I was flipping back through some old posts and found one asking what our Host Kids have learned about other cultures from their Au Pairs. 
Northern NJ Mom’s list (reposted below) made me smile, and wonder:
What kinds of small things have you learned about the US or your Au Pair’s home culture?
Let ’em rip, because once you’ve noted one or two the rest of the list is easy…
Northern NJ Mom, October 21, 2009
Our wonderful German aupair comes from a small village in Southern Germany. We have learned so much from her.
Here are some examples:
-People bathe every other day.
-People wear the same clothes until they are dirty. There is no need to change clothes every day. (I learned this when she kept on putting the same clothes on my son, even after his bath. She herself wears the same thing three days in a row).
-She is mortified at the thought of throwing out food. She always volunteers to eat leftovers or to distribute the excess to her other aupair friends (who usually don’t get good home-made meals).
-She would not let us use plastic or paper plates and cups. She said it was too painful for her to watch. We bought Corelle dishes which are dishwasher safe.
-Cleaning ladies are rare. (I don’t know anyone without one here).
-Posing in the nude is not a big deal. She could not understand why posing topless is considered sleazy.
-Couldn’t understand why breastfeeding in public is controversial.
-Couldn’t believe Advil and other over-the-counters are on the shelf. She would need to see a pharmacist to get them.
-Couldn’t believe how every doctor’s visit results in a prescription. She says doctor’s in Germany prescribe one only if there is no natural remedy.
-Couldn’t believe how awful the drivers are here.
-She has never heard of a dinner party before.
-She eats raw meat. (When I was preparing the mix for meatballs, she took a spoonful and spread it on a piece of bread.
The list goes on…
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How much garbage we produce. In Denmark they have limited amount of garbage allowed per HH.
We don’t recycle well.
Kids are spoiled: in Denmark kids get a 5 euro worth of gift from friends for the birthday
How expensive college is. In Denmark they get paid to go to college. In school they get notebooks from school paid by school
I’m sure I’ll rememebr more later
How much our medical care, but particularly dental care, costs here. Our au pair complained of a toothache and I could see her face was swollen, so it had to be bad. I took her to the dentist (I found a “cheap first visit” deal that included x-rays so we could see what was going on). She’d had dental work done before coming here to try to avoid these problems, but I guess this came up suddenly.
She needed two root canals – it would have been very expensive, particularly as they were her top two front teeth and would have needed crowns too! It would have been thousands of dollars to have her treated here. In Poland the cost was manageable (not sure that it was free, but definitely reasonable).
We wound up giving her an extra week off (we are very lucky to have grandparents that live a few states away but are retired and can cover au pair absences with a little notice) to FLY HOME to Poland and have the dental work done there. Much cheaper and she got to see her family and bring a load of stuff home. We made her promise to come back – and were very relieved that she did!
Also, she says no one in Poland flosses their teeth. The hygienist was horrified. I spent about five minutes asking them not to lecture her about not flossing, to concentrate on the more pressing need of the two front teeth…
– Texans are extremely friendly…so much so that she thought everyone was “fake” at first. Now she’s used to it and is the same way.
– Americans aren’t as judgemental about someone’s personal appearance or actions as the French (according to her), we are much more accepting of differences.
– We drink too much coffee. :)
In many South American countries if you completely stop at a stop sign you are highly likely to “cause an accident” because you will be rear ended.
My first Brazilian AP couldn’t believe we said such horrible things on the news about our president and celebrities and said “in Brazil you would go to jail if you said XYZ” – I explained free speech and she swore they also had free speech until we got into the details of the conversation further and she realized what free speech really is
My french AP said in France in clubs they often take your keys and if you had been drinking they keep them and she didn’t know why the clubs here did not do the same. I had to explain the American historical and that we tend to value personal freedom and accept the risks of those outliers that make poor decisions and punish them rather than micromanage the majority that do the right thing – this blew her mind
Echo txmom on the Texans and friendliness. I have to warn every incoming AP that people really are trying to help them and really that nice but it is also ok to say no thank you. They all warm up to it and love it eventually it just takes some longer than others and we definitely had the chat with our German that we are not being fake – we really do want you to have a great day or want to know how you are doing!
Eggs! We always end up having a conversation about food prep/differences. Here in the US we wash the outside of our eggs which is a very foreign concept to most of the rest of the world. By washing them we remove the protective coating and thus they need to be refrigerated. In most of the rest of the world you will see eggs sitting room temp on the shelf of a grocery store and they last quite some time just sitting on the counter at room temp (uncracked of course).
My first Brazilian used to nervously walk around our backyard until I finally asked her about it and she told me she was watching out for snakes in the trees – YIKES! Thankfully that’s not really a thing here!
Processed foods/portion sizes. Hosting au pairs has really helped me realize just how bad processed foods and nutrition in general is here in the US. I watch all of them rapidly gain weight the first few months totally stumped as to why (and many eat like birds in terms of portion sizes) and then they start trying to cut out the cheesecake and cokes and amp up the exercise to keep it flat and then return home and they lose the weight then very quickly! I always tell my husband apparently if we move to another country I would become a supermodel!
There are a lot of misconceptions about the US government system/process. Most think the president has way more authority than he actually does and few know anything about the houses and process – thank God for Schoolhouse Rock!
My South Africans can’t believe that people generally follow the rules here. Both marveled at the flat screens in the DMV and said they would have been stolen in minutes in SA. One told me the first Burger King opened there and they had to take out the lobby soda machine because people were bringing jugs from home to fill up (unpaid) and leaving! Perception was not that it was stealing but that if a company offers free refills or sets a soda machine out then they should expect it to be abused so it’s their fault for being naive!
Police. Many of my au pairs have been shocked that we value/celebrate and generally respect our police officers. In many countries the police are worse than the criminals or viewed as such or seen as largely useless. Despite the very common worldview that the US is a dangerous place to live our au pairs have been pleasantly surprised how much safer they felt in our community than they did back home (keeping in mind we definitely live in a bubble in our community but they lived in safe areas in their countries as well)
As others have stated healthcare and education are always conversations as well. I have to temper education expectations before they come (almost all think they can graduate with a degree from Harvard on their $500 education budget) and then explain and warn them about the costs/options in healthcare
I could go all day on this topic!
Our one Brazilian commented that she was glad there wasn’t an election in Brazil the year she was here because she would have to figure out how to vote – she made it sound like it was actually required to vote. (In retrospect, there were huge language issues involved, so that may not actually be true). What she WAS surprised about was that so very few people here vote in comparison to our total registered voter population, especially in non-Presidential election years!
We are required to vote, and we may have to pay a small fine if we don’t or have to justify why we didn’t vote (something simple, just say you were travelling or sick or something).
We also were talking to our Brazilian au pair about voting. He also said it was required to vote. He was surprised how few people in the US exercise their right to vote.
Our au pairs have been surprised by the media’s incessant reporting of the weather forecast. Our first au pair was alarmed that we were in for the “storm of the century”. We live in the Northeast and all of our au pairs have been from Germany, Austria or Sweden, they have been surprised by how extreme our climate can be. They have all said that our heat and humidity is very different from home and that our cold weather is colder than home.
They’ve been surprised by the fact that the day after Christmas and the day after Easter are not holidays here. In general, they seem to think that we do not have many holidays here but they do love our celebrations of Halloween and Thanksgiving – very different from home.
Also, all of our au pairs have talked about how much better childcare for small children is in their countries.
They are surprised how often people in the States say ” I am sorry’ for something small like a guest sitting in “her” chair at the dinner table.
I’d say that they have all been shocked that not all skiers wear helmets here.
And, they have commented on how few people in our neighborhood take advantage of the public transportation system.
Ten years of hosting means I could write about this for days. :) There are a lot of really obvious assessments about how everyone is in a hurry and we don’t get or take enough vacation time, but others are more subtle like how competitive parenting is in the US or that corporate America seems to run everything at the expense of small businesses.
A few other commonly shared ones:
Nothing costs what it’s labeled (taxes!)…
Americans are not just American, they’re 1/4 Polish, 1/4 German and 1/2 French…
We are constantly bombarded with advertising and commercials…
Wasteful consumerism is rampant…
One particular observation that has always stuck with me was from one AP who talked about how Americans are good at dealing with political correctness on a large scale (think promoting diversity) but that on an individual basis we are overly sensitive to personal feedback (everyone’s budding baseball player is going to be the next Derek Jeter and to suggest otherwise is verboten).
Some observations were easier to digest than others, but religious and political discussions always generated really good dialogue about the differences in our cultures and I’ve really valued all the observations our APs have shared with us. It’s been a big part of what we value in our relationships with them.
We have hosted au pairs for over ten years from countries all over the world, so I echo these sentiments. I always laugh at remembering how we tried to explain the Easter Bunny to a Thai au pair and we realized how absolutely absurd we sounded. What sticks with me most and I am smiling at now as i write this is how one of our European au pairs from a former Soviet state observed how Americans are always thinking the rest of the world is wondering what they are doing and watching them and thinking that everyone wants to be an American – the news, media, culture here elevates the US as the center of everything. She reports this is not the case! Lol
1. Our health care system is unpredictably costly and terrifying to use.
2. Americans are friendly.
3. You can get anything here. (Thai noodles? Yes! Argentinian tea? You bet! Etc etc etc)
4. There is no one kind of American person. We have lots of diversity.
5. There are lots of rules – particularly around safety issues.
6. Daylight savings time blows everyone’s mind. Our recent au pair thought we were trying to tell her that TIME CHANGES… like we travel thru a portal in the universe. Hahaha
HAHAHA. Yes our first AP thought we were playing a trick on her because we had “spring forward” like the second week she was in the USA. :)
Most of our APs have been from South Africa.
1.) Food in South Africa is expensive. AP 2.2’s family couldn’t believe that being an AP meant she got her food paid for. They honestly thought it had to be some kind of scam because how/why would anyone agree to pay you and feed you. I will brag that she LOVED my cooking and still texts me for some recipes. It was awesome (not going to lie). :D
2.) America is safer than South Africa, but in little ways that we take for granted: people park their cars on the street in here (even in the CITY!), people’s houses don’t have massive security fences around them all the time, etc.
3.) Americans are very friendly and like to help you (yes, even here in the notorious Northeast!).
4.) APs from every nation love Nutella. This is just a fact. :D :D
5.) APs from multiple countries (South Africa and a Central European Country) are surprised that our animals LIVE INDOORS with us–I’m just talking cats and dogs–but they are really not used to that. They are also surprised when the dogs don’t kill the cats.
I’m sure there are more… :)
1. That mint is not a sweet flavor in Latin America. No bueno to mint chocolate chip ice cream, etc.
2. That hospitals may be viewed as scary places you go to die.
3. That our culture of moving far away from where we grew up and establishing familes so far from our families means that our festivities probably aren’t as grand and fun with fewer people to celebrate with.
4. That kids should be expected to be kids. (Whereas in Seattle people expect kids to be mini adults when you take them out in public.)
5. That hot sauce can be put on anything savory. But this spicy Mexican flavored chocolate trend might be totally unfamiliar to someone from Mexico.
6. That we have it pretty safe here, but act as though we are under seize.
7. That we have it SO GOOD. And we don’t fully appreciate that.
8. That we really love these young women (and one man) from far away lands and we can expand our hearts.
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