American weirdness: a Russian-speaking immigrant spoke about the peculiarities of life in the USA

Author of the channel “Happy in America” on Yandex.Zen shared her views on the differences in the way of life in Russia and the USA. Next - from the first person.

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By weirdness in this case, I mean the differences between what I'm used to in Russia and how the same thing works in the States.

I mean differences in everyday life, in thoughts, in lifestyle, etc. Big and small, funny and sad, important and not so important. Of course, some of them are positive, others are negative. Personally for me.

Everyone has their own experience, their own story. I share what seems strange and unusual to me. If this is not the case for you, well, you and I are also different.

In general, there are quite a few things in which we have differences. But I will focus on these:

small talk - this is a well-known phenomenon for many: short conversations between strangers or barely familiar people in line, on a walk, in a store, at the cinema and in other places. People here ask how you are, talk about the weather, smile, compliment your earrings, dress or your dog. They talk and disperse. In Russia it is not customary to do this. But I really like this point.

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Shower - a small thing, but so inconvenient! For some reason (I don't think this makes sense at all) the shower here is screwed to the wall and doesn't have any hose. We had to buy a hose separately and screw it on. It's good that the problem was easily resolved. But the reasons for this behavior are unclear to me. How do they clean the bathtub if water is practically pouring from the ceiling? How to wash a dog? Unclear!
And the baths here are shallow, shallow!

Apartments for rent — most apartments are rented empty, completely unfurnished, but with all household appliances. A one-room apartment is also considered a one-room apartment, which has one full bedroom with a built-in wardrobe and a kitchen combined with a living room.

Tip - many people also know about this. Here it is customary to leave a tip in any case - 10-15-20% of the check amount. Personally, I don’t really agree with this system. And not because I'm a miser. But because I want to encourage workers and companies when they do their job well, are pleasant in communication and service. I think this is an honest approach.

Driving — I don’t know about other states, but Massachusetts has a very low driving culture, which is most likely due to poor quality training. Many people don’t believe it, but the driving here is much worse than in our native Irkutsk. Although the roads, junctions and infrastructure are quite good.

Attitude towards animals — you can come to many places (hotels, cafes, shops and even museums) with dogs, which is very different from Russia. This point is very important to us, because we have a beloved dog, Rada.

Measurement system — they use not the metric measurement system, but the imperial or English one. That is, they use inches, ounces, gallons, yards, Fahrenheit and other tricky names. And this is very inconvenient! Only three countries in the world have not yet switched to the more familiar centimeters, Celsius and kilograms - the USA, Myanmar and Liberia. By the way, the metric system is the international system of units.

Medicine + insurance — these two systems are structured completely differently than in Russia. There are a lot of questions about medicine in the USA, and not only because of the incredible cost. The quality also leaves much to be desired.

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Convenience for people — the States have clearly made an effort in this area. Many places have free and decent toilets that are not scary to go into. In addition, there are water fountains - for people and for dogs. The vast majority of hiking trails in national parks and even small forests are marked, there are maps of the area - they are easy to navigate and choose a route.

Original column published on the blog. “Happy in America” on Yandex.Zen

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