Middle school, high school, proms, jocks, Molly Ringwald, cheerleaders, cliques, grades, everybody driving cars, bullying telekinetic girls, trig mid-terms, summer camp, sex, clothes, popularity, is there a problem here?
Would you have enjoyed all that? Would it have been your cup of tea?
Fascinating question. Of course, the starting point has to be the impossibility of separating out your current self from the cultural environment that created you. But it’s worth attempting to separate that out.
I have often asked a similar question to myself except, in my case, I’ve asked it in terms of Australia. My father is Australian and I have lived there as an adult. I have loved being there. Even last night, I found myself drifting off, rambling through a litany of Australian placenames on a map, welling up with fond memories and just the feel of being there. So I easily could have been Australian, and I feel it keenly.
I have much less grip on America. I’ve spent little over a week there in my life. Compared to most on this blog, I engage little with American culture (no telly, little cinema going, even in music I listen more to Canadians than Americans). But the real sticking point for me is geographical. I have mentioned before how many of my reference points in life relate to place. I have wall-to-wall maps in my living room. I learn things readily in two-dimensional representations. When I meet someone, my fixing point for remembering them in the future is to ask where they’re from. I love the detail, the idiosyncratic, the peculiar, the subtle variation that I know all over Europe. I just don’t have a handle on the geography that would be my structure for the US. As a result, I can’t slot the jocks and the cheerleaders and the shopping malls into a framework.
There you go, that’s my starting point! I’ll be interested to see where this goes. Someone else’s turn!
It depends almost entirely on whereabouts in America we’re talking. It’s a big old place.
That said: probably. I certainly think it’s a better place to live than the UK, all in all. A couple of my mates have made the jump for work in the last couple of years and they’ve no regrets.
Same thing here with friends. However, they went out with good jobs set up and help moving. I suspect it would be different if they had to start a fresh. The professional classes in the US have a very good lifestyle I think.
I think there are plenty of people living in the US that don’t think its great. But they don’t make tv shows about them in general.
No.
Possibly. It’s more of a moot point for my kids’ generation as UK schools have begun to ape what they see on TV. Proms, yearbooks, cliques etc. are all standard practice now.
Your enticing list neglected to mention psychopathic serial murderers in a variety of wacky masks who delight in slaughtering teenagers.
Bingo’s right. It’s an enormous country.
Where and in which decade are big questions.
If your parents were loaded, growing up in Manhattan or San Francisco might have been fun. Nowheresville, Alabama less so.
After seeing a certain film, my son cannot forgive me that he was not born in Compton. Foolish, foolish boy!
Yes, I think so, as long as it was in a big city and not in Hicksville Arizona.
Growing up in 50s America would have been great. All those records we never got to hear in Britain, all those American guitars on tap at half the price we paid. All those great clothes we couldn’t get hold of until years later.
Multi TV channels and wall to wall movies. Drive-in restaurants and amazing cars.
It’s de rigueur for the left to hate America of course, but they can f**k and live in Saudi Arabia if they hate freedom so much.
I’m all the way with the USA
I know lots of people who tell me America is a “racist country”. All of them voraciously consume American culture (or should that be a waspish “culture”?) and most of them end up going there on holiday.
For all that America is apparently the source of all the world’s problems, I’ve never heard of anyone actually boycotting the place. Wait until the Chinese are running ‘ting, then come back and talk to me about those mean old Yankees.
Yep, with you there.
Yeah, so am I. Well said BL (& your earlier comment JC)
I consider myself on the left as does my wife.
We both love the USA and have been there a fair few times.
As well as that, all our pinko friends who have been there love it too.
There were all these films where the kid is desperate to leave his home town in middle America because there’s nothing to do except play sports, take your best girl to the prom, borrow daddy’s car to make out with Mary Jane Rottencrotch at Inspiration Point, play elaborate pranks on the Prinicpal, play the jukebox till dawn in the all-night diner, move your bedroom into the expansive basement of your parents’ suburban mansion, get pulled over by Officer Krupke for drinking bourbon from a brown paper bag, climb the water tower, drive your Chevy to the levee, skinny-dip with cheerleaders, race in the streets, lock your self in your bedroom with 74 channels of TV and an apparently endless supply of weed, shoot beer cans with a BB gun, drink bucket sodas and eat cartwheel pizzas, and buy an assault rifle and burst unexpectedly into the gym at Homecoming.
…and I would think, why would you want to get away from all that?
In E02, troubled loner Charles U. Farley does the perp walk down the courtroom steps (after being sentenced by judge Whoopi Goldberg) through hordes of trailertrash seeking marriage. In jail he becomes the Maytag of “Fat Daddy”, the notorious gangsta-pimp. His attorney (Wilf Brimley) arrives with the news that his appeal is successful, and he is a free man. After a touching and heartfelt farewell scene with “Fat Daddy” in the showers, Farley, now a celebrity, gets his own TV show where he marries – and divorces – one trailertrash bride a week. Ratings soar, but a figure from the past (Chuck Norris) returns to change his life … forever …
Dunno. I didn’t much like where I did spend my teens (North Wales, after moving from Glasgow) so as long as it was a city I think the US would probably be an improvement, but you mention ‘cliques’ in your list, and I can’t imagine living anywhere that clique is pronounced ‘click’, so that’s that settled then.
High School sounds awful (if you’re not a jock or a cheerleader you are fair game) but I only know it from John movies and TV, so there’s a tiny chance I could be wrong.
I remember thinking that the US looked great when I was a kid. But I also remember thinking that they had a lot of shit music and tv. At the time, I would have stayed in the UK. Looking back with my adult view, I would have gone to the US.
I forgot about drive-ins. Drive-ins look brilliant, even the one in The Outsiders, maybe even especially the one in The Outsiders.
Drive ins! Yes!
And proms and ballgames and diners.
If I were American I’d like to have grown up in Chicago. I bloody love Chicago.
It’s your kind of town.
(PROMPT)
Chicago is?
I am Ally Sheedy watching HG Lewis films from beneath my fringe at drive-ins. I just am, okay?
Here, Poppy, plunge your tiny hand into my popcorn bucket …
Luckily I’ve seen Diner.
GOOD girl … nnnnnnghhhhh …
Drive-ins.
In Australia the drive-in movies have all but died out. But we have drive thru liquor stores and all manner of drive-thru food outlets, including McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC of course.
Drive -thru liquor stores?
How about drive-thru gun stores? Anywhere they have those? Invaluable for modern day Bonnie and Clydes!
@kaisfatdad Oh yeah, every OZ suburb has a handful of drive-thru off licences (as I insist on calling them, cos I refuse to assimilate, like).
After all, why should I have to get out of my car to buy my daily 3 litre flagon of cheap rot gut wine? Answer me that!
A drive-thru bottle shop, yesterday
http://i.imgur.com/qABCXzw.jpg
Who said Australia has no cultural heritage or architectural vocabulary?
Note the “browse” lane for those who don’t want to race right through, tyres screaming. For those with the time to appreciate the finer things in life.
In the days before everyone paid for everything with a plastic card, there was a curious etiquette at play in Aussie drive-thru bottle shops.
You’d drive in and the serving bloke (who, I might add, was invariably a man so archetypically gruff and Aussie, he made Crocodile Dundee seem like Charles Hawtrey – it appears to be a job requirement) would stick his head through your car window and bark “yes mate?”
You’d timidly place your order and off he’d go to get it. Once back behind the counter he’d ring it up on the till and bark the amount payable across 30 feet of drive-thru laneway: “Thirdy five dollars, mate!” let’s say.
Now here comes the tricky part. At this point you were supposed to yell back the amount you were intending to tender, let’s say $50.
It turns out this long distance shouting match was in order so Crocodile Dundee could bring your change over with the booze, thus saving himself two trips.
Of course I had no idea of this tradition when I first came to Australia and the first couple of times I answered “Er, yes, that’s fine” when confronted with the amount payable.
Eventually, following a few brusque exchanges with the bottle shop attendant, the protocol was gently explained to me.
I think I might’ve. It would be refreshing to live in a culture where moaning is a bit less part of the furniture (he moaned). There’s an inherent positivity to the American national character which I really like.
Every American I’ve ever met has been lovely. I’ve never met a single one who fits the British stereotype (basically Rod Steiger in “In The Heat Of The Night”) in much the same way that none of us knows anyone who wears a bowler hat or speaks with a cut glass accent.
I feel like the much-vaunted American arrogance often comes from a place of happiness: we’re great! Check us out! It’s not so much arrogance as it simply not occurring to them that there might be anything to hate about their own country – which has its disadvantages, of course, but is basically a nice thing. (Our equal – or greater – arrogance comes from a much nastier and darker place. “We used to run things around here. Look at these ghastly little colonials messing it all up.” We’re like those cartoon poshoes who get funny about “trade” and “new money”, except on a national scale.)
There’s tons wrong with America, but I love it. I love its music and its culture and its food and its people. I think an American Bob might’ve grown up a happier Bob.
Ditto the famous ‘loudness’ of US citizens. They come from a place where it’s the most natural thing in the world to strike up a conversation with the stranger next to you. Weirdoes.
Yes, there’s all that loveliness and positivity and yet, and yet — the school system appears to be an absolute hub of prejudice, privilege and ruthless competitiveness, where the poor and outcasts are killed and eaten. True, it’s stereotype gleaned entirely from films about high school and films about high school reunions, but I don’t see USians lining up to decry it as such.
Me too. Every time I’ve crossed the border,they can’t do enough for you. Why this doesn’t translate onto the broader idea of Americans is as much I’d expect as if I were to visit Iran and they turned out to be as equally welcoming.
Apropos of nothing, Iranians are insanely hospitable (in the main). A recent trip to Tehran nearly necessitated a crane lifting me onto the flight home, so delicious was the food. Nearly everyone invited me to their family home for dinner, new acquaintances would insist on showing you around town – incredibly warm, welcoming people who’ve had a rough few decades
It’s an interesting question. My boss has mooted the possibility of transferring me to the New York office, so it’s possible that the little mousenibblers are about to find out what it’s like. I’ll report back in a few years.
the paucity of British blues rock singers in America causes me to say no.
See, I was on the fence but now I’m sold. I definitely would have enjoyed it.
I have a couple of American friends who have just returned home to Tampa, Florida, after three years in Italy. They were really down at the thought of going back. “Why” I asked, nosey chap that I am. “Cos there’s nothing to do there. It’s boring” said my buddy/mate. “There’s feck all to do here in the winter!” I responded sagely. His reply was “Gary there’s LOADS to do here! You’re two hours from London, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Budapest, Reykjavik! You just choose not to do anything!”. Good point, I thought.
That’s one thing that has never appealed to me about Australia. I’m sure it’s a fantastic place, but I think I would miss hopping on a cheap flight a couple of times a year to get somewhere entirely different in a couple of hours, pretty much on a whim.
yeah @Gatz it is a pain in the arse apart from to Indonesia or if you want to go to the south Pole or New Zealand or New Guinea..
Its why Aussies tend to travel for longer when we finally get out of the place , especially when flights were so much more expensive. Even worse down south, heck it is about 5 hours from Melbourne to Darwin.
Then again when some nuclear reactor blows up in the northern hemisphere- don’t come crying to us.
Hilarious comment Gary. Have an Up. I am in awe of the magnificent minimalism of your lifestyle. “Doing stuff” is so grotesquely over-rated.
I wouldn’t know, KFD. I’ve never tried it.
One thing that’s always puzzled me, do even the really poor people have big houses? I remember seeing Boyz In The Hood and wondering that. They all seemed to be standing on the porch of large abodes…
Much of Flint, Michigan (the town with the dirty water ) didn’t look too well appointed on the news the other night.
Yours for only a shade over £6000.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Detroit-MI/88632405_zpid/17762_rid/0-10000_price/0-36_mp/42.484504,-82.810479,42.220636,-83.387261_rect/10_zm/0_mmm/
Handy for the Motown museum. And crack.
A few musical contributions would not come amiss on this thread.
The Sounds -Living in America
http://youtu.be/AjY4Wj_-Zec
Bowie -Young Americans
Living In The USA
My brother, who lives in New York had an interesting thing to say about high school.
“It’s where you really become an American.”
I guess that’s true of the school system of many countries. Part of their remit is to consolidate your understanding of the national values.
You forgot to mention those lovely trench coats!
O yes, I’d have loved it.
I’d have been that guy in the song who drives an Iroc and brings a gun into school. No really I would.
I lived there for a couple of years when I was 21 and it was a breath of fresh air for me.
I expect I’d have become a totally different person if I’d grown up in the USA.
’50s America would have dealt me a very different hand of cultural and social cards from those I got as a nipper in suburban England.
One thing I’m very wary of about the USA is the conservatism and power of the churches over there.
Just thought I’d chuck this into the mix, as it’s probably my favourite Bowie performance of all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ZmjusMjFM
(I’m Afraid of Americans – Live)
That is, indeed, superb. There is a good case to be made for Earthling to be his worst album but that track transcends it (and I can think of at least two that are worse).
Love America and love most Americans I have met. But what I have always wanted to do is to be sent away to boarding school, go to the tuck shop, have pillow fights, play rugger (whatever that is) go home in summer and solve a mystery or two then back for more toasted crumpets and a jolly good buggering from the Head Boy.
Perv!
I had a very negative view of America and the Americans growing up thinking they were all brash, halfwitted oafs wearing checked trousers. I never made the connection that the shows I loved watching – Bewitched and Bilko – were American. I then started working with Americans as a guide, and I found most of them to be charming, generous and great company. I have only ever visited NY, Chicago (which I love and did consider living there), Boston and San Francisco. I liked them all, but impossible to deduce whether i would could have enjoyed growing up there because by then I was largely fully formed and my cynical self couldn’t manage their optimism. I know think differently, as I kind of admire this, their pride in their country and I have yet to come across anyone from other there who I didn’t like apart from the walnut faced nitwit who complained about everything on tour.
Are you still a guide?
Nope, retired from that a good few years ago. Regret it now.
I am – thirty years so far, but as soon as I find a proper job, I’m gone.
Whether or not you would have loved growing up here depends on a multitude of factors as otehrs have mentioned.
Even assuming a (relatively) prosperous family background your experiences in Boston, say, Alexandria, Salt Lake City etc etc would have been radically different. Hell, even the difference between where I live now, Alexandria, and Fredericksburg, where I used to live, 50 miles south, is vast. Down there, small town, smal town attitudes, culture and education. Up here, cosmopolitan, diverse, well travelled.
It’s almost like asking whether you would have wanted to grow up in American Graffitti America, or Springsteen’s? Both are very honest and true.
America is a really interesting country that has so, so much to commend it, and yet much to dislike. I chose, in May, to become a citizen. I think if you grow up in a middle class, settled family, your long term prospects are good, assuming you can get out of the education system unscarred.
Would I? I’m not sure. The education system – writ large – massively underserves the truly smart and gifted (the challenges we have with my son in the system would make a grown person cry); the sporting opportunities are great. If you have great parents, the cultural opportunities are tremendous.
It’s the same as most countries. Just bigger.
As a Brit, I think the main difference I noticed during my brief sojourn the USA was how seriously committed they are to work and religion. I loved the idea of American Graffiti teenage years, driving a Mustang and playing a guitar, but the reality was that a lot of American kids seemed to be dominated by the Work Ethic and their [insert religion here] background. And they don’t know how to make a brew.
Great post Sithere.
That urban and rural difference is true in most countries.
Leaving Stockholm and visiting Mrs KFD’s family on Öland is like going to another planet. Not at all unpleasant. Just very different.
I was a teen in the early Seventies and remeber it as a bloody dreary time, apart from the music so I probably would have had a better time in the States, though I’m pretty sure I’d have nipped across the border into Canada if Uncle Sam had offered me a trip to Vietnam.
Given the things I liked doing when I was 16 -18 I don’t think I would have preferred living in America. I am assuming that the law of averages would have meant I would not have lived within walking distance of Greenwich Village, Santa Monica or similar.
Please to explain: what is growing up?
My answer would always be problematic, given the shitey american ‘beer’. Annoyingly tho’, they now seem to know how to make it, even if the market penetrance is still c. Camra 1980. But it would have to be somewhere away from the epitomised flyover states of small-town and small mind america. (Oz, now, I did actually look seriously at such a move a couple or so years back, again, however, away from unciviliation, probably Melbourne or Sydney, tho’ Byron Bay had some attractions to all but my liver.)
When all is said and done, I think I’ll stop where I know.
I think many many be suffering from “grass is greener” syndrome. You’d be surprised how drab and small town much of American life is with stultifying bureaucracy and conservative attitudes.
The reason the American Dream works is because people believe in it. Still. Just about.
So, they believe if they work that extra hour, smile at the boss that little bit more, get that money down on a business, they’ll succeed. And sometimes they do.
What Americans tend to do is provide quantity rather than quality and you can see it in their food, their entertainment, their sport and from the evidence of American colleagues, their work.
As I grow older, the happier I am to be British. I have had the good fortune through work to live in a number of places and spent time in L.A and NYC. The latter I loved but happened to go at a the best time, the late 90s, for the City, for the business, and for me.
Right now, there is no better place in the world than London. Everybody wants to be here. Including Americans. It’s full of people who believe if they work that bit harder, smile a bit more at the boss, get that money down on a business, they will succeed. And sometimes, they will.
People buying into the London dream. An England’s Dreaming. Who’d have thought it.
I am British, I live in Canada, but have spent a lot of time in the US and lived there for 2 years (Upstate NY). I prefer Canada, people are extremely friendly and a bit more aware of the world around them. Weather can be challenging, but you accept as part of living here.
What I find here and particularly in the US are how important rituals and traditions are. All kids are part of some sort of sport(s) team, plus things like proms, cheerleading, Halloween etc. Everybody seems to buy into the same sort of stuff. In the UK I think there is a bit more freedom as to how you want to grow up. The relative youth of the countries probably has something to do with it.
What I dislike most is the over reliance on the car. Everybody complains about trains in the UK, but it is a joy to travel from city centre to city centre relatively quickly for reasonable prices (if you book in advance), I also enjoy being in UK city centres (apart from chucking out time), where you can shop, drink, dine, visit museums, go to parks etc all within walking distance. Apart from big cities like New York or Toronto, that doesn’t really exist here.
Dipping back in to the conversation, I note how many would have liked to grow up in the US, so long as it was urban, yea metropolitan. I think that nails why I am doubtful. I am a smalltown boy at heart (albeit. not in the Bronski Beat sense) and a rural dweller now. I suspect that the counterpart to my life in the US, or Australia / NZ for that matter, would not have the joys and benefits that I had and still enjoy in the UK. We may joke about Norfolk or Somerset, but they must be downright cosmopolitan compared to rural Arkansas. Correct me if I’m wrong, as I speak from little American experience, but I doubt I’d be able to enjoy the best of both worlds in the same way in the US i.e. living in the countryside, yet with good jobs and entertainment close to hand.
Tradeoffs. My ex wife grew up in a small town – population 1100 when we got married.
Dominated by one employer (who is currently getting sued left right and center). There was much there that was unappealing to me, but there was an amazing sense of community and history of the town. There wasn’t a lot of money, but I was amazed at just how nice the wee library was. Not big, but eclectic, including some really nice graphic novels. It reminded a lot of Kelty in Fife where Dad grew up, or Gorebridge where Mum did. The folks there were living Springsteen’s The River, for better or worse
I have friends who live about an hour from DC, and they have my dream life. A house, on a hill. Easy access to small city, and still easy access to the Nation’s capital. Half hour drive, get on the Metro. People here are prepared to drive further and it isn’t a hindrance. When I lived in the UK, my local rugby club to referee was about 16 miles (hallo Petersfield!) I used to get annoyed with the 90 minutes to Bournemouth. Now, my closest club on my patch is an hour. My average drive, one way, is about 100 – 140 miles, with 250 not being the exception. Clubs will regularly travel 5 hours one way for a game.
I don’t think it’s better or worse, just…bigger. The roads, the population, the people, the problems, the country. Until you’ve gone DC – SF, you don’t appreciate just how BIG it is. I suspect only our Canadian or Australian friends will grok that.
The American Dream? I think it’s still there. I think the reason it seems to be so big an idea is that because when you make it, you really make it. If you can crack the invisible barrier that is education and social status driven, you only have yourself to blame. My career took several steps back when I emigrated. I was lucky that an employer decided to take a bet on me, and I now enjoy a very nice lifestyle. I do work hard, but I get rewarded for it. I can say the same to my son; if you knuckle down and work hard at what you’re good at, your only limit is yourself. if I had gone into sales in my current employer, I’d be rich. Not comfortable, but rich. If I’d joined before our IPO, I’d be thinking about retiring.
I’m lucky – but I also worked hard at something I’m good at (Human Resources, in case you’re still reading)
BUT, and it’s a big but… That opportunity isn’t there for all. Conscious or unconscious, the race barrier is a massive one. And I don’t think it’s for just the African American population; Hispanics ar right at the foot of the ladder. If the race barrier can be broken, if the education system can be improved (can we copy the Finns?), and if healthcare can be sorted…. The sky is the limit.
As a side note: I emigrated for (misplaced) love. I naturalized for two reasons: the first was that my Green Card was up for renewal; the second was for love, again (she has a security clearance, so for us to live together, I have to be American). I’ll never stop being British – or Scottish, to be more accurate. But thinking about this, and writing does make me realize how happy and proud I am to be America, and how much I love my home State of Virginia.
That’s a lovely to story to read Si. I’m glad that such a big gamble worked out so well for you.
What Gatz said – with bells on.
Great story Si.
Another excellent contribution to this thread, Sith.
A lot of it has dealt with how Hollywood, music etc has shaped our UK perceptions of the USA. You are describing the reality.
Calling @drewtoo! I wonder what you make of all this as a bona fide Yank.
Actually if you mean by “bona fide” Yank that I was born in the US then I am sorry to disappoint. I was born in the UK – moved to the US 19 years ago – went through the Visa – Green card – Citizenship thing. For those 19 years I have lived in the Detroit suburbs – currently in the college town of Ann Arbor. I am lucky to travel a lot for work (selling industrial equipment) – over the years I have seen much of the US – the big cities to small town life. Brought up 3 kids in the US education system. So there is my qualifications to comment – my thoughts………
As many have said – its a big country with a lot of contrast but he suburban life – big houses, high school rituals, ice cream parlors, diners and football games – is what most/many Americans think of as the ultimate “dream”. My kids went through/are going through this system and it’s worked incredibly well for them. Confident girls happy to get out into the world and make their way. Opportunities available – go take them. They know they are lucky – inner cities – are another world again – where lack of funds and ambition go hand in hand. We don’t have to travel for to see it. Flint mentioned further up the thread is only 50 miles away, Detroit – even closer.
As many have already said on here – grow up in the US with money – you’ll have opportunity. It really does not matter where – cities, small town or rural. No money – and you can fall through the cracks pretty quickly – that is the crying shame of the self proclaimed greatest country on Earth.
I really have liked all the Americans I have worked with too. Generally they have been friendly with a wry sense of humour (of course they get irony). Although, tbh, I think I got closer to Canadian workmates, probably because we have a few more cultural reference points in common.
Maybe because of the parts of the USA I have been too, I have a bit of a jaundiced view of it as a place to live (I haven’t been to NY or SF). The food, shops, and media get me down. Love the bars though, there’s always someone to talk to. All in all, when I go, I like it for a week or so, then I can’t shake off the feeling I am in a slightly tacky theme park or something.
It would be brilliant to be an American! Everyone armed to the teeth, the real danger of bankruptsy if you get shot by one of them plus Donald Trump. What’s not to love?
Feck me, what a question. A bit like Bill Bryson (in Notes…) I dreamt of having friends with names like Sergio and Rafi. Instead, I ended up in Britain.
A Mediterranean immigrant parent and plenty of relations meant I had at least a fairly realistic idea of what it would be like.
Then my post uni twenties and thirties were spent living and working in two southern European countries before washing up in Blighty so in a sense, I did grow up in another country. It would be difficult to imagine trying to imagine growing up somewhere about which the sum total of my knowledge came from television and the movies. Strange.
There are, of course, a few comments made above by regulars that tip over from typical pig ignorant British xenophobia to just plain racial/cultural hatred. And that is unfortunate. But not unexpected.
I see overwhelming positive impressions of the USA above. I guess if you log in expecting to see negativity and hatred then that’s what you’ll see
Re: the OP – as I’d have grown up there in the pre internet era, I’d have to say no.
I’m extremely grateful to have grown up in the UK & aside from the obvious direct influence of family etc., it has shaped me & in ways I mostly wouldn’t want to swap.
The USA pervades many aspects of our culture obviously & the best & worst examples of pretty much anything you can think of are to be found there.
Working/ living there as an adult having been raised here would be very different from being a native because you’d be there with all of your sensibilities/ baggage from here. I don’t doubt there are amazing opportunities & amazing lifestyles to be had that are beyond anything available in the UK but that doesn’t sway it for me.
Fabulous places & people to be experienced but I’m glad this side of the pond is in my bones & wouldn’t care to exchange it.
Thanks for the Thirsty Camel Mr Concheroo. Wonderful! A shop that is unlikely to be opening in Sweden in the next 100 years!
Then again. Rename themselves the Thirsty Moose and maybe they could be in business?
Just to give you an idea how big Australia is KFD, it’s estimated there are one million feral camels living wild in the Australian outback, decedents of those turned loose during settlement and the gold rush of the mid-19th century.
ONE MILLION. Yet you’ll never see any of them.
There are also a ridiculously high number of feral horses and donkeys
Feral women, too, apparently. Mike tells me he married one.
Plenty of feral men AND women in every shopping mall in Australia
And that’s “descendants”, sorry
Certainly did. More the hippie strain than the bogan strain though.
Talking of feral, Oz is about to slaughter up to 2 million feral cats, which will insist on making small furry things like hopping drongos extinct. I predict a fuss from cat lovers.
And yet there is also a strong lobby in Australia which is vigorously opposed to any kind of introduced species, especially domestic cats, as they have done untold damage to the native fauna.
The British brought foxes out here 150 years ago so they could pretend it was the Sussex Downs. Meanwhile old Reynardine had a field day, killing everything in sight.
The domestic cats have done more harm to Aussie wildlife than just about anything else.
I read somewhere that there are virtually no purebred dingos left in Australia now, as they’ve interbred with feral domestic dogs.
Then there’s the feral camels, donkeys and horses I mentioned in another thread.
Pure bred dingoes on Fraser Island off coast of Qld
That’s true
There’s also the only pure Ligurian bees on Kangaroo Island – all the originals back in Italy have interbred with other variations.
And speaking of ferals, don’t forget the rabbit; two dozen of them released by a dimwit who thought they’d be ideal game for shooting parties…within a couple of years there were millions of them.
quite a big export business to the Middle East as meat and live as the camels are apparently very pure in some sort of way.
Horses for courses. For all us Brits yearning to have lived in the USA there are Americans who crave English pubs, London fog, Big Ben and the Royal Family. I lived in USA for 2 years and overall loved my time there but if I am honest the pull of returning to UK won the day. Now I have best of both worlds, My hotcakes me to USA around 5 weeks per year and this year going there twice on holiday. Americans can be f err frustrating to deal with in business but their country has more opportunity than anywhere else in the World.
Perhaps our American contributors could confirm, but I suspect that those who dreamed of living in the UK envisaged being in London or a Miss Marple type village, not Redcar, Scunthorpe, Redruth or wherever. Nor, I imagine, would many people in the UK fancy growing up or living in their US equivalents.
Yes, that’s it. If what I enjoy here was over there, I reckon it would be so sought after that there wouldn’t be any average Joe Blows there – the real estate market would be king.
Don’t know how job became hotcakes but there you have it.
Ah. I’d assumed it was a “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” thing.
I spent six months living in America when I was 10-11 years old. A great age to do it – pre-adolescent but old enough to take some important shit in. Like, neighbours who’d say (adopt Southern accent cos that’s where we were) “ah jes hate them niggers”. This was mid-sixties, LBJ had just been voted president, but ALL the kids in my class at school had parents who’d voted for Goldwater FFS. My Mum watched the Salem marches on TV during the day.
What it meant was when I saw movies or TV shows or read books about the US there was some familiarity for me. Watching Mad Men I realise what it was like for my parents.
Not much to add here but a) shouldn’t let that stop me and b) what of the obverse?
I’ve known a lot of people (perhaps they make themselves known to me) who spent a year of secondary school or university in the US but their opinions are scarcely better formed than anyone elses because things change fast and goodness knows, the US changes faster than any of them.
Not many of you above got your ideas of what growing up American would be like from direct experience. My case is no different. It was never my intention to live here but you know what I wanted to do?
I wanted to stroll the merry way and jump the hedges first. I wanted to go through certain half-deserted streets (the muttering retreats). I had a vague notion of what they got up to at Waikiki, but whatever it was they did at Camber Sands (and wherever the hell it was) it sounded far more exotic and I wanted a piece of it.
Then again I didn’t know what I wanted but I knew how to get it. An exchange student told us what a ‘bed-sit’ was and from the Smiths we gathered that it rained all the time and one sat staring disconsolately through a rain spattered window. The ability to transform ourselves into Edward Gorey seemed unutterably romantic and attractive.
And now, here I am.
I’d have loved to have been brought up in California or New York. I’d have hated to be brought up in some Dullsville place where the sheer banality of America is writ large. That being said, I’d have dreaded being brought up in any number of similar shit-holes in the UK.
I spent 3 months as a 20 year old travelling round most of America by Greyhound. I’d worked Summer jobs for the previous few years to fulfil this dream and I absolutely loved the experience. I’ve worked there, briefly, since and have been visiting California regularly over the past 15 years as I have very good UK friends there. My impression of Americans is, in the main, overwhelmingly positive. They’re friendly, open, chatty, welcoming and very enjoyable company. I’ve found it incredibly easy to make friends with them.
I’m a Brit living in Texas, married to an American. Our kids are being brought up here.
Its just different from my childhood, sports are a big thing. Its little league baseball, soccer, American football, swim team etc….
Its an expectation that your kids do these things.
I think the perception of Americans is skewered by movies. They are usually unassuming people living their lives the best they can.
Two main things I noticed about here that was different from Scotland. 1. Convenience, Americans crave convenience, stores are open late, or 24 hr. Families go out to eat several times a week. When I was growing up we only ate out for birthdays.
2. People drive here, all the time, public transport is fairly non-existent or is inconvenient.