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Today, I am in my mid thirties. On and off 10+ years in USA and I am going through the same dilemma like many others. But the dilemma is really not the point of this article. This is just an attempt to explore my own love and hate relationship with this land called America.

Flashback 20 years. It all started when I was a teenager. At that age, going to America was the last thing on my mind. But just out of curiosity, I used to read fictional/ non-fictional/ travel literature about USA. Most of it was written by local writers who visited USA for a very short duration. All of these articles used to carry a common theme. It was something like this ? America has all luxuries of the world but it is very empty inside. People are so lost in the material world that they don?t understand the warmth and love of human relationships. For those who understand Marathi, I still remember reading this sentence ? ?Americet manasala manus haravala aahe?. Articles like this and the small circle of family and friends around me that firmly believed that our culture is the best in the world, made a serious impact on my mind. It made me believe that only money lover, crazy, materialistic type of people leave their homeland and settle outside India. I will never do it when I grow up.

Few years later, I had earned Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering and was very proud to get a job at an Indian multinational company that had just started doing the business of software export. At the orientation program of this company, a senior mentioned very easily that ? ?1 year from now and all of you will have a foreign trip on your name?. It was the first time, it seemed possible that, some day I might actually be able to see this crazy world called America. I was very clear about what I wanted to do. Go there for 1 year and come back for good. After all, who wants to live in a culture less materialistic, money loving, crazy world..right?

So, the day finally arrived. I landed in USA in a tier 2 city in the Mid West. Excitement was the last thing on my mind. I was terribly homesick. The bond with my world in India was so strong that all I wanted to do was to somehow survive here for 12 months and go back to India, never to come back again. It all really felt ?foreign?. But in spite of this homesick feeling, I started noticing some differences between this world and the world in India. To my surprise, these differences were actually positive! And no, they were not about clean roads or fancy cars or pollution less air. People here were actually nicer! I saw total strangers being nice to each other vs people trying to get ahead of each other back home. I saw people showing common courtesy that was so uncommon back home. All were small incidences like my gori manager sincerely apologizing for not being able to arrange a cube for me close to my team and offering to share her cube with me for few days OR a cop helping me with a car situation and asking me not to thank him because someday I may be of help to him? they were a big blow to my belief system that this is a land where crazy, materialistic, money loving people live with no consideration to emotional or social human connection!

It was just the beginning of a complicated love and hate relationship with a foreign land that wasn?t as foreign now as it was before!

To be continued?

attkan;475695......To be continued…

Go for it... I like serial stories. I should hope that there'd be some love interest down the road soon. best wishes, oko'

America has range of things from strip clubs to nudist colonies to serial killers to all the good stuff you mentioned in relation to basic etiquettes. We in India get fooled by only former like they don't have manners, they don't have culture etc etc. I have learnt some really simple etiquettes by coming here which we took it for granted, Like how to talk slowly, wait for your turn to speak, go do some simple chores instead of sit around.

Every society and culture has different sets of issues. I think America's issue is going to be how not to be cocky, how not to be complacent -- especially after enjoying super power status for so many decades.

Yes you don't see the type of close knit community based living like you see in some impoverish countries or places. But that's not just an American thing, it is prosperity, ego, pride thing, the same you see in urban India.

attkan;475695America has all luxuries of the world but it is very empty inside. People are so lost in the material world that they don’t understand the warmth and love of human relationships. After all, who wants to live in a culture less materialistic, money loving, crazy world..right?

I regret delaying my first foreign assignment for several years because of listening to such talks in India.

In fact my recent India visit, I noticed more materialistic mindset among people in India. With recent real estate boom, people in India became more greedy, everyone wants to make tons of money, no sense of culture, diminishing humanity.

suyog;475859I regret delaying my first foreign assignment for several years because of listening to such talks in India.

In fact my recent India visit, I noticed more materialistic mindset among people in India. With recent real estate boom, people in India became more greedy, everyone wants to make tons of money, no sense of culture, diminishing humanity.

Apparently OP seems to have reached the same conclusions about the relative materialism of America in comparison to desh. After all, people can pay attention to those finer things in life only after they get their life and comforts secured. "A Fine Balance", a novel* by Rohinton Mistry (Canadian-Indian) made quite a story of how precariously balanced life in India could be. Financial cushion is the one thing that makes any failure in this balance tolerable. People need to make as much money as it would make them feel secure. It does not matter which nationality they belong to or where they live.

[QUOTE]*First published by McClelland and Stewart in 1995, it won the Giller Prize. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996. In 2001 it is ... one of the only two Canadian books that have been selected into Oprah's Book Club. It was one of the selected books in the 2002 edition of Canada Reads, championed by actress Megan Follows.

Just like for close knit community post # 3 said about :

[QUOTE]

Rocky1;475843.

Yes you don't see the type of close knit community based living like you see in some impoverish countries or places. But that's not just an American thing, it is prosperity, ego, pride thing, the same you see in urban India.

Same can be said just like Oko mentioned in her post:

[QUOTE]After all, people can pay attention to those finer things in life only after they get their life and comforts secured. "A Fine Balance",

This is not limited to any country, it is not about India or the US. Still we can see the rush to get in the airplane on international flights or have you noticed how most of the desis behave in Indian functions when there are limited seats (yesterday only experienced the cultured behavior in our local theater for a Hindi movie to get the best seats, house full with desis) or have to stand in a line when the food is served in the temples in the US (especially when they know the food is limited)? It is so much imbibed in us from the beginning that we don’t even realize before doing it, and same can be said for the people who have become newly rich in India. Or do you remember the incident few years back on Thanksgiving after sale in NY? Where one woman was crushed to death (not sure whether she was badly injured or died) in the mad rush in the early morning to get limited TVs (?) or the traffic manners in NY??? When there are enough resources, there is no struggle or fight to get one thing then only finer things in life comes in picture but in country like India, where there are so many people and less resources, where there is a struggle to fulfill the basic needs everyday, who thinks about courtesy/etiquettes?? sadly there is no hope in the future to reach this balance (resources vs population).

why it is so difficult to digest, its not the country but the civic sense of its citizens matter most.
one needs to decide where they want their next generation to grow and settle just like any farmer knows the climate in particular region is good for certain crop and not for other crops.
person raised in India and US will have different personality as a grown up as conditioning done by society will be different