13 things done by Americans that the rest of the world finds odd

[MillCreek]

http://www.seattlepi.com/technology/businessinsider/article/13-Things-That-Americans-Do-That-The-Rest-Of-The-4553394.php

An interesting Reddit thread.  How we are seen by the rest of the world.  In regards to number three, I would be thrilled if price tags also included tax, so you had a better sense of the true cost.

[Perd Hapley]

I'm glad the tax is not on the tag. That way, you feel the impact of the tax every time you pay. Now if we just eliminated withholding...

 I guess the people contributing numbers 4 and 7 come from different countries. Regarding number 10, I am told that most European university degrees are mickey mouse, compared to American degrees. And we have to pay to go, so we don't take it for granted. Maybe that is the difference.

[MechAg94]

1.  Other people would drive everywhere too if they could and the govt didn't discourage it with high taxation and regulation.  Good roads is probably a factor also.

2.  Others just don't understand our feelings on guns.  Personally, I am weirded out by the fact that foreigners readily accept that govt should restrict or ban firearms.  As far as WalMart in general, I bet other countries would have super stores also if their economies and regulations would allow it.

5.  Pumpkin everything must be somewhere else.  I don't see that here.

7.  I can see that the idea of cheerleaders might be strange to some extent.  I imagine it comes partly from the fact that there weren't always any or enough women's sports that actually put women in the spotlight. 

10.  I bet sports is a big part of it.  If all those soccer and rugby teams were tied to universities, they would understand better.

13.  Because we can.

[MillCreek]

Regarding number 10, I am told that most European university degrees are mickey mouse, compared to American degrees.

I know a number of people that are college professors here in the US, who were also professors in Europe.  It is my impression that they tend to think that most of the European undergraduate universities are more rigorous than the typical American program.  This is for a few reasons: they can have stricter admission criteria since the 'open access to college' model popular in the US is not so popular in Europe, they often don't have the same 'academic breadth' requirements to take courses outside of your major, higher education is held in more respect in Europe, and financial resources are more geared toward instruction, rather than sports or building elaborate facilities.

They also say that for graduate degrees in the hard sciences, the US, the UK and Germany are the places to go, but watch what some of the SE Asian countries (Singapore and Malaysia) are doing.  Those countries are pouring lots of money into academic and research infrastructure to attract the best and brightest.

PS: I forgot the other issue about undergrad programs: in many European universities, you are assessed solely or primarily upon exam results.  No group projects, participation in class, attendance or the like as major contributors to your grade.  You either pass the exam or you don't.  And the exam grading is overseen by academics from other universities as well, to ensure consistent grading.

[charby]

13. Duh, that is why America is America.

[Tallpine]

1. TSA, and virtually no trains.  You would drive 16 hrs too if your people lived that far away. 

2. ATF should be a convenience store. 

3. I keep forgetting that other states have sales tax 

4. I agree 

5. The rest of the world doesn't eat cheese 

6. Hey, have you seen us shoot pumpkins out of air powered cannons?   

7. The rest of the world is Gay   

8. It worked for Hitler, didn't it?   

9. We drink coffee sitting down, too.  We drink coffee everywhere, all the time. 

10. Not me.  I am a success in spite of the crappy college where I studied.  I had some good professors but the administration was a whiney lesbian leftist who wanted to close the business, math, and science departments.  :(

11. Prom?  I was an outsider and I still am.

12. Us rednecks like both teeth looking nice

13. Well it's a pretty good country where you can eat all the cheese that you want and buy guns everywhere. :)

[Perd Hapley]

Pumpkin flavoring is seasonal, so that person probably visited in autumn, and spent a lot of time at McDonald's or Starbucks. I thought pumpkin was an American gourd, anyway, so not very bizarre that we like it more.

 The comment about prom is kind of silly. I mean, if your country doesn't have a school dance where there's a lot of pressure to have a date, I guess you won't feel a lot of pressure to have a date when you don't attend said dance that you don't have in your country.

[Ben]

I also found #5 strange. Based on my own relatives and travels, Western Europe is full of cheeseheads - moreso than the US.

[White Horseradish]

The driving everywhere thing typically is strange to people from small countries. I had a conversation with a guy from Denmark who was ragging on Americans not riding bicycles everywhere. He was completely baffled when I told him that a 20 mile commute is not uncommon. The distance that would take me two countries away in Europe wouldn't get me out of my state here. Russians aren't at all baffled by it, they are just envious of roads.

Personally, there are some things I don't get, even after being here over 20 years. Some of it is that I just don't get team sports and a lot of stuff related to it.  I don't understand the relationship of college and sports. I appreciate cheerleaders, but don't understand their presence at sporting events. The concept of pep rallies is a complete mystery to me.

The American puritanism I am used to by now, but do find it silly.

I am now hungry for something cheesy made of pumpkins...

[MillCreek]

The driving everywhere thing typically is strange to people from small countries. I had a conversation with a guy from Denmark who was ragging on Americans not riding bicycles everywhere. He was completely baffled when I told him that a 20 mile commute is not uncommon.

If I had the terrain and bicycling infrastructure that is present in many European countries, I would be doing a lot more bicycling, too.  And I am already an avid rider. 

[Perd Hapley]

I also found #5 strange. Based on my own relatives and travels, Western Europe is full of cheeseheads - moreso than the US.

I just finished watching a BBC miniseries in which an English git travels all about this great land of ours. He remarked at one point, as if it were common knowledge, that American cheeses are just rubbish, only worth melting on top of a hamburger.

Maybe they just prefer their kind of cheese, but in the right setting, not in every imaginable dish.

[Balog]

American cheese (the actual named type, not just cheese made in America) is in fact fairly low quality bu cheese standards, and it is indeed engineered solely on the basis of melting nicely when put on a burger.

[brimic]

I read somewhere that somebody once said that the difference betwen the US and England is that 250 miles is a long drive in England and 250 years is a long time in the US.

[HankB]

#1 - HOW many European nations could Texas cover?
#2 - And going to separate stores to buy beer, meat, ammo, veggies, and bread makes sense?
#5 - This one is puzzling - Europe makes & consumes PLENTY of cheese.
#7 - Put cheeleaders on the field, and who'd even notice a boring "futbol" game?  -   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYUa7DpPses
#12 - This one must have come from Britain.
#13 - We once attracted the best & brightest to our Great Melting Pot, but some people (e.g., BHO) are trying to take us down a peg by promoting the balkanization of our country through "diversity" and immigration policies that favor Somali goatherds over Scottish mathematicians.

I read somewhere that somebody once said that the difference betwen the US and England is that 250 miles is a long drive in England and 250 years is a long time in the US.

Ah, yes, Old Blimey. A country that once ruled half the world and has yet to master the intracracies of central heating or modern dentistry. 

[Perd Hapley]

American cheese (the actual named type, not just cheese made in America) is in fact fairly low quality bu cheese standards, and it is indeed engineered solely on the basis of melting nicely when put on a burger.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about all the kinds of cheeses Americans typically eat, not just "American Cheese."

[Balog]

And I'm pretty sure we're talking about the wildly differing residents of dozens of distinct countries as unified entities with identical views of the US based on some random on reddit's comments, so...

[Ben]

Maybe they just prefer their kind of cheese, but in the right setting, not in every imaginable dish.

This is likely true. A typical German evening meal is bread, sausage, and cheese, downed with beer. When I traveled through European countries, I do remember cheese was generally a sole, or side item to eat.

On the driving, for years, about half my relatives lived in one town and the other half lived in another around 20KM away. I'm told it's better now, but for many years that was a distance you did one or two Sundays a month to visit, or maybe the relatives living in the smaller town (village really) would take a trip once a month for "big city supplies" at the other town. Otherwise the distance was too great for an everyday trip.

[Lee]

Number 10 bugs me too. I dropped out of college to get married and work, them went back piecemeal over the next 20 years.  I'm in my 50's now, and still one of the first things I typically get asked in social situations is, "where did you go to school?".  It generally is related to sports.
My wife's friends come to visit us a couple of times a year...you'd think they were still in college - ALL they talk about is Michigan State and Ohio State 24/7. I used to feign interest, but now I just ignore them and try to find an excuse to be somewhere else.

[Perd Hapley]

And I'm pretty sure we're talking about the wildly differing residents of dozens of distinct countries as unified entities with identical views of the US based on some random on reddit's comments, so...

Pretty much. The person making the cheese comment could be from some corner of the globe where cheese just ain't popular, and the U.S. is the only other country they've visited.

And what I said above, about 4 and 7.

[charby]

I was in Holland in 2001 and there was cheese everywhere, I thought I was in a really flat part of WI.

[makattak]

I am now hungry for something cheesy made of pumpkins...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-cheesecake-recipe/index.html

[Hawkmoon]

I'm pretty sure he was talking about all the kinds of cheeses Americans typically eat, not just "American Cheese."

He may have thought he was, but he would have been wrong. Just in the cheese section of my local supermarkeyt they have enough varieties that I doubt a visitor to the U.S. could possibly have sampled even half of them in a two-week stay, unless he/she actually made it a point to go in and buy one of each, and eat nothing but cheese for the entire duration of the visit.

Then there are the gourmet shops that stock a LOT of varieties of cheeses ...

[grampster]

I wish we had a inter and intrastate system of elevated high speed trains so we could travel the country rather inexpensively and in leasure.

[K Frame]

I don't want to live in a country were I can't buy toilet paper and a shotgun on the same ticket.

Along with cigarettes, a 12-pack of beer, and BACON!

[Perd Hapley]

He may have thought he was, but he would have been wrong. Just in the cheese section of my local supermarkeyt they have enough varieties that I doubt a visitor to the U.S. could possibly have sampled even half of them in a two-week stay, unless he/she actually made it a point to go in and buy one of each, and eat nothing but cheese for the entire duration of the visit.

Then there are the gourmet shops that stock a LOT of varieties of cheeses ...

Meh. Like I said, it's what people are typically eating. I'd wager the vast majority of shoppers are bypassing the Havarti for the jack cheese. I know I am. I think travelling through half the states in the Union, and probably dining at some pretty good restaurants along the way would give him a pretty good idea of the sort of cheese most of us are eating, most of the time. The guy obviously expects something else from cheese than we do. I'll give him that much benefit of the doubt.