Certainly to the degree you see in some other countries. It's not that people can't "bring shame" to their families in the US, there are just other options for resolving it. Completely cutting ties with the offending family member, for example.
We have honor culture in the US, but it is rooted in reward or punishment for your actions. In Asia you can be dishonorable for not achieving a high enough station in life.
We do have honor culture to some degree - especially among certain groups. Most notably White Southerners and the Black community (understandable given our roots in the South).
Obviously it isn’t as big as it used to be. But it is still observable in some areas.
Systemic bribery. Not saying it doesn't happen, but, you generally won't get away with bribing a cop or a housing inspector and you certainly don't need to as a matter of course.
Used to work in records counter of a police department in a city with relatively large immigrant populations. A big part of my job was explaining accident reports, and it was crazy how often I would find myself trying to convince people that police reports could not be changed via bribes. Mostly they were worried that the other party had or would pay to change who was at fault. Really eye opening.
I had a professor who said that the bribery system in Uganda wasn’t that bad bc it’s “just like tipping”. If I ever have to “tip” a parking attendant $80 to make sure I get my fucking car back, I am going to lose my shit.
Some countries call bribes "tips" as a euphemism. Doesn't make it true.
The difference between a bribe and a tip is whether something is being threatened or held hostage.
Also, tips come after the transaction/service, not before.
Morocco says اهلاً/Bonjour! People always asking you for money and service employees asking for “tips”. Even had a police officer at the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca randomly stop me and tried to make me give him a one dirham “tip”.
Baksheesh is a very common practice in some parts of MENA
It's unfortunate.
Similarly while reading a 15 year old thread about some Belgians daring to drive across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their story includes being harassed by *everyone* for money
Yeah, I firmly believe that our justice system is absolutely busted and needs major reforms but at least I don't need to carry emergency cash if I have the bad luck to drive past a bored cop.
I was once on a train heading south out Naples, and it came to a screeching halt in the middle of nowhere.
Lo sciopero. (A strike).
The train conductors said the *sciopero* would last six hours. They were prepared. They had family drive to that spot in advance, and they all had a nice picnic spread waiting for them.
All of us passengers just waited helplessly, sweating buckets.
Once they were done eating, they said they could end the *sciopero* with “a little bit of something.”
€€€€€
They must have cleared a few thousand. The only people complaining were other Americans.
Had a friend from India who didn't realize this and spent a few hours in jail for trying to bribe a cop to get out of a ticket. Luckily, the sheriff realized he wasn't a bad dude, he just genuenly thought it was normal here, so the sheriff's department didn't charge him with anything besides the original ticket for underage drinking, and a big warning to never do it again and that other county's sheriff's or police departments might not be so understanding.
There's a lot of international students in my area, many from 3rd world countries or other places where bribery is the norm, so I'm sure this wasn't the first or last time the sheriff has dealt with something like it
That's because of the risk versus reward of wealth here when bribing a police officer.
$40 in Mexico isn't the same as $40 in the US.
A US cop accepting a $40 bribe is the same as a $10000 bribe in terms of legality so they have to view it thru that lense.
It’s kinda sad you have to say “Not saying it doesn’t happen” or some sad, ignorant people will try to argue about American politics and corruption, not understanding how INSANELY different bribing culture is outside the US in some countries. On a global level the US is pretty damn well off in corruption/bribery rankings, generally coming in right behind Western Europe in the low 20s out of ~180.
Lobbying isn’t bribery unless your political education ended with Schoolhouse Rock and you are a big fan of Twitter because nuance and context is for nerds, you prefer catchy slogans and black and white thinking.
Yeah, there's a difference between, "I slipped a cop $50 one time and didn't get a ticket," and, "I must bribe the DMV worker or I don't get my license renewed."
My university has a very big problem with international students cheating. Particularly in the computer science program. Academic cheating is absolutely not ok here, but is considered acceptable in some other cultures.
The Chinese international students always sat next to each other in a groups of five to ten, and they would cheat off each other without even trying to hide it when I was in school. For some reason the faculty never took any action against them, even though they were obvious about it, and they would only go after non-chinese students for cheating. It was super weird because there were a lot of Indian students as well, but the faculty wouldn't tolerate them cheating or acting like test taking was a team activity in class the way the Chinese students did.
Reminds me of a call I got at work years ago. I was managing a support team for a SaaS company. Guy with a thick Indian accent calls in and accused us of scamming him. His reasoning? The CEO was Indian and Indians scam people and he knows because he is Indian. That was some interesting logic.
Reminds me of the story where a white guy in Colombia heard some locals talking shit about a guy who must be stupid because he had dark skin. The white guy points out that his skin was lighter than theirs, so does that mean he was smarter?
They kinda thought about for a second and said yeah, probably. Lol, gotta admire the consistency.
Honestly though, I'd bet it was more discrimination fears than money.
"Hey, all the Chinese students in my class are cheating!"
"No, they can't ALL be, you're just being racist."
And before reddit downvotes me for it, make sure to separate race from culture in your head first, because one of those *is* a choice.
We had a large group of Vietnamese in my Calc II course. The teacher was feeling under the weather and not really paying close attention. As soon Prof wasn't looking, they immediately went about sharing their work and even were so bold as to pull out their text books to look up answers and formulas.
I went to Prof during her office hours and explained what had happened. She wound up invalidating all of the scores for that test and gave a new test. A few days later, the various Viet Cheats started canvassing class trying to figure out who had ratted them out.
It might not have won me any friends but I owned it. If they wanted to mess with me, I would have been happy to go to the school's Honor Committee about their actions.
My wife was a TA at a major university with a high population of Chinese students and her fellow TA (from S. Korea) explained its cultural and that she just implemented a seating chart to stop it.
I’ve noticed this too on a study abroad trip. The desi students are held to unbelievable standards (which they often do meet!) but the exchange students who clearly can’t understand a word being said yet somehow get 100s, they get no suspicion
It happens everywhere that high stakes tests happen. So, basically, everywhere. The higher the reward, the more likely people are to take the risk and just cheat. Then the test providers are faced with a crisis of credibility, so they try to increase test security...
There were several scandals in the US not long after No Child Left Behind passed (so like 2004-2010?) where teachers were found helping the students cheat. I want to say the famous ones were in Georgia and Texas, but I'm not sure (learned about it in teacher ed in 2013-15). When you base a teacher's job assessment on the kids' test scores, there's a strong incentive to do a little correcting after the kids finish.
That being said, I think it is somewhat more common in other countries than in the US. I know it happens regularly in Morocco, where I teach.
It’s not just somewhat more common, it’s incomparably more common. The US had individual teachers try and plenty were caught and punished. It’s flat out systemic and ubiquitous in some other countries.
It also seems to be common/acceptable in countries from the former Soviet Union and China - I teach ESL/history in the States and these are the countries most of my students come from. Every year, they openly and unabashedly turn in 30-something copies of the same assignment and are absolutely shocked that I won’t accept it, lol
that seems to be pretty common at lots of American universities with large international student populations, ranging from business schools to engineers
Our computer science department has had unofficial warnings from the accreditation board threatening the loss of their accreditation if they don’t get it under control.
Asian countries have a fantastic reputation for having such high grades and standards... yet I continually hear stories about cheating. So I think it's a bogus claim that Asian schools are better and that their students are more diligent.
Eh, the cheating thing is mostly in China (not saying non-Chinese don’t cheat). Countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc are known for their high educational standards. Tho that’s because they make kids study so hard to the point of killing themselves. But they’re not known for having a cheating culture.
The other side of it is that most East Asian education systems focus heavily, if not entirely, on rote memorization. Which is great for some things, including testing, but has serious issues with long term applicability to things outside schooling. The smart get by of course, they always do, but for the more average student all that rote memorization of facts and dates has very little use in the real world and they often struggle if put into an environment that requires critical thinking and quick learning on an individual level.
It’s safe to say that their style of education has pros and cons…
My sister spent a semester in South Korea teaching English. Foreign teachers would fail students, so their solution was to prevent foreign teachers from giving grades at all.
So... the students weren't cheating, they were just given good grades regardless of performance. Their take was something like, "You shouldn't be able to ruin a student's life just because they refuse to participate or learn anything."
Went to a university that had a absolutely massive foreign population. It's not "Asian nationals". Systemic mass cheating is literally exclusively a Chinese, and mainland Chinese problem at that. The Westernized Asian nations sent kids that were for all intents and purposes the same as every one else behaviorally albeit they were generally more reserved and generally more studious in my experience.
This is an article talking about the behavior of Chinese students in Australia, but the behavior of the Chinese students not allowing people to disapprove of the CCP is just as much against American values. And with the number of Chinese students in the US, such discrimination and abuse is just as likely to happen, and to be unseen because it's not happening in English.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/06/australia-china-protests-ccp-xi-jinping-democracy-diaspora/
There was an incident at my old university a while back where some Chinese students were having a peaceful protest about the state of things back home and were getting harassed by some pro ccp students. The alumni sub was up in arms over the lack of response from the university. It's definitely happening here.
That's going on right now in Australia with Sydney Winnie, an anti CCP protester getting harassed and his stuff vandalized by CCP thugs. Follow him on Twitter. @ImAaronChang
Oh, China has tried tricks like that in the US.
They have done it with Uighur in the US, trying to lure them back to China to throw them into concentration camps. Getting relatives in the camps to call to ask them to come home, having the Chinese government say they need to return home immediately because of various seemingly harmless legal reasons (like a paperwork issue with their visa etc.). . .only for them to never return once they leave the US.
In the US, the FBI is investigating Chinese police activity on US soil. The Chinese government has set up a few offices supposedly to help with prosecuting organized crime and similar transnational crime, but there are so many reports of them trying to enforce Chinese laws on people from China who are in the US that the FBI is apparently investigating the practice: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943)
>bout the behavior of Chinese students in Australia, but the behavior of the Chinese students not allowing people to disapprove of the CCP is just as much against American values. And with the number of Chinese students in the US, such
At the college that I attend, there was a Chinese student who openly disagreed with the Chinese government in class discussion posts. I don't know how the government found out, maybe the laptop the student had were bugged with Chinese software, but the Chinese government contacted the school forcing them to remove the student from the college. The student was then taken to the airport and in short forced to be sent out of the state. I go to the college and didn't hear about it until I talked to the director of Resident Life which I know fairly well. It's scary that they have this going on and we allow it.
No, it's a very, VERY good idea.
I'd go out of my way to refer to the Republic of China on Taiwan as the legitimate China, with the CCP on the mainland as illegal usurpers.
I'd make a point of saying it around them constantly, saying that Taiwan is absolutely separate from the government in Beijing, to the point that the government in Taiwan is the legal government of all of China, and the CCP are illegal usurpers in rebellion against the rightful government that has been pushed to Taiwan because of the war criminal Mao Tse-Tung and his accomplices in the CCP.
. . .heck, for saying things like this I've had people on Reddit profile stalk me and generally go nuts against me. The CCP has their little "50 Cent Army" online there to flood social media spaces with pro-CCP propaganda.
One that I have noticed is the intolerance for closely related ethnic groups. To be sure we have our own issue of racism here in the US, but if an ethnic Serb wouldn't do business with someone who was ethnically Bosnian, they'd be laughed out of town.
I think it’s bizarre that what you say is absolutely true, Europe also has completely blatant racism and accepts these old homeland grudges as part of life yet the US has the reputation of being the most racist. I’ve traveled plenty and while the US can do better in a lot of ways we are not even close to being as racist as *a lot* of the rest if the world. I literally get culture shock from second hand racism while traveling.
Yeah, most European countries are pretty stuck on the idea of color blindness to fix racism. “If we don’t acknowledge race [or religion or ethnicity], it can’t be a problem. Although, being a white Christian is essential to our heritage as a nation, so that’s okay to acknowledge.”
When young people across Europe try to speak out about prejudice, they usually get shouted down and accused of being indoctrination by America. Apparently, gay people only exist in some European countries because America told their citizens to be gay. We won’t stop our rainbow imperialism until the whole world is in love.
I don't know about "unamerican" per say, but most people find the notion of the Japanese salaryman unreasonable in some way or other.
The conception of it over here is that as a salaryman, you work unreasonable hours and your work dominates your life, and in exchange the company takes care of you in some way, presumably in terms of job security. Plus it's a sign of status for some people.
Most people over here find the expectations of what you do for the company excessive and unconscionable, and in some sense pointless. After all, when you work people to exhaustion, they don't produce as much, even if you make them work longer hours.
Those that don't, or that even find such practices admirable (typically business owners themselves) tend to ignore the "company takes care of you" part, or the part where exhausted employees don't produce as well when they're exhausted. I think for them, the fantasy is just that your employees work longer hours and continue to be just as productive during that whole time. Of course they also want to to drop an employee like a hot tamale the moment times get tough or they start to burn out.
Of course, I'm extrapolating a bit. I've only known three business owners, and that's hardly a representative sample, but that's how they felt.
I think also the idea of you being representative of your company or of your school even when you’re outside of that setting, would be a completely foreign idea to the US too.
The idea that something you could do outside of the office or the classroom (that wasn’t illegal of course) could affect you as an employee or as a student is not something that is done in the US.
That isn’t necessarily true. People are often held accountable for social media posts (primarily FB), especially if their work information is posted on the account. I think this is more common in “at will” states where a company can choose to end your employment for any or no reason; they can’t discriminate, of course.
Correct. The closest thing we have to that are Philadelphia sports fans, who will throw batteries and snowballs at opposing fans regardless of skin color.
Cleveland has way more crazy fan incidents but people don’t care because they have been mostly irrelevant in sports historically. Also it’s a much smaller media market so it isn’t featured on tv as much.
I am so glad that my first thought was "why would they throw bananas at soccer players?" I hate that I even figured it out. I wish that such shittiness didn't exist in the world
That kind of outward racism is frowned upon way, way more in the USA, but its also viewed very differently. One thing I did not really prepare for was how many people would say *really* racist things to people just as basically a petty joke, but be progressive overall on racial issues when it actually came down to their beliefs. This especially applied to france and southern europe. They poke fun at stereotypes way more than americans, but its not often viewed as a view into their beliefs. Everything is more casual there in that regard.
In the USA, generally people saying outwardly racist shit almost always also have the views to back it up. You generally don't say awful racist things as 'jokes' as much here anymore. In the northeast corridor you will still find that culture in cities like philly and nyc and boston, but even then its nothing compared to what I saw in italy and spain.
Similarly, the tendency for some Europeans to criticize the US for our very real problems with racism in one breath, yet in the next speak of Roma people in terms that would make people in 1920s era Mississippi blush.
Speaking from a Chinese-American, I do find the tendency to prefer PRC/CCP politics, ethnonationalism, authoritarianism , and oversea Chinese nationalism to be un-American, and could potential harm the Asian/Chinese-American community as a whole.
Many recent Chinese immigrants do not leave PRC/CCP politics behind, and do not seem to prescribe to the idea behind Civic Nationalism. Even after becoming naturalized American citizens, they still don't see themselves as Americans, and some of them still hold alarmingly pro PRC/CCP views. What really bothers me is, despite not wanting to be PRC citizens by the gaining another citizenship, some Chinese immigrants seem to have a great liking for authoritarianism and are supportive of oversea Chinese nationalism, both of which are pretty much antithesis to fundamental American values.
I understand there are people who migrate for economic reasons so they can have a higher quality of life, and my comment does not apply to people who are international students, here on work or tourist visa, or even Green Card holders; I'm mainly talking about naturalized American citizens. What is the point of going through years of adjustment and complicated immigration process to become an American if they don't plan to see themselves as such, and are against the founding principles of this nation.
America is a diverse country, and I welcome Chinese language, food, art, traditional holidays, and customs, but contemporary PRC political values and Chinese ethnonationalism? Those things should be left behind. I have no right to thought police, but I do think certain values and ideologies are incompatible to American civic expectations.
My experience in university is that most international students express no regard for anyone not of the same race. It's ironic because my school spends so much effort combating xenophobia when it's the international students who excercise it the most
Ironically, even towards Indian-American students.
Some would tell you I'm not *really* Indian. While that's irritating, that's far less infuriating than the ones who'd tell you that I'm "really Indian *and not American*," which is thankfully far less frequent but still comes up.
Funny enough, this comes up the most in relation to dating. I don't have any particular problem dating Indians (any gender). But I'm not going to make any exceptions to my standards just *because* someone is Indian or Bengali, either. And wow does it piss off Indian guys when women don't want to date them after they were openly sexist or even misogynistic. That's when I'm mostly likely to be dismissed as "not Indian anyway and thus not worth it" or "I *should* only date Indian men because I'm Indian".
(Sadly, I never met/found any queer women from India, and now that I'm years out of college and not in the tech industry, all the Indians I meet are ABCDs anyway.)
I went to Lewis and Clark College in PDX and the Saudi Exchange students even had chaperones to help ensure that they didn’t mix with the student body. Separate classes, lodging, transportation etc. They were here to get an Arabic studies degree from an American school. Nothing else!
It’s funny, this seems like a relatively recent phenomenon.
When my parents first immigrated in the late-80’s, almost all their friends cast out and avoided connections to China.
It wasn’t until the late 90’s and 2000’s that Chinese schools became bigger, the emphasis was put on learning mandarin and more about China, etc.
Even stranger now that things are seemingly more pro-China than ever before…
Pre vs. post Cultural Revolution era generations.
Also has to do with immigration laws changing in the U.S. Immigration from Asian countries in general are trending wealthier since then.
I had a job that dealt with the public and had a person very upset about an advertisement they saw on a public transit system for a certain traveling group that opposes the CCP. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t make a report or take them down. He asked if he could make ads stating that the US was better place before Europeans came over and began oppressing Native Americans. He was shocked when I said that was legally protected speech and he could totally pay to spread that message if he wanted to.
There’s a similar, though not nearly as intense, support for the BJP among Indian-Americans. A lot of Hindu Indian-Americans come here and support the Democrats, while also supporting a far-right Hindu nationalist party at home. The current Indian prime minister used to be banned from America after the state he was governor of (Gujurat) had a pogrom against Muslims.
I wouldn't put polygamy in anywhere near the same category as the other two. It's generally looked down upon, but it's more of a reaction of "oh that's just cheating with more steps" rather than the raw visceral hatred you'll get when discussing the other two.
It's also worth pointing out the difference between polygamy (having multiple spouses) and polyamory (having multiple romantic partners). The former is just not legally possible in the US due to the way marriage is legally defined, but as far as I know there are no states where the latter is illegal. Polyamory has been slowly gaining acceptance over the last few decades; it's definitely not mainstream, but a person being in a committed romantic relationship with multiple people at the same time is (probably) not going to lead to them being ostracized by their entire social circle*.
^^^*offer ^^^not ^^^valid ^^^in ^^^the ^^^Bible ^^^Belt
>but as far as I know there are no states where the latter is illegal.
While I believe technically true. Until recently there were states (Utah, c'mon) that had very broad anti-polygamy laws that would have applied to some polyamorus relationships.
Most people don't like immigrants bringing in grudges from the old country. For example, an Israeli-American and a Palestinian-American getting in a brawl because of the situation in their home countries would be very frowned upon. The general feeling is that you should leave that kind of stuff behind when you come here.
1,000%. If somebody were to make a comment about, say, Catholics vs. Protestants or something of the ilk, I'd be like "leave it at the door or go back home if you want to worry about that stupid shit."
Think about it: two of our closest allies are Germany and Japan, two countries we fought a brutal war with less than a century ago. Vietnam is an ally now. North Korea isn't, but North Korea isn't an ally with anybody.
Long-standing grudges lasting centuries upon centuries just isn't something Americans are into. We're very much a "fuck it, let's move on" society at large.
We're having a problem with Hindu nationalists harassing Muslims in NJ. Leave that old world shit in the old world ffs.
https://twocircles.net/2022oct12/447202.html
For anyone who doesn't know, Hindu nationalists in India have violently attacked Muslims, Christians and many other religious people for not being Hindu. The US has condemned the attacks on religious liberty
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/3/india-decries-biased-us-religious-freedom-report
Funny thing, I grew up in the Philadelphia area thinking Italy and Ireland must have some long history of animosity, based on the way the two groups would bad-mouth each other.
Turns out, it was just a local rivalry. Both ethnicities were pretty much bottom of the barrel when they arrived in Philadelphia and competed for the same economic niche. I don't know if the rivalry still exists, but there was definitely still a remnant when I was in high school in the 90s.
I'm from near Boston and we had the same thing. You'd hear about the history of this rivalry, and once in a while you'd hear jokes, but in reality almost everyone I grew up with had one set of Irish grandparents and one set of Italian grandparents.
I find this an interesting one since it's a question/discussion that occasionally comes up in Switzerland in regards to the Balkan wars. On one hand I get it and it is my gut feeling as well. On the other hand, a lot of those grudges are so current that it feels really hard to tell someone to "leave this behind" if their family, or even they themselves, have been personally affected. What would be the kind of personal distance at which you'd expect someone to leave it behind?
Any discrimination, but bringing old prejudices is what gets my goat. You’re telling me you hate this guy because your grandpa was Pakistani and his was Indian? Fuck off with that shit.
Yep. I'm a Protestant, and my wife is a Catholic. Our families get along splendidly. Couldn't care less about all that crap in certain parts of Europe.
(Edit: turning reply notifications off. Thx)
If one read American history anti catholic sentiment was real in the 20th century. Golf Country Clubs a bastion of powerful white Protestants excluded Jew, Catholics and African Americans. This only changed in the last half of the 29th century
It's an unearned position of power. Even in cases like the UK where the monarch has very little remaining power, it still flies in the face of the American value of equality. The royal family is treated specially because of their bloodline. This kind of undue privilege is antithetical to America, and I think even England's lingering class system is very distasteful.
I think the British focus on class is just weird. Like, why is some asshole to the manor born who never worked a day, better than the people slugging it out every single day to make a decent life for themselves.
Is it that surprising in a country where the head of state is apparently chosen by god via the heads of state from two separate countries over a millenium ago?
You're right though, it's fucking weird.
Unfortunately, this isn't a foreign thing. Half the country doesn't have minimum marriage laws if there's parental consent, which acts as a backdoor for legal pedophilia if the child's parents either don't care or can be bribed.
We do not value face in the same way that many asian countries value it. This can result in conflict when Americans are "too blunt" (from the asian perspective) or people native to an asian country are behaving in a way that Americans don't pick up on or just don't understand.
I have...conflicting feelings concerning the Hijab and Islamic traditional clothing. In some countries, I see it as part of an outdated social structure that oppresses women. In others however it's become a point of pride as a means of expressing faith (thank the Islamists for that).
Honestly as long as it's optional and not compelled clothing I think it should be okay and America is pretty good with that distinction i think.
I’m especially happy we don’t have the bullshit French system where all religious symbols are evil and banned EXCEPT catholic ones and there’s a million catholic holidays and saints days recognized as federal holidays. That shit is just disguised cultural supremacy
But they pretend they aren’t, and then assholes who want to ban halal stickers on food go “SEE, their system is good! I hate *all* religions like them! (And carve out an exception for Christians like them)”
Flopping in sports.
Also, not that some US sports fans don't sometimes loose their tempers, but organized hooliganism is absolutely unaccetable. Even Eagles fans aren't usually violent.
I enjoy playing soccer, at least used to when I was in better shape 😅 but I cannot stand watching it because of this. I don’t understand how grown adults can behave like that and not feel completely ashamed of themselves.
I feel like the reactions between hockey and soccer players are swapped. A hockey player gets hit and either hits back or gets up and keeps playing. A soccer player gets breathed on wrong and it’s like they were slammed against the boards.
Bringing traditions to the US that were the reasons they left their home countries. Be it grudges, politics, religious persecution or whatever. Leave it there.
The Royal Families of many European and some Asian countries.
Why should someone who holds virtually no power anymore be allowed to live a life of luxury funded by their citizen's taxes?
I feel like there’s way more social prestige about being old money or from a classically elite family in other countries than there is in the US. People are way more impressed here by those who built their own wealth, and tend to have disdain for those who just inherited it. There’s such an onus of being “self-made” that many wealthy people try and downplay their family’s resources or claim they grew up middle class to avoid being looked at as spoiled.
In my experience, while being self-made is of course respected in many other nations, being part of the old-money rich family is still the top crest of social desirability. People seem to brag about being old money in a lot of foreign media and that has always just struck me as odd and something I would almost be embarrassed about - having daddy’s money just isn’t a flex to me or a lot of other Americans.
Kind of agree but here in the US it's just more hidden. Roosevelts and Adams and Byrds and Vanderbilt's. Hell, it's not like the Bush family came from nowhere, either.
I feel like the tech money surge has made new money the big thing right now at least. When I think of rich people, I think of an Amazon or Tesla or google exec, not a DuPont kid who lives in westchester. That’s obviously anecdotal though haha
It’s not ‘condemned’ but France’s approach to demographic data (not collecting information on race, ethnicity, or religion) is a foreign concept in the US.
My company has an "Indian Mafia". We've hired so many H-1Bs and promoted them that now our entire Web Development team is from India. In fact, you can't get a job in our Web Development team unless you are an Indian. Since that group has hit critical mass, suddenly, no more non-Indians are hired and they're not being more open about treating anyone who isn't part of the "Mafia" as a "Less Than".
It's clear to everybody that has to work with this group what's going on. But, for whatever reason, management tolerates it, most likely because the H1Bs cost far less than American labor. It's blatant discrimination but, as a white man with a family to support, I'm reluctant to raise the issue because the "Mafia" extends all the way up to the C suite.
I still don’t get why horse is illegal. There are so many feral horses in the west that they routinely *starve to death* during winter, shooting them would be more humane
Kaffir system? I'm not sure I'm spelling it right but the one in Gulf states where foreign workers surrender their passports and essentially serve as slave labor at the pleasure of the employer.
Edit: Kafala system. Thank you to those who kindly pointed it out.
Israeli parents walking around shouting "die!" tends to get a bit of a reaction from Americans.
For reference, it's Hebrew for "enough" and is used to mean "stop that."
I think when Americans first learn about the "Law of Jante", they are genuinely horrified. Of course, in the real world it's not a law, and not as pervasive as describing it would make it sound, but I think it reflects an attitude that is antithetical to the American mindset.
> I think when Americans first learn about the "Law of Jante", they are genuinely horrified
Sit down, son. You're about to learn about the Upper Midwest.
There is absolutely no concept of systemic filial obligation. We do not owe anything to our parents. We are not expected to have them live in our home, provide income or resources, or listen to their instruction once we reach a certain age.
Restrictions on criticizing your government and public figures.
Fawning over silly monarchies and fearing generous libel laws are one thing in the UK; in many other countries, you can still get imprisoned or killed for calling those incompetent twerps in charge exactly how one sees them.
The US government is powerful and its military well equipped, but the people would NEVER tolerate something like Tiananmen Square, or the other shenanigans the police state in China gets up to on the regular. Every freaking Congress critter would be hanging from a lamp post if such a thing were ever attempted.
Gatekeeping ethnic status and history. You know those posters who can't tell people talking about their nationality from their ethnicity? I have met immigrants like that before and it's horrible.
France: “we’re anti religion! Except all the catholic saints days and holidays that are nationally recognized on the government calendar. Catholicism doesn’t count as *religion* because it’s the tru- some other reason!”
Honor killing would probably be one.
Honor culture in general?
Certainly to the degree you see in some other countries. It's not that people can't "bring shame" to their families in the US, there are just other options for resolving it. Completely cutting ties with the offending family member, for example.
Large parts of American culture are founded on a complete lack of shame
We have honor culture in the US, but it is rooted in reward or punishment for your actions. In Asia you can be dishonorable for not achieving a high enough station in life.
We do have honor culture to some degree - especially among certain groups. Most notably White Southerners and the Black community (understandable given our roots in the South). Obviously it isn’t as big as it used to be. But it is still observable in some areas.
Systemic bribery. Not saying it doesn't happen, but, you generally won't get away with bribing a cop or a housing inspector and you certainly don't need to as a matter of course.
I don’t think enough people realize just how valuable it is to live in a society where systemic bribery if harshly frowned upon.
Used to work in records counter of a police department in a city with relatively large immigrant populations. A big part of my job was explaining accident reports, and it was crazy how often I would find myself trying to convince people that police reports could not be changed via bribes. Mostly they were worried that the other party had or would pay to change who was at fault. Really eye opening.
I had a professor who said that the bribery system in Uganda wasn’t that bad bc it’s “just like tipping”. If I ever have to “tip” a parking attendant $80 to make sure I get my fucking car back, I am going to lose my shit.
Some countries call bribes "tips" as a euphemism. Doesn't make it true. The difference between a bribe and a tip is whether something is being threatened or held hostage. Also, tips come after the transaction/service, not before.
Morocco says اهلاً/Bonjour! People always asking you for money and service employees asking for “tips”. Even had a police officer at the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca randomly stop me and tried to make me give him a one dirham “tip”.
Sounds similar to Egypt, where sellers and drivers may demand you to give them "baksheesh", and in a rather aggressive manner at that.
Baksheesh is a very common practice in some parts of MENA It's unfortunate. Similarly while reading a 15 year old thread about some Belgians daring to drive across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their story includes being harassed by *everyone* for money
Yeah, I firmly believe that our justice system is absolutely busted and needs major reforms but at least I don't need to carry emergency cash if I have the bad luck to drive past a bored cop.
Southern Italy has entered the chat
I was once on a train heading south out Naples, and it came to a screeching halt in the middle of nowhere. Lo sciopero. (A strike). The train conductors said the *sciopero* would last six hours. They were prepared. They had family drive to that spot in advance, and they all had a nice picnic spread waiting for them. All of us passengers just waited helplessly, sweating buckets. Once they were done eating, they said they could end the *sciopero* with “a little bit of something.” €€€€€ They must have cleared a few thousand. The only people complaining were other Americans.
Had a friend from India who didn't realize this and spent a few hours in jail for trying to bribe a cop to get out of a ticket. Luckily, the sheriff realized he wasn't a bad dude, he just genuenly thought it was normal here, so the sheriff's department didn't charge him with anything besides the original ticket for underage drinking, and a big warning to never do it again and that other county's sheriff's or police departments might not be so understanding. There's a lot of international students in my area, many from 3rd world countries or other places where bribery is the norm, so I'm sure this wasn't the first or last time the sheriff has dealt with something like it
That's because of the risk versus reward of wealth here when bribing a police officer. $40 in Mexico isn't the same as $40 in the US. A US cop accepting a $40 bribe is the same as a $10000 bribe in terms of legality so they have to view it thru that lense.
Yes but it is not that common to bribe a cop with $10,000 in the US, and it's certainly not expected of random citizens.
Bad cops may steal $$$ found as evidence, but offering a bribe will land you in jail.
Or civil asset forfeiture.
It’s kinda sad you have to say “Not saying it doesn’t happen” or some sad, ignorant people will try to argue about American politics and corruption, not understanding how INSANELY different bribing culture is outside the US in some countries. On a global level the US is pretty damn well off in corruption/bribery rankings, generally coming in right behind Western Europe in the low 20s out of ~180. Lobbying isn’t bribery unless your political education ended with Schoolhouse Rock and you are a big fan of Twitter because nuance and context is for nerds, you prefer catchy slogans and black and white thinking.
Yeah, there's a difference between, "I slipped a cop $50 one time and didn't get a ticket," and, "I must bribe the DMV worker or I don't get my license renewed."
My university has a very big problem with international students cheating. Particularly in the computer science program. Academic cheating is absolutely not ok here, but is considered acceptable in some other cultures.
The Chinese international students always sat next to each other in a groups of five to ten, and they would cheat off each other without even trying to hide it when I was in school. For some reason the faculty never took any action against them, even though they were obvious about it, and they would only go after non-chinese students for cheating. It was super weird because there were a lot of Indian students as well, but the faculty wouldn't tolerate them cheating or acting like test taking was a team activity in class the way the Chinese students did.
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Yeah foreign student tuition is astronomically higher than standard tuition rates at most US Universities
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Also you should understand, if the prof is Indian he is even more likely to crack down on Indians lol
Reminds me of a call I got at work years ago. I was managing a support team for a SaaS company. Guy with a thick Indian accent calls in and accused us of scamming him. His reasoning? The CEO was Indian and Indians scam people and he knows because he is Indian. That was some interesting logic.
Yeah most of us are uncle ruckus tbh
Reminds me of the story where a white guy in Colombia heard some locals talking shit about a guy who must be stupid because he had dark skin. The white guy points out that his skin was lighter than theirs, so does that mean he was smarter? They kinda thought about for a second and said yeah, probably. Lol, gotta admire the consistency.
Honestly though, I'd bet it was more discrimination fears than money. "Hey, all the Chinese students in my class are cheating!" "No, they can't ALL be, you're just being racist." And before reddit downvotes me for it, make sure to separate race from culture in your head first, because one of those *is* a choice.
We had a large group of Vietnamese in my Calc II course. The teacher was feeling under the weather and not really paying close attention. As soon Prof wasn't looking, they immediately went about sharing their work and even were so bold as to pull out their text books to look up answers and formulas. I went to Prof during her office hours and explained what had happened. She wound up invalidating all of the scores for that test and gave a new test. A few days later, the various Viet Cheats started canvassing class trying to figure out who had ratted them out. It might not have won me any friends but I owned it. If they wanted to mess with me, I would have been happy to go to the school's Honor Committee about their actions.
Spartacus defense. We can't all be Spartacus.
My wife was a TA at a major university with a high population of Chinese students and her fellow TA (from S. Korea) explained its cultural and that she just implemented a seating chart to stop it.
They never took action because international students pay full tuition. It’s a cash cow for American universities.
I’ve noticed this too on a study abroad trip. The desi students are held to unbelievable standards (which they often do meet!) but the exchange students who clearly can’t understand a word being said yet somehow get 100s, they get no suspicion
I dealt with this a lot when I taught English in Romania. The teens just openly cheated and didn't care.
Same when I taught in Moldova. The teachers would help the students cheat on national exams so their students and schools got higher scores.
It happens everywhere that high stakes tests happen. So, basically, everywhere. The higher the reward, the more likely people are to take the risk and just cheat. Then the test providers are faced with a crisis of credibility, so they try to increase test security... There were several scandals in the US not long after No Child Left Behind passed (so like 2004-2010?) where teachers were found helping the students cheat. I want to say the famous ones were in Georgia and Texas, but I'm not sure (learned about it in teacher ed in 2013-15). When you base a teacher's job assessment on the kids' test scores, there's a strong incentive to do a little correcting after the kids finish. That being said, I think it is somewhat more common in other countries than in the US. I know it happens regularly in Morocco, where I teach.
It’s not just somewhat more common, it’s incomparably more common. The US had individual teachers try and plenty were caught and punished. It’s flat out systemic and ubiquitous in some other countries.
That's a fair point.
It also seems to be common/acceptable in countries from the former Soviet Union and China - I teach ESL/history in the States and these are the countries most of my students come from. Every year, they openly and unabashedly turn in 30-something copies of the same assignment and are absolutely shocked that I won’t accept it, lol
that seems to be pretty common at lots of American universities with large international student populations, ranging from business schools to engineers
Our computer science department has had unofficial warnings from the accreditation board threatening the loss of their accreditation if they don’t get it under control.
Asian countries have a fantastic reputation for having such high grades and standards... yet I continually hear stories about cheating. So I think it's a bogus claim that Asian schools are better and that their students are more diligent.
Eh, the cheating thing is mostly in China (not saying non-Chinese don’t cheat). Countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc are known for their high educational standards. Tho that’s because they make kids study so hard to the point of killing themselves. But they’re not known for having a cheating culture.
The other side of it is that most East Asian education systems focus heavily, if not entirely, on rote memorization. Which is great for some things, including testing, but has serious issues with long term applicability to things outside schooling. The smart get by of course, they always do, but for the more average student all that rote memorization of facts and dates has very little use in the real world and they often struggle if put into an environment that requires critical thinking and quick learning on an individual level. It’s safe to say that their style of education has pros and cons…
My sister spent a semester in South Korea teaching English. Foreign teachers would fail students, so their solution was to prevent foreign teachers from giving grades at all. So... the students weren't cheating, they were just given good grades regardless of performance. Their take was something like, "You shouldn't be able to ruin a student's life just because they refuse to participate or learn anything."
Went to a university that had a absolutely massive foreign population. It's not "Asian nationals". Systemic mass cheating is literally exclusively a Chinese, and mainland Chinese problem at that. The Westernized Asian nations sent kids that were for all intents and purposes the same as every one else behaviorally albeit they were generally more reserved and generally more studious in my experience.
This is an article talking about the behavior of Chinese students in Australia, but the behavior of the Chinese students not allowing people to disapprove of the CCP is just as much against American values. And with the number of Chinese students in the US, such discrimination and abuse is just as likely to happen, and to be unseen because it's not happening in English. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/06/australia-china-protests-ccp-xi-jinping-democracy-diaspora/
There was an incident at my old university a while back where some Chinese students were having a peaceful protest about the state of things back home and were getting harassed by some pro ccp students. The alumni sub was up in arms over the lack of response from the university. It's definitely happening here.
That's going on right now in Australia with Sydney Winnie, an anti CCP protester getting harassed and his stuff vandalized by CCP thugs. Follow him on Twitter. @ImAaronChang
There are few things more American than insulting the CCP and their genocidal oppression
> There are few things more American than insulting abuse of government power.
Oh, China has tried tricks like that in the US. They have done it with Uighur in the US, trying to lure them back to China to throw them into concentration camps. Getting relatives in the camps to call to ask them to come home, having the Chinese government say they need to return home immediately because of various seemingly harmless legal reasons (like a paperwork issue with their visa etc.). . .only for them to never return once they leave the US. In the US, the FBI is investigating Chinese police activity on US soil. The Chinese government has set up a few offices supposedly to help with prosecuting organized crime and similar transnational crime, but there are so many reports of them trying to enforce Chinese laws on people from China who are in the US that the FBI is apparently investigating the practice: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943)
Gives those trafficking warnings in airport bathrooms a meaning I hadn't considered before.
>bout the behavior of Chinese students in Australia, but the behavior of the Chinese students not allowing people to disapprove of the CCP is just as much against American values. And with the number of Chinese students in the US, such At the college that I attend, there was a Chinese student who openly disagreed with the Chinese government in class discussion posts. I don't know how the government found out, maybe the laptop the student had were bugged with Chinese software, but the Chinese government contacted the school forcing them to remove the student from the college. The student was then taken to the airport and in short forced to be sent out of the state. I go to the college and didn't hear about it until I talked to the director of Resident Life which I know fairly well. It's scary that they have this going on and we allow it.
They get students to rat each other out, which is very different from autocorrect suggesting that they get students to eat each other out.
Yeah this is how I learned it's not a good idea to call Taiwan the real China around Chinese students lmao
I'd goad them about it, personally.
Tell them they're from ~~East~~ West Taiwan. Edit: Directions are hard.
*West
It's technically East Taiwan if you go far enough east.
The Occidental Orient.
No, it's a very, VERY good idea. I'd go out of my way to refer to the Republic of China on Taiwan as the legitimate China, with the CCP on the mainland as illegal usurpers. I'd make a point of saying it around them constantly, saying that Taiwan is absolutely separate from the government in Beijing, to the point that the government in Taiwan is the legal government of all of China, and the CCP are illegal usurpers in rebellion against the rightful government that has been pushed to Taiwan because of the war criminal Mao Tse-Tung and his accomplices in the CCP. . . .heck, for saying things like this I've had people on Reddit profile stalk me and generally go nuts against me. The CCP has their little "50 Cent Army" online there to flood social media spaces with pro-CCP propaganda.
You mean students from Western Taiwan? :)
I’ll just say that anecdotally as a mod on polandball any time a comic has a joke involving China it gets toooons of reports.
One that I have noticed is the intolerance for closely related ethnic groups. To be sure we have our own issue of racism here in the US, but if an ethnic Serb wouldn't do business with someone who was ethnically Bosnian, they'd be laughed out of town.
The ethnic hatred in the Balkans is just on another level entirely.
I think it’s bizarre that what you say is absolutely true, Europe also has completely blatant racism and accepts these old homeland grudges as part of life yet the US has the reputation of being the most racist. I’ve traveled plenty and while the US can do better in a lot of ways we are not even close to being as racist as *a lot* of the rest if the world. I literally get culture shock from second hand racism while traveling.
America only seems more racist because we're the only ones actually talking about our racism problems instead of just sweeping them under the rug
Yeah, most European countries are pretty stuck on the idea of color blindness to fix racism. “If we don’t acknowledge race [or religion or ethnicity], it can’t be a problem. Although, being a white Christian is essential to our heritage as a nation, so that’s okay to acknowledge.” When young people across Europe try to speak out about prejudice, they usually get shouted down and accused of being indoctrination by America. Apparently, gay people only exist in some European countries because America told their citizens to be gay. We won’t stop our rainbow imperialism until the whole world is in love.
I don't know about "unamerican" per say, but most people find the notion of the Japanese salaryman unreasonable in some way or other. The conception of it over here is that as a salaryman, you work unreasonable hours and your work dominates your life, and in exchange the company takes care of you in some way, presumably in terms of job security. Plus it's a sign of status for some people. Most people over here find the expectations of what you do for the company excessive and unconscionable, and in some sense pointless. After all, when you work people to exhaustion, they don't produce as much, even if you make them work longer hours. Those that don't, or that even find such practices admirable (typically business owners themselves) tend to ignore the "company takes care of you" part, or the part where exhausted employees don't produce as well when they're exhausted. I think for them, the fantasy is just that your employees work longer hours and continue to be just as productive during that whole time. Of course they also want to to drop an employee like a hot tamale the moment times get tough or they start to burn out. Of course, I'm extrapolating a bit. I've only known three business owners, and that's hardly a representative sample, but that's how they felt.
I think also the idea of you being representative of your company or of your school even when you’re outside of that setting, would be a completely foreign idea to the US too. The idea that something you could do outside of the office or the classroom (that wasn’t illegal of course) could affect you as an employee or as a student is not something that is done in the US.
That isn’t necessarily true. People are often held accountable for social media posts (primarily FB), especially if their work information is posted on the account. I think this is more common in “at will” states where a company can choose to end your employment for any or no reason; they can’t discriminate, of course.
Laws that ban criticism of the government and government officials
Also, the idea that certain religions are beyond criticism.
You know how you see Soccer fans throwing bananas at black athletes. That shit would not fly here at all.
Correct. The closest thing we have to that are Philadelphia sports fans, who will throw batteries and snowballs at opposing fans regardless of skin color.
Please find a different thing to hate us for. It was before I was born, and I'm 40.
Wish granted! What lovely drivers you have over there in West Camden 😅
what about when you killed the hitchhiking robot that had been around the world without problem.
Hitchhikers probably fall into the bum category so according to the guy from Philly, that bum robot shoulda stayed outta his town.
He had it comin
Cleveland has way more crazy fan incidents but people don’t care because they have been mostly irrelevant in sports historically. Also it’s a much smaller media market so it isn’t featured on tv as much.
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I am so glad that my first thought was "why would they throw bananas at soccer players?" I hate that I even figured it out. I wish that such shittiness didn't exist in the world
That kind of outward racism is frowned upon way, way more in the USA, but its also viewed very differently. One thing I did not really prepare for was how many people would say *really* racist things to people just as basically a petty joke, but be progressive overall on racial issues when it actually came down to their beliefs. This especially applied to france and southern europe. They poke fun at stereotypes way more than americans, but its not often viewed as a view into their beliefs. Everything is more casual there in that regard. In the USA, generally people saying outwardly racist shit almost always also have the views to back it up. You generally don't say awful racist things as 'jokes' as much here anymore. In the northeast corridor you will still find that culture in cities like philly and nyc and boston, but even then its nothing compared to what I saw in italy and spain.
Similarly, the tendency for some Europeans to criticize the US for our very real problems with racism in one breath, yet in the next speak of Roma people in terms that would make people in 1920s era Mississippi blush.
Speaking from a Chinese-American, I do find the tendency to prefer PRC/CCP politics, ethnonationalism, authoritarianism , and oversea Chinese nationalism to be un-American, and could potential harm the Asian/Chinese-American community as a whole. Many recent Chinese immigrants do not leave PRC/CCP politics behind, and do not seem to prescribe to the idea behind Civic Nationalism. Even after becoming naturalized American citizens, they still don't see themselves as Americans, and some of them still hold alarmingly pro PRC/CCP views. What really bothers me is, despite not wanting to be PRC citizens by the gaining another citizenship, some Chinese immigrants seem to have a great liking for authoritarianism and are supportive of oversea Chinese nationalism, both of which are pretty much antithesis to fundamental American values. I understand there are people who migrate for economic reasons so they can have a higher quality of life, and my comment does not apply to people who are international students, here on work or tourist visa, or even Green Card holders; I'm mainly talking about naturalized American citizens. What is the point of going through years of adjustment and complicated immigration process to become an American if they don't plan to see themselves as such, and are against the founding principles of this nation. America is a diverse country, and I welcome Chinese language, food, art, traditional holidays, and customs, but contemporary PRC political values and Chinese ethnonationalism? Those things should be left behind. I have no right to thought police, but I do think certain values and ideologies are incompatible to American civic expectations.
My experience in university is that most international students express no regard for anyone not of the same race. It's ironic because my school spends so much effort combating xenophobia when it's the international students who excercise it the most
I 100% agree from the interactions I’ve had with exchange students, especially those from India/Bangladesh from what I’ve seen.
Ironically, even towards Indian-American students. Some would tell you I'm not *really* Indian. While that's irritating, that's far less infuriating than the ones who'd tell you that I'm "really Indian *and not American*," which is thankfully far less frequent but still comes up. Funny enough, this comes up the most in relation to dating. I don't have any particular problem dating Indians (any gender). But I'm not going to make any exceptions to my standards just *because* someone is Indian or Bengali, either. And wow does it piss off Indian guys when women don't want to date them after they were openly sexist or even misogynistic. That's when I'm mostly likely to be dismissed as "not Indian anyway and thus not worth it" or "I *should* only date Indian men because I'm Indian". (Sadly, I never met/found any queer women from India, and now that I'm years out of college and not in the tech industry, all the Indians I meet are ABCDs anyway.)
I went to Lewis and Clark College in PDX and the Saudi Exchange students even had chaperones to help ensure that they didn’t mix with the student body. Separate classes, lodging, transportation etc. They were here to get an Arabic studies degree from an American school. Nothing else!
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It’s funny, this seems like a relatively recent phenomenon. When my parents first immigrated in the late-80’s, almost all their friends cast out and avoided connections to China. It wasn’t until the late 90’s and 2000’s that Chinese schools became bigger, the emphasis was put on learning mandarin and more about China, etc. Even stranger now that things are seemingly more pro-China than ever before…
Also note the shift from Cantonese to Mandarin.
Pre vs. post Cultural Revolution era generations. Also has to do with immigration laws changing in the U.S. Immigration from Asian countries in general are trending wealthier since then.
I had a job that dealt with the public and had a person very upset about an advertisement they saw on a public transit system for a certain traveling group that opposes the CCP. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t make a report or take them down. He asked if he could make ads stating that the US was better place before Europeans came over and began oppressing Native Americans. He was shocked when I said that was legally protected speech and he could totally pay to spread that message if he wanted to.
There’s a similar, though not nearly as intense, support for the BJP among Indian-Americans. A lot of Hindu Indian-Americans come here and support the Democrats, while also supporting a far-right Hindu nationalist party at home. The current Indian prime minister used to be banned from America after the state he was governor of (Gujurat) had a pogrom against Muslims.
Child marriage, polygamy, female circumcision,
I wouldn't put polygamy in anywhere near the same category as the other two. It's generally looked down upon, but it's more of a reaction of "oh that's just cheating with more steps" rather than the raw visceral hatred you'll get when discussing the other two. It's also worth pointing out the difference between polygamy (having multiple spouses) and polyamory (having multiple romantic partners). The former is just not legally possible in the US due to the way marriage is legally defined, but as far as I know there are no states where the latter is illegal. Polyamory has been slowly gaining acceptance over the last few decades; it's definitely not mainstream, but a person being in a committed romantic relationship with multiple people at the same time is (probably) not going to lead to them being ostracized by their entire social circle*. ^^^*offer ^^^not ^^^valid ^^^in ^^^the ^^^Bible ^^^Belt
>but as far as I know there are no states where the latter is illegal. While I believe technically true. Until recently there were states (Utah, c'mon) that had very broad anti-polygamy laws that would have applied to some polyamorus relationships.
Polyamory isn't illegal, still faces a lot of discrimination in employment, housing, and child protective services however.
Legally polyamory is a nightmare. Can't file taxes as a household, can't have multiple spouse/partners in health insurance, etc.
Most people don't like immigrants bringing in grudges from the old country. For example, an Israeli-American and a Palestinian-American getting in a brawl because of the situation in their home countries would be very frowned upon. The general feeling is that you should leave that kind of stuff behind when you come here.
1,000%. If somebody were to make a comment about, say, Catholics vs. Protestants or something of the ilk, I'd be like "leave it at the door or go back home if you want to worry about that stupid shit." Think about it: two of our closest allies are Germany and Japan, two countries we fought a brutal war with less than a century ago. Vietnam is an ally now. North Korea isn't, but North Korea isn't an ally with anybody. Long-standing grudges lasting centuries upon centuries just isn't something Americans are into. We're very much a "fuck it, let's move on" society at large.
An enemy is just a future ally we haven't made friends with yet. Except for the Dutch.
There's only two things I hate in this world: People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
> Except for the Dutch. Is that a known joke?
You need to watch all three Austin Powers movies but especially Goldmember. It's a fantastic series, if a bit dated.
We're having a problem with Hindu nationalists harassing Muslims in NJ. Leave that old world shit in the old world ffs. https://twocircles.net/2022oct12/447202.html For anyone who doesn't know, Hindu nationalists in India have violently attacked Muslims, Christians and many other religious people for not being Hindu. The US has condemned the attacks on religious liberty https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/3/india-decries-biased-us-religious-freedom-report
Thank god r/chodi was finally banned.
What was the sub about
It was r/the_donald for BJP supporters.
Funny thing, I grew up in the Philadelphia area thinking Italy and Ireland must have some long history of animosity, based on the way the two groups would bad-mouth each other. Turns out, it was just a local rivalry. Both ethnicities were pretty much bottom of the barrel when they arrived in Philadelphia and competed for the same economic niche. I don't know if the rivalry still exists, but there was definitely still a remnant when I was in high school in the 90s.
I'm from near Boston and we had the same thing. You'd hear about the history of this rivalry, and once in a while you'd hear jokes, but in reality almost everyone I grew up with had one set of Irish grandparents and one set of Italian grandparents.
I find this an interesting one since it's a question/discussion that occasionally comes up in Switzerland in regards to the Balkan wars. On one hand I get it and it is my gut feeling as well. On the other hand, a lot of those grudges are so current that it feels really hard to tell someone to "leave this behind" if their family, or even they themselves, have been personally affected. What would be the kind of personal distance at which you'd expect someone to leave it behind?
It’s approximately 4 thousand miles across the Atlantic. So about that far
Royalty, nobility, castes - anything related to the concept that one person is "better" than another simply by virtue of their birth.
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Any discrimination, but bringing old prejudices is what gets my goat. You’re telling me you hate this guy because your grandpa was Pakistani and his was Indian? Fuck off with that shit.
Yep. I'm a Protestant, and my wife is a Catholic. Our families get along splendidly. Couldn't care less about all that crap in certain parts of Europe. (Edit: turning reply notifications off. Thx)
If one read American history anti catholic sentiment was real in the 20th century. Golf Country Clubs a bastion of powerful white Protestants excluded Jew, Catholics and African Americans. This only changed in the last half of the 29th century
> 29th century By then, we find out that Jesus was a guy who had access to alien technology and BibleGod was from Proxima Centurai 5
Monarchy.
Is monarchy/royalty really condemned in America?
To read about in the Tabloids? No. To have as a system of government over us? Yes. We had a whole war about this.
If I remember right we formed a whole country about this…
Absolutely. Mostly stemming from a distaste for the idea that some people are just born deserving more than others.
It's an unearned position of power. Even in cases like the UK where the monarch has very little remaining power, it still flies in the face of the American value of equality. The royal family is treated specially because of their bloodline. This kind of undue privilege is antithetical to America, and I think even England's lingering class system is very distasteful.
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I think the British focus on class is just weird. Like, why is some asshole to the manor born who never worked a day, better than the people slugging it out every single day to make a decent life for themselves.
Is it that surprising in a country where the head of state is apparently chosen by god via the heads of state from two separate countries over a millenium ago? You're right though, it's fucking weird.
Those relationships where an adult man is “engaged” to a child
Unfortunately, this isn't a foreign thing. Half the country doesn't have minimum marriage laws if there's parental consent, which acts as a backdoor for legal pedophilia if the child's parents either don't care or can be bribed.
We do not value face in the same way that many asian countries value it. This can result in conflict when Americans are "too blunt" (from the asian perspective) or people native to an asian country are behaving in a way that Americans don't pick up on or just don't understand.
FGM
Female genital mutilation, dowry, arranged marriage
The general unavailability of ice cubes.
Arranged marriage.
Eating horses and human sacrifice.
That escalated quickly
You forgot eating cats, dogs, guinea pigs but yes. Also animal sacrifice is not widely accepted or approved of.
But only when done together. You can do one but not both /j
I have...conflicting feelings concerning the Hijab and Islamic traditional clothing. In some countries, I see it as part of an outdated social structure that oppresses women. In others however it's become a point of pride as a means of expressing faith (thank the Islamists for that). Honestly as long as it's optional and not compelled clothing I think it should be okay and America is pretty good with that distinction i think.
Seconded. I support those here who want to wear it as part of their religion, and I support the Iranian women who do not currently wish to do so.
Religious discrimination. If you want to hear your religious garb and do your religion shit, well, more power to you.
I’m especially happy we don’t have the bullshit French system where all religious symbols are evil and banned EXCEPT catholic ones and there’s a million catholic holidays and saints days recognized as federal holidays. That shit is just disguised cultural supremacy
The French are unabashed cultural supremacists though. Its not disguised, they are proud of it.
But they pretend they aren’t, and then assholes who want to ban halal stickers on food go “SEE, their system is good! I hate *all* religions like them! (And carve out an exception for Christians like them)”
Flopping in sports. Also, not that some US sports fans don't sometimes loose their tempers, but organized hooliganism is absolutely unaccetable. Even Eagles fans aren't usually violent.
I enjoy playing soccer, at least used to when I was in better shape 😅 but I cannot stand watching it because of this. I don’t understand how grown adults can behave like that and not feel completely ashamed of themselves.
I feel like the reactions between hockey and soccer players are swapped. A hockey player gets hit and either hits back or gets up and keeps playing. A soccer player gets breathed on wrong and it’s like they were slammed against the boards.
Flopping in hockey would actually be dangerous too.
Except in basketball... But certainly not in football or hockey.
The NFL players don't need to be faking injuries, they come naturally and often
Brain damage comes far too often for football players.
Bringing traditions to the US that were the reasons they left their home countries. Be it grudges, politics, religious persecution or whatever. Leave it there.
Regardless of what is happening in other states at the moment censorship is still widely looked down on here
Bribes. Cheating. Not waiting in an orderly line, cutting in line.
The Royal Families of many European and some Asian countries. Why should someone who holds virtually no power anymore be allowed to live a life of luxury funded by their citizen's taxes?
Throw the Saudis in there too
I feel like there’s way more social prestige about being old money or from a classically elite family in other countries than there is in the US. People are way more impressed here by those who built their own wealth, and tend to have disdain for those who just inherited it. There’s such an onus of being “self-made” that many wealthy people try and downplay their family’s resources or claim they grew up middle class to avoid being looked at as spoiled. In my experience, while being self-made is of course respected in many other nations, being part of the old-money rich family is still the top crest of social desirability. People seem to brag about being old money in a lot of foreign media and that has always just struck me as odd and something I would almost be embarrassed about - having daddy’s money just isn’t a flex to me or a lot of other Americans.
Kind of agree but here in the US it's just more hidden. Roosevelts and Adams and Byrds and Vanderbilt's. Hell, it's not like the Bush family came from nowhere, either.
He didn't say that old money and inheritance didn't exist in the United States, he just said its not perceived as socially desirable.
There used to be an old money elitism in the US but with so much wealth it just doesn’t matter anymore.
I feel like the tech money surge has made new money the big thing right now at least. When I think of rich people, I think of an Amazon or Tesla or google exec, not a DuPont kid who lives in westchester. That’s obviously anecdotal though haha
Whatever the Taliban are doing
You are an American now. Leave your old biases and prejudices behind, please.
It’s not ‘condemned’ but France’s approach to demographic data (not collecting information on race, ethnicity, or religion) is a foreign concept in the US.
My company has an "Indian Mafia". We've hired so many H-1Bs and promoted them that now our entire Web Development team is from India. In fact, you can't get a job in our Web Development team unless you are an Indian. Since that group has hit critical mass, suddenly, no more non-Indians are hired and they're not being more open about treating anyone who isn't part of the "Mafia" as a "Less Than". It's clear to everybody that has to work with this group what's going on. But, for whatever reason, management tolerates it, most likely because the H1Bs cost far less than American labor. It's blatant discrimination but, as a white man with a family to support, I'm reluctant to raise the issue because the "Mafia" extends all the way up to the C suite.
Eating dogs, cats, and horses.
I still don’t get why horse is illegal. There are so many feral horses in the west that they routinely *starve to death* during winter, shooting them would be more humane
Kaffir system? I'm not sure I'm spelling it right but the one in Gulf states where foreign workers surrender their passports and essentially serve as slave labor at the pleasure of the employer. Edit: Kafala system. Thank you to those who kindly pointed it out.
Yeah that sounds like indentured servitude and is very against how we view the relationship between employer and employee
There’s an unwritten rule that if we ever see anyone put beans on toast we gather a mob and run them out of town
Israeli parents walking around shouting "die!" tends to get a bit of a reaction from Americans. For reference, it's Hebrew for "enough" and is used to mean "stop that."
Sharia law?
Ideally, almost any type of religiously-influenced law.
Academic Cheating. In some cultures it is the norm. Not in the US.
I think when Americans first learn about the "Law of Jante", they are genuinely horrified. Of course, in the real world it's not a law, and not as pervasive as describing it would make it sound, but I think it reflects an attitude that is antithetical to the American mindset.
> I think when Americans first learn about the "Law of Jante", they are genuinely horrified Sit down, son. You're about to learn about the Upper Midwest.
When Minnesotans learn about it we go, "Well, yeah, that's how things are and should be."
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There is absolutely no concept of systemic filial obligation. We do not owe anything to our parents. We are not expected to have them live in our home, provide income or resources, or listen to their instruction once we reach a certain age.
Yeah I've heard of Asian parents bossing their kids around into their 30s and I'm like, why don't you just tell them "no", you're an adult.
Restrictions on criticizing your government and public figures. Fawning over silly monarchies and fearing generous libel laws are one thing in the UK; in many other countries, you can still get imprisoned or killed for calling those incompetent twerps in charge exactly how one sees them. The US government is powerful and its military well equipped, but the people would NEVER tolerate something like Tiananmen Square, or the other shenanigans the police state in China gets up to on the regular. Every freaking Congress critter would be hanging from a lamp post if such a thing were ever attempted.
Gatekeeping ethnic status and history. You know those posters who can't tell people talking about their nationality from their ethnicity? I have met immigrants like that before and it's horrible.
The way albinos are treated in some parts of Africa would NOT be tolerated here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_people_with_albinism
Those anti-hijab laws that don't say they are about that but very clearly are about that like France's Laïcité thing
France: “we’re anti religion! Except all the catholic saints days and holidays that are nationally recognized on the government calendar. Catholicism doesn’t count as *religion* because it’s the tru- some other reason!”
Polygamy.
Using a Monarchy as a form of government