Global Trends vs Only in America
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
80
85
Trip End
May 25, 2007
Mukilteo,
Washington,
United States
Monday, June 25, 2007
Jeans - Young people, men and women, overwhelmingly wore jeans in every country we went to. Even girls in Dubai who were wearing their hijab had jean cuffs sticking out of the bottom of their robe. This is one American trend that has truly become global.
Fast Food - For some reason we noticed more KFC than McDonalds on our trip. McDonalds has 20,000 more restaurants than KFC but we read that KFC is getting a big presence in Asia. For example, Vietnam has a KFC but not a McDonalds.
Cell phones - Everyone has a cell phone but no one can afford to use them. In the rest of the world cell phone users do not pay for or use minutes on incoming calls. This means that it is twice as much to call a cell phone than a land line. So, no one wants to call a cell phone and if they do they make the call as short as possible. At least people are easy to get a hold of if you want to fork over the money to call.
English - you can travel the world with only English. It is polite to learn a few words in the local language but English is now global. Old people don't necessarily speak it everywhere but young people are learning it in school. If you had to learn one language to travel the world with, this would be it.
ATMs - God Bless ATMs. We went all around the world with about $500 in cash, credit cards (for reserving rental cars, campervans etc) and ATM cards. We did not take any travelers checks. ATMs are everywhere and our ATM cards work in all of them.
Beer - People all over the world drink beer. Not only did countries have national beers, they also had regional beers. The only country that did not have a large selection of local beers was Dubai because it was illegal there. Wine is a very Eurocentric drink. We found locals drinking it where the locals were white people. The rest of the world stuck to beer.
Filipinos, Indians, Chinese and Nigerians - We are a migrating world and no one migrates in greater numbers than these groups. We met them all over the world. These are all countries with huge populations and even if a small percentage of the country leaves it makes for large numbers. Filipinos seem to have a community everywhere we went. I read that they are working in 162 different countries and that over 10% of Filipino citizens work overseas! Indians and Chinese are well established in many countries but still keep their culture very separate from the one of the country they are living in (Canada and US still do a better job of acculturating than the rest of the world, in our opinion). They are in rich countries and poor countries from Australia to Turkey to Belize.
Soccer (followed by Basketball) - The whole world outside of North America is obsessed with soccer. This was not a problem for Julius because he is also obsessed with soccer. He seemed to know all about the teams of every country we visited, both club and national. This was a real benefit for him because it was an easy conversation starter with any man we met on the road. Men can really bond over soccer talk.
The NBA is becoming a popular league as we get players from around the world. We could watch basketball in most countries. It is nothing like the popularity of soccer but at least one of our leagues is watched.
Catholics - We always managed to find a Catholic church everywhere we went. Lutheran churches, if they were around, weren't in English. So, we went to Mass. The good thing with Mass is that it is the same everywhere. It can be followed in Czech, Vietnamese, French or Italian. You just have to remember the small differences like bowing during peace in Vietnam instead of shaking hands. In places with lots of immigrants it was easier to find English services. Filipinos were at all the English services we attended, be it Turkey, Dubai or Cook Islands. It was a comfort, really because we have lots of Filipinos at our church in Seattle. They are good Catholics.
Our Game Shows/Reality Shows - When a game show or reality show becomes popular in one country the formula is picked up all over the world. We have borrowed these formulas from UK and other European countries and it appears that other countries have as well. We saw Pop Idol in most countries of Europe and Asia, The Weakest Link, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother, etc. One surprise was seeing a local version of The Price is Right in Vietnam, with Plinko and everything! The shows were all exactly the same as the American versions, same music, stage and set up. Only the language is different. I am sure they are cheap to produce and they are wildly popular. I think people just like having shows that are made in their own country with their own citizens as stars/participants. In America we are spoiled with Hollywood pumping out so many shows each year. Because our television studios are so powerful, many countries around the world (especially those without much money to produce their own shows) watch a lot of our TV. Reality TV and game shows are a very cheap way to get local programming that everyone wants to watch.
Just for Laughs - Just for Laughs is a show out of Canada that has funny practical jokes played on an unsuspecting public. They use no dialogue at all in the show, just funny music and sounds. This makes it easily understood no matter what language you speak. Television stations all over the world play this show, as well as many of the airlines we flew on. The pranks are very funny and many shows even add their own local pranks.
American Celebrities - When we were staying in Hoi An, Vietnam, I was testing out the wireless connection on our laptop at the hotel. I went to the Seattle PI website to see if it would work and read out loud the news of the day: Britney Spears had shaved her head. The Vietnamese receptionist gasped and said, "You're kidding! Britney Spears shaved her head?" and came over and read the article over my shoulder. Countries have their own celebrities that we have never heard of but for some reason they follow ours too.
Bob Marley - Everyone, everywhere loves Bob Marley. You can hear Bob Marley in just about every country and he is universally beloved. Who doesn't love Bob Marley? We have yet to meet someone who can say they don't like his music.
China made products - China is everywhere. You can't go anywhere without finding goods from there. We met loads of people coming to China to buy goods from their factories. Africans now choose China over their old trading partners.
Only in America
SUVs - OK, this isn't exactly true. Dubai also had lots of SUVs thanks to their $1 a gallon gasoline and lack of import taxes. Outside of Dubai, however, gas and gas guzzling cars were prohibitively expensive (large taxes are placed on both). It was one of the things we noticed right away when we came home.
Drive-Thru Restaurants - Though fast food restaurants are now everywhere, drive thru's exist only in a few places like Dubai, Australia and New Zealand but in such small numbers compared to the US. People must notice this when they come to America. I told them about our drive thru coffee shops and people were flabbergasted. It is hard to find take away coffee in paper cups in most of the world's coffee shops.
Ridiculous Airline Security - We search for so many things (water, lotion, shoe bombs etc) and are now setting up new scanners to look under our clothes. The flights coming to America are supposed to be just as strict but they never manage to detect small liquids if you don't declare them and they don't make you take off your shoes unless you have heeled boots on. The main difference with our airports are the truly random searches. This was made completely clear to us when we were flying out of LA and were in line next to an elderly caucasian nun in full habit. Who was randomly picked out of line? That's right, Julius and the nun. Julius gets pulled out in many countries because he looks different, but a nun? A nun in full habit? So she has to get wanded up by a security lady and she did not look happy.
Birthright Citizenship - Many people around the world were surprised to learn that America still offers birthright citizenship to all children born on our soil, regardless of the legal status of their parents. From what we can find on the Internet, the US, Mexico and Canada are some of the last few countries who have this policy. Ireland eliminated it a few years back (the last of the European countries) and New Zealand eliminated it last year. Most countries don't even grant citizenship to children born to legal residents (including the entire European Union)! Working at the hospital I see families benefiting from this rule every day. We discussed this a lot on our trip and how it changes the way people are acculturated in our country. We think America does a better job of acculturating its immigrants than any other country. People can disagree with us on this, but this is what we concluded after visiting many of the other "immigration destinations" in the world.
Free Soft Drink Refills - This one was a surprise. Outside of America free refills are unheard of. In fact, one British guy we met asked us if it was true that most restaurants allow free refills in America. When we said yes, he shook his head in amazement. He said that there was an American themed diner in London where they give free refills and it is very popular because of that.
In Belize we met a nice couple from North Carolina and we proposed the question to them. Why is soda so cheap in America? They knew the answer right away - fountain soda dispensers. All you need is a bag of syrup and carbonated water and voila! You have soda. It is incredibly cheap to make soda this way. The fast food restaurants around the world use these soda dispensers but they don't pass the savings onto customers. In most fast food restaurants the value meals only include small drinks! Outside of fast food restaurants (regular restaurants, shops), soda is served in cans and bottles. This makes the cost high.
Tipping - Anyone who works in restaurants knows that the rest of the folks in the world don't tip. It isn't that they are not generous; they probably just pay their servers a better wage. Sometimes service is shoddy because they don't expect you to give more if they are nice (especially in bars). We are both tippers. We always tip at least a little unless the service is bad. We tip tour guides, hotel maids and wait staff. Some people thought we were bad for tipping in countries where it was not expected, as if it would taint the locals into expecting tips from everyone. We felt that people know who Americans are (we have distinct accents, don't you know) and maybe they should expect tips from us if they give good service. Sometimes we get better service when they know we are Americans and they might get a tip from us. In Asia we went on some tours where we paid $70 for three days and two nights with first class meals, transport and accommodations. The guides couldn't have been paid much at all. $10 each seems like a small compensation for a job well done.
