About Americans
I am often asked about Americans. Unfortunately, I do not have any American friends, and my English does not allow me to expand my social circle. All the people I talk to are Russian-speaking friends of my children or mixed couples. We speak Russian at home. My grandson is really picking up Russian when I visit, but he still often uses English words into his sentences. I’m trying to learn English, but without immersion things don’t work out well. It’s much easier for me to read something than to perceive it by ear.
I can only talk about a purely external perception: Americans are people like people. It seems to me that they are less politicized than we are in Russia (I do not mean the Russian-speaking public here). If we are near the house, then people passing by, completely unfamiliar, often smile and say hello. And the people running along the path also smile and greet. In Russia, they say that they do it insincerely, and for me, it’s better to let them smile insincerely than to be sincerely covered with a tub of ill will. When a photographer at work took my daughter’s picture for a pass, he said that all Russians do not smile. We smile without showing our teeth, and Americans say “cheese” from ear to ear as soon as they see the camera.
Noticeable differences
It is not shameful to compliment a stranger here. Sometimes we buy flowers at the store when we’re going to visit someone, and a completely unknown woman can stop and say: “How good you look in these shoes, what are wonderful shoes” or “I like your dress.” It’s okay for them. I can hardly imagine that we can say a compliment to an unfamiliar woman. The cashiers at the checkouts are always smiling (even when you return something) and consider it their duty to have a smalltalk with the customer.
I get such a benevolent image of an American. But I think that people in all countries are different, there are bad people, there are good people. For example, when my daughter worked in a store, there were also thefts of goods by visitors. But these losses fell on the costs of the store only, and were not deducted from the salaries of working staff, as we had.
Probably, there is also not fun here when there is no work. There are also beggars walking at the crossroads along the road in the 104-degree heat and asking for money, but there are very few such people and they are found in certain areas. Usually these are people who have mental problems or with the law. There are a lot of young people with tattoos. All arms are painted like a shirt and legs are like pants. Among the adult population, tattoos are less common, but also there.
In America, it is not considered shameful to report someone who has broken the law. They even have traffic rules written down by which phone number to report violations, for example, if a child in someone’s car is not wearing a seat belt, without a special seat, or alone in the car in the lane for two or more passengers.
Often there are young mothers who have three children of different ages. But giving birth in America is also difficult. There is no child benefit and no long maternity leave either. Some companies have medical insurance, which is provided for a maximum of two months and pays 60% of earnings, and then take the child wherever you want. This is probably why some do not work and give birth to several children in a row at once, if the income allows.
Donations are very common here. There are special huge boxes near large stores or on some large plazas where anybody can bring children’s clothes, toys, as well as things for adults. Nobody digs into these boxes, these things are collected and then sold at low prices, and the proceeds are distributed among the poor. A large number of all kinds of benefits are distributed in churches and various charitable organizations. There are a lot of churches here, of different denominations, and on Sundays, many Americans go to church in the morning.
Food
I’ve got my opinion about Americans from my children’s stories. Americans love to eat in restaurants. They call a restaurant any place that serves food. Many do not cook at home and find it time consuming. Many children also eat chips, all kinds of cereals and have very strange tastes. They almost do not eat normal food, meat, vegetables, but they love hot dogs and pizza. Instead of normal ice cream, they prefer popsicles — a frozen ice with dye. Of course, there is good quality ice cream here, but children almost always choose ice.
Many people do not think about the quality of food, their grocery basket in the store is three times the size of ours with the same cost
With a healthy diet, there are also certain problems. Despite the fact that all the ingredients are listed on the labels and a bunch of quality certificates are affixed, many people suffer from food allergies. It is forbidden to bring any nuts and products containing nuts to schools, as some children are allergic to these nuts, up to anaphylactic shock. In my opinion, in many countries mankind has spoiled products in pursuit of unnatural quality and in pursuit of profit.
In America, for example, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is widely used. This sweetener is added to confectionery, bread, various sauces, and ice cream, wherever possible. Cows are fed corn. All their corn is very sweet unlike ours. Pitted watermelons!?!?! For example, strawberries and grapes are sold all year round, but only in season do they have a real smell and taste. There are vegetables that don’t smell at all. We found out that my grandson is very allergic to high fructose corn syrup. Therefore, in stores, my daughter reads the ingredients very carefully. We buy mostly organic, grass-fed meat. We excluded completely sweet drinks, we avoided fast food, we cooked everything ourselves and did not use ready-made products. Of course, it is very expensive. Many people do not think about the quality of food, their grocery basket in the store is three times the size of ours at the same cost. Although, recently there have been more people who are concerned about the ingredients and food quality.
The vegetable oils we use are mainly olive oil, avocado oil and sunflower oil for salads. Almost everything is fried in olive oil. There are olive farms here in Arizona and California, so this oil is not as expensive as it is for us in Russia. Canola oil is also widely sold here. But this oil is from rapeseed and the manufacturing technology is very harmful, we do not take it. But here it is sold in all stores and is used a lot in various products.
Drinking water
Here, many people have purifying filters in their homes, plugged to the kitchen sinks. We order bottled water (Arrowhead) in the same bottles as we have in Russia, 19 liters each. We used to buy gallon packs from Costco for home use and packs of small bottles to take drinking water with us. Here they don’t go anywhere without water. But water in plastic heats up quickly in the sun and my daughter, taking care of her health, bought everyone glass bottles in a rubber case. Now we pour water into them when we go out somewhere and wash them conveniently. At the grandson’s school, glass bottles are not allowed, and therefore he has a steel bottle. At school, of course, there is water, but they give him ours so that he does not drink from the water fountains. Many children are also given water to school.
Ilf and Petrov wrote about three types of water: cold, warm and ice. Maybe there were no faucets back then and ice water flowed in the cold states. The house now has cold water running and a gas heater in the garage. But in Arizona, when the sun turns toward the kitchen, even cold water from the tap runs hot.
All meters (gas, electric, water meters) are located at the corner of the house and are the property of the corresponding company, and their technician takes readings and issues an invoice. There is no need to call and pass this info anywhere. I don’t even know if these readings are somehow automatically transmitted. When we moved into this house, it was necessary to make a deposit for gas. A year has passed, the company took into account the previously deposited money. There was no need to go anywhere. And it’s still a nightmare to remember how much time I spent in the queue at the water utility office when I checked the water meters. Either I did not bring a requested paper, then there was no other paper, and spent four days in queues.
Here, no wires go along the houses, everything is hidden in the ground, even electric cables (only in old areas in houses built in the 50 – 60s there is an upper wire connection). There are no poles on the streets near residential buildings, and all the lighting comes from the windows of the houses and small lamps near the houses. And high-voltage power lines pass through the desert along highways. During my entire stay here, there was never a power outage and only once there was a power outage in our neighborhood, but after 2 hours the problem was solved.
