Americans got it wrong

Dear all,

It has been a while (almost one and half years) since my last post. Much has changed in my life in the meantime. I graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, got engaged, and now I am a postdoctorate researcher at UPENN, Philadelphia, in the US, since last November.

After five years in Europe, I find the life in the US very different from the European one. The Americans have a very different set of values than the Europeans. One big difference, in my opinion, is that Americans do not know how to live. Let me give you a simple example: I often ask the graduate students at UPENN about their plans for Summer break, and all of them tell me about how they are searching for internships in companies or trying to find out some more extra classes to take. If I asked the same question to an European, most of them would tell me about their big plans of going to the beach or hiking, etc. In France, for instance, the whole country stops in August, that is, everyone is on vacations. When I tell this to any American, they tell me how impossible it would be even to think on asking his/her boss for a month leave.

Another aspect that differs very much from the European values is on environmental issues. This is specially shocking when coming from Germany which is one of the countries that best takes care of the environment. In the US it is really the opposite. There is basically no care for issues like recycling, saving energy or water, mass transportation, etc. For instance, the lights in my department stay on the whole time, even in weekends! The same happens in the building where I live. There is not even a timer that automatically turns off the lights after some time. Recycling in the US is also ridiculous. My building is one of the few that do something, but compared to any German home, it is really nothing. They only recycle old newspapers and magazines. They do not even have a slot for tin cans!

However, the worst aspect is not even the two above, but rather how they treat the poor. It is sad to see that in the richest and most powerful country in the world, there are people without teeth that cannot formulate correctly one sentence. You find people like that very often on the streets here in Philadelphia. They do not have access to hospitals, schools, basically nothing, while the upper class shows off their BMWs and big cars around. Given this situation, it is not hard to see how one can easily manipulate these fragile people with nationalistic propaganda or religious brainwashing. They are against issues which would clearly benefit them directly, such as health care. This contrasts with the situation in Europe: whenever there is any attempt to remove rights of, for example, the French people, they rise up. They are not easily manipulated because they are treated much better by the French society, although they do have their problems.

After five months in the US, I am really glad to discover that this is not where I want to be for the rest of my life, at least not if things continue like this. Europe may have its problems, e.g., xenophoby, but overall their values are much more compatible my values.