Whenever my friends, family and acquaintances in Europe ask me how the Americans are, I say that they are not that different from us. There are nice people, annoying people, outgoing people, shy people, smart people, dumb people, beautiful people, ugly people, and everything in the middle. Just like at home. I never noticed a profound difference in the way they act or think, either.
It is a Western culture, after all. Not really that different from what you would know if you grew up anywhere in Europe. I just recently read a book called That's Why The Japanese Are Annoying , written by a German guy who lives in Japan. However, hardly anyone will contest that the European culture is a lot more different from the Japanese than from the American culture. Asians in general have inherently different norms and customs from us Westerners.
Why this blog then? Well, despite all the similarities between the societies here and there, every once in a while I stumble upon something new and different, something that I perceive as weird, idiosyncratic, or just as plain funny. Those shall be the things that I will write down to vent about and/or entertain myself and whoever decides to read this.
