Cultural shocks ? Not really !

At one of the work parties, someone asked me "What were the cultural shocks did you get after you came to USA ?" Its really a valid question and while I was trying to think of an answer I concluded that there were so many things different but not all of them are really "shock".

Most of them were not actually shock because we do follow a lot of American movies and sitcoms. But few things I really discovered after landing here which was not very common in India, neither they show it in movies. (May be because it is very trivial here.)

• American roads gives priority to the pedestrians. So if you are in the side of the road the card generally do not cross until you cross the road. DO NOT TRY in India. No vehicle stops for pedestrian to cross.
• Be it hotel or office, if you run into someone whom you don't even know and make eye contact , you gave to smile and at least say "hello" or "Good Morning". Sometimes even known people are ignored when in such situations happen in India. Moreover in India people can continue to stare at you without any business as if very interested  in your activities. Staring would be definitely rude in America.
• Most of the places I saw the queue starts after a bit of space from the counter and no one tries to jump the queue. However jumping queue considered to be "smart" in india and people feel proud about it. I have seen many of my acquaintances  feeling proud and showing off that they managed to get something done before someone else who deserved the same. Ideally they should feel ashamed about it and I find it as a form of corruption.
  
  

Overall I found America as I expected.Not that everything they do is perfect (i.e. keeping shop light turned on all night and wasting a lot of food in restaurants ), there is definitely so many things we need to learn to incorporate in out system.