Culture shock in America
Observations of the first three months
I was born in Indonesia. Coming to Australia, South Korea, Netherlands, and other areas in Indonesia, my culture shocks were caused by the difference I saw in their people. Australia introduced me to Western society, South Korea hit me with Confucian hierarchy, Netherlands pushed me back with the scheduling culture, and Greater Jakarta amazed me with littering behavior (told ya to visit my hometown).
Coming to United States, it’s not the people who strike a difference. Because of Hollywood movies? No, they don’t necessarily behave like in the movies. Several years ago I visited United States twice, one north-east and one south-west, and saw that people were truly human. The energy felt like home, with the saddest and the happiest people, the fastest and the slowest people.
It’s the System that caused the shock, once I visited to make a living here. Living in the other countries, systems were just part of life. I discovered the way the systems work only after traversing life longer, such as what I eventually discovered in the Netherlands.
Australian, South Korean, and Dutch systems didn’t cause an immediate shock, as they felt like side dishes. In United States, the System is the main dish. I have to have it, because it’s the backbone of my life as a temporary resident. Three things to summarize.
Your worth is determined by how much you’ve borrowed money (and whether you’re able to pay it back)
To be short: credit history determines whether people can financially trust you or not. Property owners want their renters to have a good credit history. Cable companies, gas and electricity companies, mobile phone services (except pre-paid) want their clients to have a good credit history. For us newcomers, our zero credit history means bad history.
No salary slips can help. No minimum account balance can help like how South Korean banks apply to expats and Dutch banks apply to students.
A supermarket cashier commented on our use of debit card, “Use credit! It’s safer!” raising questions to us who used to have it only for arranging business trips at work. American friends advised us to apply for one, use it as our main payment method, to build our credit history. “Within a year you’ll be fine!”, and that is also mentioned by the — eventually — apartment manager who bypassed our credit score requirement by asking a higher deposit.
Still, applying for a credit card is not easy, even if they’ve been saying that Secured Credit Card is something that we can use as a first-timer. Applying for a Secured Credit Card still requires certain calculation by the bank, and that takes an unpredictable time. Employer’s help is needed as a guarantor.
We know a 29-year-old just fresh out of graduate school who could not apply for a Secured Credit Card. Her only credit history is the university fee debt of tens of thousands of dollars. Imagine, you want to live independently as a 29 year old, yet your inability to rent on your own (even with the salary you earn), pushes you to live with your parents.
No wonder homelessness is a problem in this country.
Get a good employer, or you’re also doomed for healthcare
Apart from an employer who can sign up as a guarantor for credit card application, a good employer pays all employees’ health insurance fees. It’s almost the norm for full-time jobs, although some companies pay only an employee’s health insurance, not including his/her family member’s.
Because health insurance fees are just too expensive! It’s like paying half the rent of your apartment and still left with a huge excess / out-of-pocket to pay. In some European countries, although health insurance is also privatized, their governments have a regulation that sets a limit to how much companies are allowed to charge their customers.
No worries for Australians and South Koreans, as their governments support universal basic healthcare. As expats, we paid insurance fees in order to get the same support as what their citizens got. Private insurance companies operate on providing extra insurance plans such as dental care, eye care, and expat plans.
The lack of basic universal healthcare is almost a crime against humanity that an advanced economy government can commit these days. Indonesia, having made its way to G20, have launched the basic universal healthcare in 2014 (at the end of SBY’s presidency term), although with a very small premium (0.18% of the lowest minimum monthly wage) for each family member.
That’s why Obamacare was the long awaited system that the American government can give to its citizen. And sadly, Trump’s administration is trying to get it discontinued. My heart goes with the old retirees who need regular treatment and the single parents working 3 jobs with small kids who get sick regularly.
Meanwhile, employers continue to cover health insurance fees and middle-upper class’ life goes on.
Where inequality meets absolute capitalism
Inequality is inevitable in a country with such a large population. Take the five most populous countries in the world: China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil. I don’t know much about Brazil, but I can tell the super-billionaires of China, India, United States, and Indonesia. I also easily hear stories about people living at the bottom of economic class from the four countries.
Enter absolute capitalism. Before I started living in United States, I didn’t understand the real meaning of capitalism. I didn’t feel the impact. Once I started living here, the proofs of capitalism slid into my daily life like a stream.
Which supermarket to shop? I spent two months to try different ones, walking on each aisle one by one, getting dumbfounded by the endless options to choose from, before finally adapting to this part of culture shock. I know it might not be so much of a shock for Jakartans who are used to visit their gigantic shopping malls in their weekends.
Packaged and advertised differently, we saw too many similar products. It’s the reason choosing what we want to stick to took too long. The upside of many options is of course more opportunities to find really good products. We did find a gem here and there, although finally we decided to stick to a small-scale European-style grocery place and an all-you-can-find hypermarket.
We decided not to have a TV subscription, because of the attention exhaustion we imagine seeing so many ways of advertising in this country. Getting too frequent YouTube ads and peeking into mainstream magazines can tell me enough about marketing activities in this country. Oh how we missed watching quality documentaries from Dutch and Belgian TV stations.
Not to mention frequent advertising calls to my mobile phone. I no longer pick up calls from unknown numbers. Red button to the rescue, shut up phone!
Absolute capitalism is profit-making to the extreme. It is one of the contributing factors why health insurance is so expensive, and why Obamacare is under scrutiny. The government is friends of capitalism, as the foundation of any industries including agriculture, education, and healthcare.
The downside of absolute capitalism is the worsening of inequality. The upside? It resulted in the abundance of charity initiatives. Think of Bill and Melinda Gates or Chan-Zuckerberg foundations, there are so many local ones around where we live. No wonder this country ranks #2 (#1 in 2014) in the World Giving Index 2016.
Meanwhile, it’s easy to fall into the game — what most people here are accustomed to — of endless calculations for higher profit margins in running the business of our life.
There are other little things I can point out though, but negligible. I had fun reading immigrant’s experience with culture shock in United States. Some of them I could relate.
Maybe there’s a reason why the people feel like home. They greet strangers with smile, have too much small talk with strangers, have an apparent language etiquette, can be informal, fast-paced and spontaneous. Although I don’t necessarily like all of those, they remind me of the people of Indonesia. Not to mention the cultural diversity and the foodie culture.
America, no matter how you’ve shocked me, your people have caught my heart even before I settled here. I will continue to participate in spreading love to each other, and appreciate the people in order to make the most of my years here.
