After Things about America Kiwis Love, you must have known this was coming. Apologies in advance.
- Tipping. How can visitors ever figure out when, or how much, or who, we’re supposed to tip. It’s a minefield we’re doomed never to understand! Why not just pay people a decent wage and charge a little more?
- Adding tax at the check-out, not on the price-tag.
- Pennies. What do you do with them all?
- All the banknotes look the same. Do people ever make mistakes?
- US spelling. Yes, I know I’ve said this before. But it’s just wrong!
- Wearing green on St Patrick’s Day. It’s an excuse for green beer here and a lot of over-indulgence, but that’s about it. I’m of Irish descent, but never really knew about St Patrick’s Day until I got to university. It is promoted mainly by bars and clubs for obvious reasons. No-one else makes much of a fuss. (Well, except for two dear friends of ours who met on St Patrick’s Day ten years ago).
- The message that “America is the best place in the world. Everyone wants to move here.” (Blame the media, as this is where we hear it. All the time). Umm. Well. Sorry, but no. We don’t. I guess what we really don’t understand is why it is so important to emphasise this all the time? Is the country that insecure? How can it be when it is so large, so powerful, and has George Clooney? (Though I will add that I’d love to live in DC for a year or two).
- The “right” to bear arms. Huh? We really don’t get that. What about the right to safety, the right to live in a society where guns aren’t routinely carried by police or criminals? Where you don’t hear fireworks and automatically think of gunshot?
- The right to free speech, as long as you don’t criticise the USA, the flag, the troops, or God.
- The US political system, and US politics (the two things are different, but equally puzzling).
- Politicised news media. What happened to the idea of the Fourth Estate? (which brings me to …)
- Fox News.
- Donald Trump.
- Donald Trump’s hair.
- The strong role of religion in society/politics/the sheer number of people who identify as religious. We don’t realise this about the US – and even when we do, we don’t understand how it is possible, given the whole “separation of church and state” idea.
- Peanut butter and jelly. Peanut butter and chocolate (way to spoil the chocolate). Oh heck, just peanut butter. (Yes, I know we have Marmite and Vegemite. But this is my blog, and I don’t understand the attraction of peanut butter!)
- Bucket-size cups of filter coffee. Shudder.
- Cheerleaders. My feelings about cheerleaders are worth an entire post on their own. Nope. I don’t understand.
- Baseball caps at the dinner table.
- Why a main course (on a menu) is called an entree when it is not.
- Graduation at many different levels of education. (We only have university graduation ceremonies with cap and gown.)
- How big the US really is. We forget. The scale of it is hard to get our island-bound heads around.
Disclaimer: Forgive my observations and inevitable generalisations – I know that many Americans, including many of my readers, struggle to understand/accept some of these things too.
Note to my Readers: Believe it or not, I self-censored. A lot. And I love you all!
I agree! Also I don’t understand what seems to be a fear of socialised health care…
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Does it help at all that there are many Americans who don’t understand many of these things as well?
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Yes. I do realise that! After all, could ANYONE explain Donald Trump’s hair?
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A dear friend shared your blogs – love them. I have to agree with indigo bunting here: there are many things I don’t understand about “my people.” But the one nerve you hit is about American hubris. When I hear someone say “America is the greatest country..” or “Everyone wants to come here.” I cringe. People who say such things have invariably never left the States or they would know better. While we were typically self-involved in the 80s and 90s, most of the developed world made some improvements on the “American system”, like open immigration policies, universal healthcare, marriage equality/civil partnership, etc. It’s a bitter pill to swallow that the US is not number one in anything except control of the world’s financial markets. And that should answer many of your other questions. Except Donald Trump’s hair.
Happy Independence Day.
And are you sure about DC? Summers are like Hell (with no extra charge for the humidity).
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Scott MacKenzie, you didn’t grow up in Maryland, did you? Because I believe I went to high school with one.
Oh, and DC humidity…Vermont humidity bad enough today.
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here here on the comment about crazy american thinking on health care (but the fear and brainwashing campaign that has been waged on my people on this one for years explains that one),
So with you on this list Mali… ‘cept peanut butter. That is the perfect food. and you forgot peanut butter and apples!!! the breakfast of the gods, champions, and… hehe, just kidding.. the American hubris sounds strange to me too. Eating peanut butter is just a really strong sign that I grew up stateside (that and I put it celery with raisins and call it ants on a log!)
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Peanut butter and celery and raisins? Shudder.
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Would Cheez Whiz instead of peanut butter make you feel better?? (That’s how we ate celery when I was a kid. Believe it or not.)
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Loribeth. Nope, I think that makes me shudder too! (If Cheez Whiz is what it sounds like).
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Yes, please spend a couple of years in DC dear Mali. I’d love to have you nearby.
I don’t understand tipping except at restaurants, but I agree — if folks were given a decent wage, tipping would be unnecessary.
I used to be so afraid of being an “Ugly American” that I was vocal about my distaste for most US things, however I’ve mellowed a bit in my old age and realize (spelled correctly thankyouverymuch) that it is all about what you are used to.
Plus peanut butter is wonderful, especially with strawberry preserves or on toast. But I also love Marmite.
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Peanut butter and strawberry preserves? That’s the worst I’ve heard yet!
Think I’ve probably passed the chance of spending a few years in DC. If I’d stayed in the diplomatic side of things, maybe. Sigh. I do remember being in DC for business one year in early July, and was amazed how hot it was. Reminded me of Bangkok. I guess Scott’s right about the humidity.
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I eat peanut butter every day. But now only the unhomogenized, unsalted stuff.
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I laughed about Donald Trump and his hair. His occasional forays into politics here have not gone down well.
Speaking of politics, I don’t understand the lack of a state healthcare system, and why people think that having one would be a bad thing.
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Humidity might be the explanation for Trump’s hair…
P.S. – Indigo, I was raised in New Jersey – humidity with mosquitoes.
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PB&J is a staple of my life. I could eat it every day. With any fruit jam or jelly. Ah. I also like it with chocolate or on celery or with bananas. I’ve even done PB and dill pickle sandwiches, but it was back when I was a kid. I probably wouldn’t go for it anymore.
This weekend I took my girl scout troop to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we mocked the word “Great”. We decided all the national parks should add an adjective: The Awesome Rocky Mountains, the Eerie Crater Lake, the Spectacular Yosemite. And I turned to one of the women on the trip and said, “that would be just like Americans to do something like that.”
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That’s why I love you, B!
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Great list! I think the PB&J vs. Vegemite is something we will always disagree on. Most americans find pennies annoying now too.
I think the gun thing is overplayed. It is a very divided issue in the United States and not everyone who hears fireworks thinks guns AT ALL. A lot of Americans do not agree with the 2nd Amendment. It is not a simple issue, it is one that is very complex… and I think that unless you live here, you can’t even really begin to understand what a divided issue it is. The rest of the world just gets the media portrayal of it. And may I point out that everyone in Sweden is required to own a gun….
Most people I know think Donald Trump is an idiot and has terrible hair. Fox News is as divisive an issue as guns. I am highly aware that our news media frequently fails to be unbiased and sensationalist – but I don’t think we are the only country that suffers from that.
And having just driven across a lot of the US – yes, it is really huge. It took us 12 hours to just get out of Texas!
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Nicole, I recognise that a lot of these things are divided issues. But it’s still hard to imagine having such a liberal gun regime. (And I didn’t know that about Sweden. Guess it’s a good thing I don’t live there!)
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You’re thinking of Swizterland, and it’s more complicated than “everyone is required to own a gun.”
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LOL on the references to Donald Trump. And George Clooney. : )
I am half American (on my mom’s side). I spent a lot of time in the States, growing up — and there is still a lot that I don’t understand either.
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Oh, and Rupert Murdoch. He gave his AUS citizenship so that he could build his media empire – which spreads misinformation and hate. Please take him – and his FOX network – back. If you did, a number of the above questions would disappear. Except the peanut butter thing. LOL
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I don’t know what’s going on with my WordPress account, as I thought I had replied to this (about three times). If you get bombarded with email responses from me, I apologise.
What I said was:
You did not just say that did you? (I’m about to report you to Amy). You just made the almost unforgiveable mistake (declaration of war) of assuming that New Zealanders are in fact Australians. We are not. (Canadians will understand my level of indignation.) Such an insult of course completely negates any good points you might ever make.
Interestingly, Australians are very keen to claim New Zealanders when we do well on the world stage. Even their most famous race horse was a Kiwi. That said, they claimed Russell Crowe, and now they want to give him back, but we’ve said “no thanks, too late.” I suspect their reaction to any suggested return of Rupert Murdoch might be similar!
Oh – and Rupert Murdoch has flourished in the US (and his Fox Network). How do you explain that?
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So sorry. I admit to mentally lumping NZ together with AUS. Please forgive me. I have been “accused” of being Canadian when traveling abroad – I took it as a compliment. Anyway, Fox found fertile ground for their thinly-veiled hate speak. Mostly in the American South where not much has changed since the Civil War, LOL. But I still wish AUS would take Murdoch back.
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I can understand not wanting Fox News. It’s also a bit scary watching events in Aus at the moment – the richest woman in the world is trying to buy up the competition to Murdoch’s empire (Fairfax) and is refusing to sign the Board’s charter of editorial independence.
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Yeah, Im American and I dont understand half of that either. What is an entree if not a main course?
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Entree means to enter or beginning. By definition it shouldn’t be the main course. In NZ (and just about everywhere I’ve ever been except North American), an entree is the small course (like an appetiser) before the main course.
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