I am currently studying at University of Wisconsin-Madison, as you may recall from this post. Anyway, I am now 3 weeks into my first semester in this awesome university, and I want to say this: This is not a place for you to fool around. Classes here means business, you pay for education, it is education you get. And I have been super busy with studies, which explains my lack of presence here on this blog since I came to US. To explain why I had not been blogging while I was in Malaysia before I came to US, well, let's just say I needed some time to contemplate about my life before I fly. It was a time when I was really uncertain about what lies ahead. But more of that later!
So, today (and for most days of the coming weeks I hope), I will take some time to talk about what is it like to be here in US. This is a short entry, as will most of my future blog posts be. What I hope is to give you a glimpse of the real US from the perspective of a boy from Malaysia.
So one of the most common thing before people arrive to US is to think that they know what is it like to be in the US (or at least I did). You thought you know what is it like from the books you've read, the TV show you've seen, etc. But that is wrong. Way wrong.
There is no one unifying culture in US. None. Your idea of US culture is not applicable to every part of the country, and there is a reason why. THIS IS A BLOODY HUGE COUNTRY!
If you do not know how huge is US, let me show you what is it like when you compare it with Europe:
That's right, the country itself is larger than Europe. So we are talking about thousands of miles from the West Pacific coast to the East Atlantic coast here.
Think this, can a TV show from England tell you what is it like in France, which is just across a strait? Absolutely not, right? So it is actually unreasonable to generalize Americans into one culture.
There is an appreciable difference between people of different states, much like the differences between the people from different parts of Europe. The only thing that is keeping these many states from having distinct differences like European countries is federal governance (which means they are under one government), while every country in Europe is an own and self-governing entity.
Also there is the historical factor. Europe had a longer time for development of distinct cultures, while US was only discovered and colonized about 500 years ago. So there wasn't a lot of time for the first settlers in America to go separate cultural pathways before it was unified into one country.
That is one thing to keep in mind: do not generalize Americans although they may be somewhat similar. People differs from region to region. One good practice when arriving to US for the first time is to keep an open mind and expect the unexpected (as cliche as it may sound lah).
That is all for this time. Next time, I will talk more about the people here, especially in this city of Madison a.k.a. Madtown.
Till next time. Cheers~
hoi why'd you include Canada and Mexico in your comparison with Europe lah. tak adil :P and yeah, studying in INTI was a joke compared to what I we have to do here. we actually learn stuff lol.
ReplyDeleteIf you see properly Europe is still smaller without Canada and Mexico haha
ReplyDeletethere is more to getting good grades
ReplyDelete