My Culture Shock

I arrived in the USA when I was 37 years old. I knew about this country from books, movies and influencers for instance all Americans like small talk, they are friendly and smile often. I thought that I was ready for everything and nothing surprises me. But many simple things looked absolutely odd to me. For example, light switches and sockets looked old and ugly, the shower was uncomfortable and the toilet system looked broken. Nevertheless, I quickly got used to how this stuff looked and bought a comfortable showerhead. But when I went out, again, everything wasn’t like a movie: small talk confused and local customary units obfuscated me. I wasn’t ready to be here.

From my experience customary units in the USA look absolutely nonlogical. All my life I have known how many meters are in a kilometer and how many grams are in a kilogram. The answer is one thousand. It’s easy to use, it’s logical and easy to understand. And what do we have here? In the beginning, I thought a mile is just a little longer than a kilometer and one mile equals one thousand feet. I was completely shocked when I found out the truth. How did I overcome that? I just adopted and had experience with miles here. I often use a car and I don’t even try to turn miles to kilimeters.

However, I believe that customary units for capacity are convenient. I would like to try local recipes and I like to use cups and spoons for it. But if I meet ounces or pounds they freak me out again. Especially when I use my recipe and I need to prepare an oven, I have to turn Сelsius to Fahrenheit by internet.

The next part of my shock is small talk. My English is not so fluent and I need some time to understand and prepare good answers. In my home country, a cashier says only two phrases: “Hello” and “Do you need a bag”. Moreover “hello” is optional. I’m studying English and I always prepare my future conversations. For example, if I need to make an appointment, order food, or go to a post office, I always plan my part of a future conversation. But when people start to ask me “how it’s going” I forget everything and try to answer something. I feel awkward and often forget to ask back. Therefore, now I try to ask them first and then I have time to think of a suitable answer and start my prepared part of the conversation.

Eventually, I began to enjoy small talk and I think that it is really good practice for my English. Naturally, I like talking with people because I like to learn something firsthand and tell people my experience and opinion. I know safe topics and the weather is the most popular. But it is still too difficult for me to talk about the weather when I have no idea what Fahrenheit degrees mean.