Over the weekend I saw both Fahrenheith 9/11 and The Corporation, now I read jdub’s comments about his impressions as an Australian new to the United States. These brought back to mind my impressions as a New Zealander who spent two years living in the States. Gaithersburg, MD to be specific.
I went on my first major overseas trip in 1998, a trip which encompased Britain, Italy and the USA. Later I visited Australia and then in late 2000 I went to work in the US for NIST. Before 1998 I had vaguely worried about the “Americanization” of our culture. I could certainly see the effect of US television on our culture and was well familiar with the term “Cultural Imperialism”. However, living in the States opened my eyes to some very deep differences between our cultures.
The culture in Australia is virtually identical to New Zealand. We like to pretend it is different, but it isn’t in any practical sense. All the little things we do are virtually identical, except for my accent I can pass off as an Australian (Australians typically mistake me for a Brit, go figure). In Britain the culture is distinctly different, although it is still easy to blend in, you just have to remember what you have seen of Britain on TV, it is remarkably accurate.
My first time in the USA, in Boulder, Colorado, left me feeling uncomfortable. The little things were not easy to assimilate, American TV certainly doesn’t prepare you for it. The people where helpful and friendly, I never felt threatened either, but my few days there left me feeling that I didn’t want to come back, not to live there anyway. Two years later I received an offer I couldn’t refuse and I moved to Gaithersburg, just a little outside of Washington DC, leaving my girlfriend behind in New Zealand.
This time around the immersion was a little less severe. Most of my coworkers were also foreign and knew what to warn you about. The things you have to learn are varied. Infamous rituals like tipping, stupid problems like much that “nickel” thing is worth and basic survival skills like those drivers taking the free right turn under red who are never looking for pedestrians. Once you have learnt them life becomes easier (and safer). Jeff is right about things being big though, my French friends had a catch phrase that they had seen on an advertising hoarding:
“Because Americans deserve something BIG !”
The area of Gaithersburg where I lived had grown up in the last twenty years and it showed. Rows of brand-new terraced housing, something I had been taught in primary school was a socially backward left-over from the industrial revolution. Those silly neo-classical columns framing the front door. Gaitherburg, on my side of the railway lines at least, had the feel of somewhere parents had built as a great place to raise kids, without ever thinking what the kids might want. America has a vision of comfort and safety which I still find hard to understand.
Eventually I assimilated and became comfortable with my surroundings. I began to appreciate the humour in Doonesbury (and still do). I knew my way around the local malls (although I never actually went into a Walmart). I saw some of the other, less stereotypical, parts of US culture. However, I never quite became American, I never quite got the pscyche of the middle-class Americans I lived amongst.
Two stories illustrate this. When the sniper was driving around Washington shooting people from the back of his car he started a wave of panic. You have to understand that the region of suburbia around DC usually doesn’t see many murders, and certainly not while you’re out mowing your lawn or filling your car at the gas station. The initial suspicion was that he was operatin from a white van. One day walking in to work I did a test. At no point in time could I not see a white van. They are standard commercial vehicles of course. I never felt unsafe at any time, being an outsider gave me a different perspective, in fact I was strangely amused by the whole affair precisely because he was playing on what I could easily see was suburbia’s greatest fears.
The second story comes from when Cushla, who came over in late 2001, went into Johns Hopkins hospital for treatment for her anorexia. Johns Hopkins is of course in Baltimore, I was in Gaithersburg without a car and so it was easiest to take the train up to see her. The walk from the train station to the hospital is about thirty minutes and takes you through a “black” neighbourhood. Of course I didn’t realise this the first time that I took this route. It was on my second visit that I found that I couldn’t see a single other white person like myself. Coming from New Zealand where really dark skinned people are rare (although you get everything else) this was a bit of a novelty. It was with a certain anmount of bemusement that I realised I was in one of those “dangerous black neighbourhoods (TM)” which you are warned about (“as long as you stay west of The Mall in DC you will be safe”). I might have been the only white face nearby, but no one noticed. No one cared. I got to quite like that neighbourhood, there seemed to be a greater sense of community than my, more affluent, neighbourhood.
I wonder what quirks an American would find with my country ?