today, sir?" from American service personnel.

EDIT: and if people say it to me, I do my Dad's thing and put my thumb up and say, "sh*te!"

Yeah, people are always weirded out when I answer that question with a quick analysis of my day.

Yeah, I had to get used to this in the Mid-Atlantic (which is not what it means for you Brits); "how you doin'?" is a greeting, not an interrogative designed to elicit a response.

j

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

I always take off my shoes, and I make sure my kids do too, regardless of what the homeowner requests.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

I always take off my shoes, and I make sure my kids do too, regardless of what the homeowner requests.

You are a great and honorable person.

Demosthenes wrote:

Yeah, people are always weirded out when I answer that question with a quick analysis of my day.

Especially cashiers at the grocery stores.

cheeba wrote:

I definitely believe there's an American culture. Everything we have is adopted, of course, but we've made several things our own. Barbecue. Muscle cars. Halloween. Not to mention all that music.

Hang on, barbecue is American now? I'll have to start spreading the word to everyone over here and in South Africa, India, Korea... Hell, just about everywhere they cook over coals on a grill

As a slightly less facetious reply, I think the start of your second sentence has the right of it (and we're much the same in Australia). There are definitely some uniquely Australian facets to our society, but I would never be so bold as to state that something as ubiquitous as a common cooking method was ours... Similarly, we have a strong (but shrinking) muscle car culture that was possibly influenced by the early American scene but is different enough to be its own thing.

The most unique aspect of American culture that I can think of off the top of my head has already been mentioned by a fellow antipodean: your firearm fetishism (perceived or otherwise) is pretty extraordinary in its image and pervasiveness... That one's yours guys, for better or worse

DC Malleus wrote:

Hang on, barbecue is American now? I'll have to start spreading the word to everyone over here and in South Africa, India, Korea... Hell, just about everywhere they cook over coals on a grill ;)

There's serious regional differences as well, especially involving whether you're cooking beef or pig and which specific type of sauce you're using.

DC Malleus wrote:

Hang on, barbecue is American now? I'll have to start spreading the word to everyone over here and in South Africa, India, Korea... Hell, just about everywhere they cook over coals on a grill ;)

Americans apparently don't like the taste of meat, they cover their BBQ in jams and syrups.

/troll

DC Malleus wrote:

Hang on, barbecue is American now? I'll have to start spreading the word to everyone over here and in South Africa, India, Korea... Hell, just about everywhere they cook over coals on a grill ;)

IMAGE(http://static.neatorama.com/images/2006-06/texas-legend-bbq-grill-gator-pit.jpg)
Until you post pictures of non-American barbecue grills that require a semi to haul, and understand that grilling is not barbecue, your facetiousness is denied!

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Americans apparently don't like the taste of meat, they cover their BBQ in jams and syrups.

/troll

Or we like the taste of meat so much that we're willing to spend 14+ hours making it ;).

Yeah even the wiki page makes it pretty clear that BBQ is not an American thing. What's weird is that the wiki article doesn't mention that Texas BBQ is objectively the worst BBQ. /troll

Although maybe "eating to dangerous excess" could be considered an American culture. That abomination of a meat truck supports that.

You guys are making me miss Texas brisket.

My mother's Swedish friend came and visited us off and on over a decade when I was a kid. She knew him through working at an international insurance firm, so they had also gone to places like New York, Cincinnati, Florida, Salt Lake City, and so on for regional conferences and the like. One of the things that he noted about America was how nearly every style of food seemed to have some regional variant - Southeast vs Northeast vs Midwest vs Southwest BBQ, for one example. Pizza for another. French fries for yet another.

edit: Not that this was a concept wholly unique to the USA, just that the differences were extremely entrenched. Around Europe (according to him) where you could go to different places and get the variant but there was an overall "basic" version of the dish anywhere. But here, if you asked for a kind of bbq in the wrong area, you were lucky to just be told politely "no, we don't have that," if not shot.

Slacker1913 wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Yeah, people are always weirded out when I answer that question with a quick analysis of my day.

Especially cashiers at the grocery stores. :)

What was more fun is when someone asked that of me as a cashier and I replied with some non-work analysis of my day/life at that moment in time.

Damn thread's making me hungry.

Still applies today.

What Makes an American (1939)

Edit: A couple of my favorite quotes just to give some flavor....

This—among others—is one of the important reasons why the Declaration of Independence is a certificate of birth not only for the whole American nation but for each American, even today; and why also the Constitution has always had a sacred character, for which there is no counterpart in any other country. It may be a wise political document, but it is even more important as the most genuine and most truly mystical source from which every American derives the consciousness of being himself. If the improbable choice were given to Americans by some great jokester, "Would you prefer to go on living in your country and be deprived of your Constitution and everything that it stands for, or would you prefer to take it with you to some new wilderness?" I am not quite sure what the results of the referendum would be.
The important fact is this: all those who are coming today and those who will come tomorrow are required first of all to accept a certain outlook on life and certain moral and political principles which will make them Americans. These things must take place in their minds and in their souls. Whether they adapt themselves to the landscape, to the architecture of the towns, to the food and drinks of their new country, is secondary. Whether they can speak its language is also not very important. The main thing is that they should be won over to Americanism, which is a set of moral and political doctrines.
In fact, to become an American is a process which resembles a conversion. It is not so much a new country that one adopts as a new creed. And in all Americans can be discerned some of the traits of those who have, at one time or another, abandoned an ancient faith for a new one.

Hahahahaha what

Seth wrote:

Hahahahaha what

tl;dr: If ur lookin at food r Muzak fur murica, ur doin it wrong.

I find this one interesting:

Yes, they’d meet with a lot of friendliness and amicable treatment, but there was a bit of cold water splashed in their faces as they assumed it was the beginning of a real friendship, and they’d seek the person out for activities, interaction, etc. A lot of Korean, Japanese, West African, and Middle Eastern folks said the same things: they thought they were making friends but they turned out to be arms-length acquaintances. Several expressed that they started to feel that the initial friendliness was phony or superficial. Fortunately, not all of their relationships went this way, and they often met great new real friends.

Could this be where the stereotype of the British being cold/aloof comes from? That we are in fact reserving body language and verbal clues that we want to be best buddys for people who we actually envisage being true friends with?

I'm not saying it's so. Just a theory.

Oh, and the mailbox thing. Putting up a little flag on a free-standing mailbox on a curb when you have a letter in it you want to send. Next day, letter is gone, flag is down (cue O'Reilly saying "you can't explain that"). It's like living in Andy Griffiths' Mayberry.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

Oh, and the mailbox thing. Putting up a little flag on a free-standing mailbox on a curb when you have a letter in it you want to send. Next day, letter is gone, flag is down (cue O'Reilly saying "you can't explain that"). It's like living in Andy Griffiths' Mayberry.

I always end up just going to the post office because I never have stamps and always think I won't need them... so I only get the postage for one.

Edwin wrote:

Here is an article with a different POV.

How is life in Brazil? The (hilarious and accurate) view of an immigrant.

Fixed your link.

Seth wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

I always take off my shoes, and I make sure my kids do too, regardless of what the homeowner requests.

You are a great and honorable person.

It's polite in Iowa to take your shoes off in someone else's house, especially in the winter. My impression was that it's like that in a lot of the Upper Midwest.

Now where I'm from, the Deep South, it doesn't matter, because we're all barefoot and committed to spreading hookworm. Right? RIGHT?

Yes, that last was a joke.

Oh yes, to add to what was being discussed about friendship here and elsewhere: when I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Newfoundland and had a mix of US and Canadian personnel on my watch team. One fellow was a Newfoundlander. He brought American friends home with him, to the tiny little community he was from, and they got there late at night. He told one fellow to just walk into a house down the road, where a relative lived, and take the bed in a particular room. No prior notice to the relative or anything like that. Everybody's house was open to everybody else's. The next morning, the guest was warmly greeted by the relative.

concentric wrote:

Oh yes, to add to what was being discussed about friendship here and elsewhere: when I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Newfoundland and had a mix of US and Canadian personnel on my watch team. One fellow was a Newfoundlander. He brought American friends home with him, to the tiny little community he was from, and they got there late at night. He told one fellow to just walk into a house down the road, where a relative lived, and take the bed in a particular room. No prior notice to the relative or anything like that. Everybody's house was open to everybody else's. The next morning, the guest was warmly greeted by the relative.

I would love to live in that kind of close-knit community and such a warm culture!

Farscry wrote:
concentric wrote:

Oh yes, to add to what was being discussed about friendship here and elsewhere: when I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Newfoundland and had a mix of US and Canadian personnel on my watch team. One fellow was a Newfoundlander. He brought American friends home with him, to the tiny little community he was from, and they got there late at night. He told one fellow to just walk into a house down the road, where a relative lived, and take the bed in a particular room. No prior notice to the relative or anything like that. Everybody's house was open to everybody else's. The next morning, the guest was warmly greeted by the relative.

I would love to live in that kind of close-knit community and such a warm culture!

What if someone steals your stuff?! OMG!

(In all seriousness, I prefer my privacy, but I would like to live somewhere where locking all your doors and windows wasn't conisdered mandatory.)

concentric wrote:
Seth wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

I always take off my shoes, and I make sure my kids do too, regardless of what the homeowner requests.

You are a great and honorable person.

It's polite in Iowa to take your shoes off in someone else's house, especially in the winter. My impression was that it's like that in a lot of the Upper Midwest.

As someone born and raised in northeast and eastern Iowa, and who lived/worked in western Iowa for several years, I have never encountered this. In my experience the only time anyone cared about shoes in their house was if said shoes were caked in mud or animal blood/feces.

ruhk wrote:
concentric wrote:
Seth wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

EDIT: Oh, god damn it! I forgot the shoes thing! We go into a Wisconsinite's house and say, "Should we take off our shoes?" and he's like, "What're you, Japanese?"

I always take off my shoes, and I make sure my kids do too, regardless of what the homeowner requests.

You are a great and honorable person.

It's polite in Iowa to take your shoes off in someone else's house, especially in the winter. My impression was that it's like that in a lot of the Upper Midwest.

As someone born and raised in northeast and eastern Iowa, and who lived/worked in western Iowa for several years, I have never encountered this. In my experience the only time anyone cared about shoes in their house was if said shoes were caked in mud or animal blood/feces.

No kidding. Everybody I know here in SE Iowa does it. That or use the mudroom.