The Things Americans DoOct 20 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Just a little piece about some of the oddities and otherwise that a naive Australian experienced in America. More to come!
I’ve been thinking of doing some pieces about cultural differences and suchlike between my country and the one I was lucky enough to visit earlier this year, but so far I’ve only really penned one piece (the differences between accents, basically), which is really quite slack on my part, especially considering the porous nature of my memory. So I’ve decided to do something a little different to the usual travel guides I put out. I’m going to tell you some of the things that I, as an Australian, don’t get about America and Americans. Sit tight! * Petrol/gas prices – I always hear Yanks complain about how high petrol prices are on any given day. I don’t think they realise that, outside of oil-producing countries, they have among, if not the best prices for petroleum products. On a good day, it’ll cost us $2.30 a gallon (in US dollars), here in Melbourne. In rural areas, it’ll be $2.60 or upwards, depending on where. Things aren’t that bad, really! *American chocolate – Hershey’s chocolate is, without a doubt, the crappiest chocolate I’ve ever eaten. I didn’t realise it was necessary to introduce hops, or yeast, or whatever dodgy bitter element gets put into it. It’s chocolate, make it sweet, dammit. And get rid of those bloody peanuts! Peanuts and chocolate don’t mix, it really ought to go without saying. Seems like one in every three varieties has some sort of bloody nut embedded somewhere. *Cinnamon – okay, someone, please explain to me WHY, for the love of God, there is a cinnamon-flavoured variety for everything? Cinnamon-dusted donuts, I can accept. Cinnamon buns, perhaps. But cinnamon gum? I don’t understand, and it makes me sad that I cannot. It just doesn’t taste right, and if I’m gonna have something burn the crap out of my tongue, I want it to be something like a chilli, not innocuous old cinnamon. * Supermegadestruction peppermints – Americans must have extremely durable tongues/gullets, because you’re all obsessed with sucking down incredibly strong mints. At least our stronger mints are packaged that way – they’ll say “caution – fricken strong mints in packet”. But American ones will be called “peppermint”, which sounds innocent enough until you’re silly enough to eat one, and can’t feel your tongue for the rest of the day. * American Football – it’s a sport, not a battleground. Take off the padding and the helmets, you big wimpy bastards. And if you’re going to call it football, then at least kick the bloody thing – and I don’t mean twice a game either. Call it American Throwball, or something. And just what the heck is a down? I don’t see any feathers floating around, all I see are big blokes pointing their bums at each other. If you’re going to call it a game, at least have a little bit of actual gameplay in there somewhere. * Religious TV – I’d heard ominous rumblings elsewhere that American cable TV was full of bible-bashings, but it was to my great delight that I found this to be true. Hours of entertainment can be had in front of the idiot box as various folks thunder and proclaim the “true” word of God – which apparently has a good 124 different variation, depending on which sect you belong to. But I think devoting entire channels to it is a little bit much. There is only so much religious windbagging one can take. Two weeks was enough for me. And for the love of Pete, no more religious CD ads – my eardrums are fragile pieces of equipment. * TV in general – I’ve come to the conclusion, from weeks of persistent research, that 678 channels is approximately 670 too many. Sorry to break this to many of you TV addicts out there, but you could easily condense all the good shows into the 8 remaining channels, chop down on all the really crappy ads and leave the good ones in. The 670 channels’ worth of shonky reality TV shows, home/fashion/pet wombat makeover shows, melodramatic soaps and crappy preteen/teenie shows can take a hike. Save the decent ones out of that lot, of course, but when you have 213 different types of each, you’ve got too many. Sorry, it’s the way it has to be. Oh, and $60 a month to watch 678 channels’ worth of crappy shows is $60 too much. Sorry. *Waffle Houses – I am convinced that these things are part of the natural order of things in the South. They don’t get built, they sprout out of the ground as part of some bizarre phenomena that arises from a condition of the soil. It’s the only way to explain the preponderance of them. It surely has nothing to do with the quality on offer! They’re ugly too, so nature has much to answer for there. Get the contamination squad in to examine them, urgently. * American drivers – they are by far the worst. Ever. Okay, so maybe I don’t have much to go on, in my experience, but to compare them with Australian road conditions, I think we have it made. Slowly, we’re succumbing to ineptitude, but not to the extent that I found over there. Just so you know, those little blinker thingies, the ones that you use to tell someone that you’re turning or moving into another lane, they’re there for a purpose. And it’s not decorative. Ahh, and also, honking your horn wont make traffic move any faster. Just in case you thought it was a magic button or something. Um, and also, when people have a crash, it’s really not worth slowing traffic for the next 2 miles beyond for the sake of a quick peep. It’s a waste of time, it's voyeuristic and it pisses me off, and you don’t want to do that. *The “Imperial” System – this one I really don’t get. For an apparently technologically progressive country to continue to use an archaic, strange set of measurements straight out of the middle ages is more than a little bit confounding. Sure, it’s familiar, but really, is it necessary to use a system whereby the common measurements have to use significant numbers to be useful when converted? This is just a start really, there are many more perplexing vagaries of American life which a strange foreigner like myself find amusing, odd, or just downright annoying. I know full well that it goes both ways – so I am giving myself the task to come up with some things about Australia and Australians that I either know or will guess that Americans wont understand. Perhaps I’ll alternate, in between showing you a little more about my country and, more specifically, my state. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little (mostly!) tongue-in-cheek rant – and any comments, questions or otherwise will be gratefully accepted and responded to!  |
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