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You Tube Channel: Your New Zealand Family
- Thread starter MeganC
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Thank you. I love learning about other cultures and how they see us.
I think I've seen another video of theirs where they were fascinated by how big our Walmarts are and the variety of items we have here. They were so excited.
She's so right about the horns, i'm convinced that most americans drive with one hand on the horn and the other on their cell phone.
I think I've seen another video of theirs where they were fascinated by how big our Walmarts are and the variety of items we have here. They were so excited.
She's so right about the horns, i'm convinced that most americans drive with one hand on the horn and the other on their cell phone.
I have spent less time in the USA, and almost entirely in California other than at BF retreats, so I haven't seen enough to notice some of the things they noticed - but I can relate to a lot of it.
Fast food in the USA is excellent. Pizzas are enormous - the standard "large" pizza here is a 12 inch, and you usually don't get any choice in size. If you do get a choice, there will be a "small" option for one person, but never anything larger. All pizzas are "large" and large is 12 inch.
I am surprised at their comments on price though. When we have visited the USA, most things were cheaper than here. Inflation must have been massive recently for US prices to end up similar to here, given we've had a lot of inflation ourselves also.
Roads - driving on the right-hand side of the road is quite a change. The first time I drove in the USA, I had not slept for about 40 hours due to travel and being unable to get to sleep on multiple planes (we had flown Dublin - London - somewhere east coast - LA), then we had to find our way out of LA airport, pick up a rental car, and drive for 3 hours down to San Francisco where we had accommodation booked. It was insanely dangerous to drive for the first time on the right when so sleep deprived, and I'd never have managed it without Sarah beside me saying "keep right" at every intersection. And we bought some massive doughnuts on the way which helped also! When we finally got to the motel I fell straight asleep, Sarah ordered room service, and when it arrived she couldn't wake me to eat.
You think you've got used to it after a day or so, but then forget it whenever you're in a small area like a carpark where you are driving down the middle of small roads. Then you go to turn out onto the road again and have reverted to automatically turning out onto the other side again - wife has to say "keep right" again! Then once you've finally mastered it, you go home and have the same problem remembering to drive on the left again - but the learning process is faster that way.
And when you're not driving, like when someone offers you a lift back to the airport from a BF retreat, you go to get in the drivers seat of their vehicle instead of the passenger seat, amusing the onlookers...
Guns - I didn't have unrealistic expectations so wasn't surprised by this.
But what did surprise me was how patriotically militaristic the whole culture is - don't take offence at the term, I'm just trying to describe what it's genuinely like coming from the outside. When we visited in 2008, all the loudspeakers at airports giving messages about "and we want to welcome all our armed forces members to the airport today and thank you for your service". We went to a random church in the middle of nowhere, it was decorated with flags and the major theme was honouring one of their local boys back who was home on leave from Iraq and praying for the war - to the extent that when they asked if they had any visitors, I was too embarrassed to say anything, it felt like it would take away from the man they wanted to honour. The phrase "thankyou for your service", absolutely everywhere, in everyone's mouth it seems and in every part of society (from news announcers to fast food servers). Awareness of the military is front of mind and something that is spoken of regularly, when in most other cultures they'll be aware of the military but it's not overtly talked about all the time like this.
Tipping - and tax-exclusive pricing. Tipping is incredibly strange and very hard to remember. The first morning Sarah and I were in San Francisco we had a fantastic breakfast at a great little diner, steak and hash brown for an incredibly cheap price, we were served by a lovely waitress - and then only after we had driven away did I realise I hadn't tipped her, and hadn't even considered it. Poor girl, she'd have thought we were horrible people, and she probably didn't get paid much or anything given the price of the food. Most places specifically ask for a tip, which is a reminder. But you'll get a bill which has the price of your meal, plus tax (which you hadn't expected), plus a request for a tip (which you're not sure how much is expected), and it's all just so complicated and higher than you were anticipating. Can't you just work out how much the meal will actually cost, and charge a single flat price that includes both tax and paying the waitress, like everywhere else in the world?
I didn't notice the different accents to the same extent - but at tourist places (e.g. Seaworld) I noticed most of the tourism was domestic, and people talked about inter-state tourism in the same way that others would talk about inter-country tourism. The general "buzz" of conversation was very insular, nobody mentioned anything outside the USA (in comments like "this reminds me of that other place..."). Anywhere else tourists would be mentioning places they'd been in different countries. But you noticed that the Americans perceived a perceived difference between people from different states in the same way we would perceive a difference between people from different countries - and accents will influence this.
Fast food in the USA is excellent. Pizzas are enormous - the standard "large" pizza here is a 12 inch, and you usually don't get any choice in size. If you do get a choice, there will be a "small" option for one person, but never anything larger. All pizzas are "large" and large is 12 inch.
I am surprised at their comments on price though. When we have visited the USA, most things were cheaper than here. Inflation must have been massive recently for US prices to end up similar to here, given we've had a lot of inflation ourselves also.
Roads - driving on the right-hand side of the road is quite a change. The first time I drove in the USA, I had not slept for about 40 hours due to travel and being unable to get to sleep on multiple planes (we had flown Dublin - London - somewhere east coast - LA), then we had to find our way out of LA airport, pick up a rental car, and drive for 3 hours down to San Francisco where we had accommodation booked. It was insanely dangerous to drive for the first time on the right when so sleep deprived, and I'd never have managed it without Sarah beside me saying "keep right" at every intersection. And we bought some massive doughnuts on the way which helped also! When we finally got to the motel I fell straight asleep, Sarah ordered room service, and when it arrived she couldn't wake me to eat.
You think you've got used to it after a day or so, but then forget it whenever you're in a small area like a carpark where you are driving down the middle of small roads. Then you go to turn out onto the road again and have reverted to automatically turning out onto the other side again - wife has to say "keep right" again! Then once you've finally mastered it, you go home and have the same problem remembering to drive on the left again - but the learning process is faster that way.
And when you're not driving, like when someone offers you a lift back to the airport from a BF retreat, you go to get in the drivers seat of their vehicle instead of the passenger seat, amusing the onlookers...
Guns - I didn't have unrealistic expectations so wasn't surprised by this.
But what did surprise me was how patriotically militaristic the whole culture is - don't take offence at the term, I'm just trying to describe what it's genuinely like coming from the outside. When we visited in 2008, all the loudspeakers at airports giving messages about "and we want to welcome all our armed forces members to the airport today and thank you for your service". We went to a random church in the middle of nowhere, it was decorated with flags and the major theme was honouring one of their local boys back who was home on leave from Iraq and praying for the war - to the extent that when they asked if they had any visitors, I was too embarrassed to say anything, it felt like it would take away from the man they wanted to honour. The phrase "thankyou for your service", absolutely everywhere, in everyone's mouth it seems and in every part of society (from news announcers to fast food servers). Awareness of the military is front of mind and something that is spoken of regularly, when in most other cultures they'll be aware of the military but it's not overtly talked about all the time like this.
Tipping - and tax-exclusive pricing. Tipping is incredibly strange and very hard to remember. The first morning Sarah and I were in San Francisco we had a fantastic breakfast at a great little diner, steak and hash brown for an incredibly cheap price, we were served by a lovely waitress - and then only after we had driven away did I realise I hadn't tipped her, and hadn't even considered it. Poor girl, she'd have thought we were horrible people, and she probably didn't get paid much or anything given the price of the food. Most places specifically ask for a tip, which is a reminder. But you'll get a bill which has the price of your meal, plus tax (which you hadn't expected), plus a request for a tip (which you're not sure how much is expected), and it's all just so complicated and higher than you were anticipating. Can't you just work out how much the meal will actually cost, and charge a single flat price that includes both tax and paying the waitress, like everywhere else in the world?
I didn't notice the different accents to the same extent - but at tourist places (e.g. Seaworld) I noticed most of the tourism was domestic, and people talked about inter-state tourism in the same way that others would talk about inter-country tourism. The general "buzz" of conversation was very insular, nobody mentioned anything outside the USA (in comments like "this reminds me of that other place..."). Anywhere else tourists would be mentioning places they'd been in different countries. But you noticed that the Americans perceived a perceived difference between people from different states in the same way we would perceive a difference between people from different countries - and accents will influence this.
One other little but interesting difference - In a motel / hotel room in New Zealand or Ireland, you are provided a kettle and a coffee plunger, coffee and tea, and milk. With that you can make good coffee, or good tea.
In motel / hotel rooms in the USA, they provide you with a coffee machine, coffee for it, powdered creamer - and teabags as an afterthought. How do you actually make tea with a coffee machine? It's impossible. You can get hot water out of the machine if you think about it, but it's not intuitive, and it always tastes like coffee. And if you make your tea, there's no milk for it.
So why are the teabags there? Does anyone ever actually use them? How old are they? I never managed to figure this out. I just drank coffee!
In motel / hotel rooms in the USA, they provide you with a coffee machine, coffee for it, powdered creamer - and teabags as an afterthought. How do you actually make tea with a coffee machine? It's impossible. You can get hot water out of the machine if you think about it, but it's not intuitive, and it always tastes like coffee. And if you make your tea, there's no milk for it.
So why are the teabags there? Does anyone ever actually use them? How old are they? I never managed to figure this out. I just drank coffee!
Thanks for sharing!
I was a bit surprised too, that they considered our prices high, being that they're from NZ... and like you mentioned, our portions are huge, so I thought it would even out. Inflation is terrible at the moment, though, and companies are making products smaller. For instance, we bought butter the other day, it's normally $3 and in a big container. I noticed the price was $4, and the container was half the size it was previously.
Really? That's interesting; I assumed the patriotism was even worse in places other than the US.
You're so very right about "thank you for your service." It's a big thing here.
I was so shocked when I first learned that the police in many other countries don't even carry guns.
It would definitely be a lot simpler to do that. A lot of Americans feel the same way; they also don't like being pressured to tip when going out. Most of the time, we just factor the tip into the price of eating out before we go; it's something you get used to.
One good thing about how it is now is that companies are able to employ a higher number of waitresses due to only being legally required to pay them $3 per hour, creating more job opportunities.
Having worked as a waitress myself for many years, there's no way i'd do that job for a flat rate. Yes, it's frustrating when customers don't tip, and there were slow nights, but the majority of the time it's profitable. I used to make $100-$200 per night on slow nights, up to $300 on a Friday or Saturday, and an occasional $500 some nights. Of course, being a lot younger and thinner probably had something to do with that
A friend of mine worked at Hooters; she made $300–$500 per night. The men would tip her more than the cost of their food bill.
That's very true; moving states can be similar to moving to an entirely different country in the US. My family experienced this recently. We moved from city-life to another state, which is more rural. My family is constantly talking about how it's like an entirely different world here; we're so accustomed to preparing ourselves for an altercation at any moment (even just going to the supermarket). Hearing gunshots in the city, people fighting everywhere, having people run us off the road in road rage fits, and having graffiti and trash thrown everywhere.
People are so much nicer and cleaner in this new area; it's like a shock.
I've never even made coffee and I've definitely never heard of milk in tea
My grandmas used to make their tea with the coffeemaker; they put the tea bags in the filter at the top where you normally put your coffee grinds, if I remember right. Is that what you mean?
Of course, then they would add the hot tea to a gallon of ice water, pour in about 3 pounds of sugar and we'd have sweet tea so strong that it would be the equivalent of doing cocaine
That is probably pretty cyclical and only in spots. I doubt that there are many churches doing it now.
I'm impressed! That put your speed at around 125mph or 200kph!
I agree. I hate the nonsense of having to calculate tax and tip. Worse to me these days are hotels that charge 'resort fees' in addition to the price you pay for your room. So a room can be $200 a night and then another $100 a night for a resort fee. It should be included. Myself, when we have to travel and stay somewhere I refuse to stay anywhere that charges a resort fee.
The distance between California and New York is about 2500 miles. That's more than the distance between London and Jerusalem.
I believe we received our last shipment of tea in December of 1773.
When I visited London it was true that most of the police did not carry guns, but the shock for me was that the police who did carry firearms carried full-automatic military rifles. Not 'military-style' rifles, but the exact same rifles the military carries. This was also true in other European countries.
Also, for being unarmed the UK police were a lot pushier than American police. They assert their authority much more than American police typically care to.
Amen. Moving from California to Wyoming was almost like PTSD. I was so used to urban problems that Wyoming issues seemed almost insignificant in comparison. It took a while to get used to. Hate to say it this way but I do not miss most urban black people. They're constantly angry and explosively violent over trivial issues. The ones we see up here are usually going to Yellowstone and are much nicer people.
Of course, then they would add the hot tea to a gallon of ice water, pour in about 3 pounds of sugar and we'd have sweet tea so strong that it would be the equivalent of doing cocaine
What was federal tea board doing in meantime?I believe we received our last shipment of tea in December of 1773.
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I'm not joking, @MeganC
Tea Importation Act of 1897 - Wikipedia
There were fired recently.
Quote:
For nearly a century, Congress provided that no imported tea could enter the United States unless federal tea-tasters decided that it measured up to preselected standard samples.
Haha! I meant San Diego. Might have only been two hours of driving too. It's been a while, and I was half asleep!I'm impressed! That put your speed at around 125mph or 200kph!
The one hotel I recall provided a pod coffee machine. No filter, nowhere to put a teabag, just a place for pods. So that wouldn't work.I've never even made coffee and I've definitely never heard of milk in tea
My grandmas used to make their tea with the coffeemaker; they put the tea bags in the filter at the top where you normally put your coffee grinds, if I remember right. Is that what you mean?
Of course, then they would add the hot tea to a gallon of ice water, pour in about 3 pounds of sugar and we'd have sweet tea so strong that it would be the equivalent of doing cocaine
Also, coffee machines put out water that is a bit too cold to brew tea in. You need boiling water, hot enough to leave it sitting for a few minutes brewing and still be nice and hot to drink afterwards.
To make a proper cup of black tea with a teabag, you put the teabag in the cup, pour boiling water onto the teabag until the cup is 3/4 full, and leave to brew for a few minutes. Once the water is all nicely golden brown, remove the teabag, add milk and/or sugar to taste (or just have it black), and drink. Most people would add a bit of milk, no sugar.
Iced tea isn't a thing down here. First BF retreat I went to, Julie had made a massive amount of iced tea. I found it rather weird, but intentionally drank it all weekend, and by the end quite liked it. So it's nice too. But nothing like hot tea.
I was pondering that comment this morning and why I found it weird. Remember here we are in a small island nation, and tourism is an export industry. The whole purpose of tourism is to attract "rich foreigners" (or at least people from countries with favourable exchange rates) and get their money into the local economy. All tourist attractions are geared towards foreigners. So when you visit any tourist attraction, about half the people there will be talking foreign languages or English with clearly foreign accents. The other half will be "locals", but as we're a small country even many of them will have been overseas. Although it's not uncommon to stay in NZ all your life, most people have at least made it to Australia if not much further. So the crowd will look and sound foreign, and conversation will mention foreign stuff.
To go to a tourist attraction in America, and have it full of Americans, felt extremely weird. It's a tourist attraction, so where are all the tourists? Because for us, "tourist" is synonymous with "foreigner".
I expect this is normal for any big country. Tourist attractions in China will be full of Chinese people, and tourist attractions in Russia will be full of Russians. But tourist attractions in Europe are full of people who are "foreign" - speaking other languages - even though many of them probably travelled less distance than the people we saw in Seaworld in the US. It is expected when you think about it, but was still surprising.
Another thing that was weird about tourist attractions is that in the USA the focus is on entertainment, while in other countries the focus is on education. We visited an aquarium in Barcelona, then Seaworld in San Diego. The Barcelona aquariam was far more interesting - much wider range of sea creatures, and tonnes of information about where they came from, how they lived, conservation efforts and so forth. Absolutely fascinating place. Seaworld on the other hand had some tanks with a smaller range of fish but extremely limited information about them. The focus was on the live shows - look, here's a dolphin, it can jump, watch out it might splash you. Which might look spectacular, but the condition of the animals was atrocious. There was a shark with a permanent kink in its tail from swimming round a tank that was too small for it. A polar bear which had clearly completely lost its mind, and was pacing on a completely predictable circuit around its enclosure - sniff that point there, look at that thing, walk in a circle, repeat endlessly. It was enough to make you cry. And everyone was walking by like they didn't notice and thought this was normal. But here's a trained walrus that can spit in the face of its trainer, who pretends to be surprised, look at that instead. Note that this impression is based off very limited exposure to US tourist attractions, and may be unjust.
I was surprised to see a policeman in Spain carrying a pistol on his hip just doing his normal work, I wasn't expecting that, being used to police not carrying firearms.
Here, the police will very rarely carry guns, but if there's a reason to it's because they're responding to a suspected armed offender, so they will often have a rifle in that case. Extremely rare to see but as common as seeing one with a pistol since that's rare also.
Regarding tipping. The wages of servers varies greatly by State. In some locations, they might only receive $3 an hour or so. Here in the State of Washington they have to receive at least the minimum wage (and it is high here) of $16.28. My wife use to work part time as a server at a Japanese restaurant and she normally made more in tips than wages. That would average out to well over $30 an hour now.
I factor that in when tipping. If I am in neighboring Idaho, I will tip more than I do here in WA (and the price of comparable meals will also be several dollars cheaper in Idaho).
I factor that in when tipping. If I am in neighboring Idaho, I will tip more than I do here in WA (and the price of comparable meals will also be several dollars cheaper in Idaho).
Well, shoot I need to move! Thanks for the info
For us, and probably most other foreigners, we're used to waitresses being paid a fair salary as part of the meal price. So if we see a cheap price, we just think "the food's cheap here, awesome". And still give a nominal tip if we remember to at all, because we're simply unaware of all that. If you're ever thinking of working as a waitress in America, don't go anywhere there are lots of foreign tourists.
While in NZ the opposite is the case. You want to work places where there are foreign tourists. Because you get a decent salary, and then the Americans tip you as well even though they don't need to. You're in the money!
Our State government has gone totally insane over the last decade. We now have one party (Democrat/Communist) rule. Seattle is full of crazies, and is very expensive.Well, shoot I need to move! Thanks for the info
Here in Eastern Washington (Yakima, Kennewick, Walla Walla, Wenatchee, etc maybe Spokane) people are much more reasonable.
Even though I've spent most of my life in Eastern WA, I am seriously thinking about moving to a more conservative state.
I've spent a lot of time in Japan where they also don't tip and drive on the wrong side of the road.For us, and probably most other foreigners, we're used to waitresses being paid a fair salary as part of the meal price. So if we see a cheap price, we just think "the food's cheap here, awesome". And still give a nominal tip if we remember to at all, because we're simply unaware of all that. If you're ever thinking of working as a waitress in America, don't go anywhere there are lots of foreign tourists.
While in NZ the opposite is the case. You want to work places where there are foreign tourists. Because you get a decent salary, and then the Americans tip you as well even though they don't need to. You're in the money!
When there, I always feel like getting into the wrong side of the car. One thing really confusing was that my brother in law once had an American Chevrolet minivan with the steering wheel on the left side (that is really rare in Japan).
I've never driven there. With the public transit, and family to drive me I haven't needed to (plus I was scared).
I'll probably drive when I go to the UK someday. At least I can speak English if I have an accident.
I am surprised how much more international Canada sometimes feels than the USA. We were in Banff Alberta a few years ago and I saw very few Canadian (or American) tourists. Europeans and Asians were everywhere.
Vancouver BC is also much more that way than nearby Seattle WA.
Vancouver BC is also much more that way than nearby Seattle WA.
Before 2020 there were times if you wanted to visit Japan or China you could just walk through downtown Cody.
It's not nearly so bad now. I don't mind the Japanese so much. The men are fascinated by a tall blond woman and I suspect their comments are not so charitable.
The Chinese groups vary from polite to very ignorant and rude. Lots of spitting which seems to be a thing with them.
After Steve leveled and paved our road and before he put up a gate we had two buses with Chinese tourists come on the property. The one driver was apologetic and did not let his passengers off. He got turned around no problem.
The other pulls up to our house thinking it's the Yellowstone Lodge which is like 100 times the size of the house! He let these people off and we had to chase them back to their bus. They were pretty angry at us.
Like a year later we saw a similar situation on the TV show Yellowstone so I would figure this has happened elsewhere.
Our gate took care of the problem.
I'm not surprised Chinese and Japanese tourists would love Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park. That is about as classic Americana as it gets.
Grizzly bears
Buffalo / Bison
Cowboys
Country music
Big Trucks
Big Mountains
Wide open spaces
Just like the movies!
They really like Mount Rainier National Park too, and it is just a short tour bus ride from Seattle.
Speaking of precision. Do all y'all Kiwis say down to reference going south like we do? San Diego is down from LA. San Francisco... not so much. LOL. Then again, why should we be the top of the world. I think if I lived in the southern hemisphere I'd call south up.
I am so with you; I am not a coffee drinker so I can never use the tea bags in the hotel/motel room because of the transfer of coffee taste just heating up water. Yuck! I rarely use milk in my tea, so that problem evaded me.