hungryhorace

The ignorance that exists concerning what is appropriate levels of driving. The general backwardness in attitudes, as well as a bordering on useless police force.

rpjs

Praying in restaurants? That's actually a thing in some places? I've never seen it happen in the NE and I think it'd nearly be as regarded as bizarre as it would be in the UK.

Sally Redux

Not that frequently but I've seen it a few times in the LA area, strangely enough more on what appears to be a date. One time I was at a cafe in Calabasas and there was a nice-looking youngish bloke sitting at the next table, when the sandwich came he grabbed his companion's hand and started praying for a long time - she was OK at first but started to look increasingly desperate

dunroving

I went on a date with a fellow student when I was doing my PhD. I thought I knew her quite well but when we stopped into a small café/restaurant to have a bite to eat (it was an "activity date" - we had been out for a hike), I had my first mouthful of food going when she started to say grace, out loud (almost ostentatiously so). I felt like crap. I usually wait until others at the table have their food before I start eating, just out of politeness, but this caught me out.

I look at most of these experiences as the slightly awkward parts of being exposed to different cultures. I was out in Qatar recently and during my presentation I made a small joke about Christmas and a small joke about drinking (both very "professional" jokes) and then realised that of course most of the audience were non-drinking, non-Christmas-celebrating Muslims. Oops.

Sally Redux

'Citizen Khan' did have a Christmas Special.

joto

When I first arrived in this area, I was asked if I went to church. I just said no. End of conversation. I find when someone says they are a "Christian" it's more of the born again variety, rather than being quietly Christian, or Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic or atheist.

Sally Redux

Catholics seem a lot more strident.

Pulaski

I've never seen that despite living a relatively rural area in what most people would consider to be the Bible Belt and eating out an average of 3-4 times a week over the past 12 years. My experience might have been different if we didn't usually avoid "family restaurants" i.e. ones that don't serve alcohol - their food is IME not so good, and their vegetables are usually cooked using a calendar as a kitchen timer!
Seriously? Weren't there any Baptists in your area?

theOAP

It's not unusual in local restaurants in Midwest smaller towns to see people praying before a meal. We often have a full course breakfast in a local restaurant when back in this area of the US. The last time we were there (2012), the table next to us had about 12 men (no ladies) holding an organised Bible discussion session. They were there when we sat down, and were still going strong when we left.

GeoffM

The wife's family is Adventist. For services they're pretty similar to CofE except no wafer/wine and on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. Usual formula: songs, some stories, a long sermon, then a happy song so people will go out happy and forget the long sermon they just switched off for.

However the food is similar to Jewish (and others): no pork, no fish without scales, no shrimp, etc. Except that the more nutty go vegetarian instead so you look at a dish which seems quite nice, bite into it, and then find that it's some highly processed non-meat like tofu (which itself has had its merits questioned). Yet some church event I was encouraged to go to had one long table of fake food, and a much smaller table with real meat. Guess what? All the meat dishes went; the veggie stuff barely touched. Double standards.

The couple of times my wife inadvertently had pork she loved it, but started retching when she found out. And my son, about 5 at the time I think, once declared to me that pork was evil, the work of Satan, stuff like that. I asked where he learned that? "At church school" he said. I was so angry: it's one thing to say "we don't eat pork because it says so in the Bible"; it's quite another to start filling kids' heads with utter nonsense and lies in the name of "religion". Brainwashing, cult-like. It's scary.

I actively avoid going to church despite the wife and kids going. It's safer that way.

(Sorry for the religion rant - guess I needed to let off some steam!)

Sally Redux

I quite like tofu but I couldn't stand for all that rubbish, and my kids believing in Satan I'm afraid.

Sally Redux

Sorry, I meant more strident than UK Catholics.

OnwardandUpward

'I look at most of these experiences as the slightly awkward parts of being exposed to different cultures.'

@dunroving, yes, I think a lot of the practical things- transferring money, getting IDs, that's all easy to find out info, I sometimes wish someone had taken me on one side when I got here and said 'now just because the language is similar remember it's a completely different culture- keep your mouth shut until you know what you are talking about!' or something like that!

One of my first experiences here was going to a big party friend of a friend in Little Rock and these Brits had made themselves a large group because they did not want to become part of the American culture where they lived. I decided I didn't want to do that but I think sometimes I didn't understand what I was getting involved with.

'Praying in restaurants? That's actually a thing in some places? I've never seen it happen in the NE and I think it'd nearly be as regarded as bizarre as it would be in the UK.'
@rjps it happens all the time here, I don't particularly like it to be honest considering it from a religious point of view, we're supposed to do our praying quietly, Matthew 6 etc.

@GeoffM
I think one of the uses of a forum is you can have a little rant once in a while! I try not to eat at pot luck style parties- I always get sick. The last time I went to one was ages ago and I took a great big bunch of bananas thinking it would be good for the kids, a few minutes later someone exclaimed loudly 'who the hell brings bananas?'!

I think with hindsight I would have gotten into a lot fewer political discussions over the years too, where I thought it was just a conversation but the other person actually was offended because I didn't agree with them and I didn't realize until it was too late!

@Sally Redux 'Emigrating will not solve your life issues Emigrating is not like visiting Gut feelings trump objective lists '
I think that's so true, we go out looking for something in the world...
It's way more stressful than I thought to emigrate and change cultures, and it's only now years later I realize that.

Well I wanted an interesting life- and it's been that! But that's a Chinese curse isn't it 'may you live in interesting times'?!

kodokan

I live in a very heavily Mormon community; despite their media image of being a closed-minded cult, they are completely fine with us not being Mormons, or religious. They are good, kind people; we chat regularly over the garden fence; we've been to their houses for dinner; they invite us to the more community-focused events like the Halloween Truck or Treat in their church's parking lot.

Not long after we moved in, the missionary boys came to the door. I wanted to learn more about Mormonism out of interest and to help foster better relationships with our neighbors, so I arranged for them to come over for an evening, but explained 'that we're not even religious, so it's not so much persuading us Mormonism is a better path, as firstly convincing us that supernatural beings exist'.

They - being sweet but unworldly 18 yr old boys - very sensibly brought along a much older, articulate chap who'd spent some time in the UK, and we had a truly interesting discussion about their theology and beliefs (whilst the young boys sat back, ate biscuits, and tried not to look hopelessly lost - they'd checked out of the conversation when I opened by asking them 'So, you think I should consider becoming a Mormon *enthusiastic nods*... well, why don't you tell me what made you become one? *blank looks*... it's a very important decision, isn't it, presumably the most important thing one can do, given it could determine how you spend your eternal existence *back to nodding*... so you must have given it a great deal of thought to make sure you got it right - researched other religious choices, spent some time with their leaders and at their services, read extensively about their histories and beliefs... what, after all that, did you find so compelling to make you personally choose Mormonism over all the other possible choices?' *stunning silence as they process something that had never occurred to them*)

My Mormon neighbors oddly seem to appreciate that I'm not hostile to their religion - I think their experience is that non-Mormons, ie, 'normal' Christians, treat Mormonism as an inferior cult. Whereas as I explained to them, their story of a young man being visited by angels and having the Word of God revealed to him via special stones and a magic hat is logically just as plausible as a man going up a mountain and staggering down clutching a couple of carved stone tablets. So I don't see their version of Christianity as being any more or less likely than any other; I'm very equal opportunities in my disbelief.

So, nice people, good neighbors. The trouble is that moving on to that 'next topic of conversation' mentioned above is so hard! I find that religious people here, Mormons and others, have very incurious minds. They don't like to question, to consider, to analyze, to in any way live a self-examined, deliberate or critical life. Their views on religion, politics, social issues, family, community, everything about how they live their lives was baked into them in childhood, and hasn't altered since. Either unconsciously or through deliberate mental self-preservation, they've never asked themselves 'wonder if there's another way to live..?' They're literally unable to imagine lives unlike their own, and even attempting to makes them mentally squirm.

So I learned very quickly that anything resembling a proper conversation, with an exchange of views and learning, is out. That means that mentioning anything that happens in the news is doomed to uncomfortable failure. And anything based on modern culture is no use as they're not permitted to consume anything above a PG rating, so once we've covered off 'seen that latest Disney flick?', we're done on movies/ TV/ books/ music. And they can't fall back on what they must spend a lot of time talking about between themselves, other friends from their closely-knitted congregational lives, as I don't know these people.

Mostly we talk about the kids and school (during which I firmly don't mention my views on the legally-mandated abstinence-until-marriage sex ed curriculum, or the way that the local school board last month ripped pages from all the high school biology textbooks that had the scientific temerity to mention that contraception can prevent pregnancy). Or gardening - wherever possible, I talk about gardening.

I'm more in the conversational camp of 'let's sit round the table, pour another glass of red, and excitedly put the world to rights, with lots of gesticulating and passionate arm-waving, let's challenge each other's views, let's learn new stuff about each other, the world, ourselves'. I find it very hard to be surrounded by people with such a perennial lack of intellectual curiosity. It's not people's religious beliefs here I struggle with, truly - my best friend here is a devout Presbyterian, and she and I have had some wonderful conversations about how she's formed much of her personal belief framework from her experiences as a trauma nurse observing people dying. I completely respect her world view and how she's come to it, even though it's very different to my own; it's actually fascinating in its difference. But the others, the 'la la la, hands over ears and eyes, shut up, be quiet, stop it, just not going to think about that' people, with their voluntary ignorance - I struggle with those.

OnwardandUpward

'wherever possible, I talk about gardening. '
@kodokan, love it! Must cultivate that for myself : )