You can see it the second you step in the country.
It's the people, first of all. What they look like, how their bodies are shaped, how big they are, the look in their eyes, how they're dressed. Then you notice what they talk about, how they talk, the words they use. And what they eat, how they eat, how they pass the time.
But it's not just that. It's how things look from above, the identical roofs and clear cul-de-sacs, little perfect developed rows of houses a stark contrast to the mass of colored roofs and no clear roads. Then it's the streets, the way people use space, wide sprawling highways where the cars drive so fast, and perfect spiraling entrance and exit ramps, and the fact that cars stop and wait quietly if the light is red. The total lack of motorbikes, the huge parking lots, the wide open department stores.
And the prices.
And then there's the supermarkets. The fruits are different, of course, the way they're presented is different. There are a thousand different varities of everything, from oil to jello, but what really got me was the meat.
The most enormous cuts of meat. Pounds and pounds of it, in a single package, thick, boneless, meaty meat, in these enormous packages. I don't know why it was so striking, but it was. And the fish fillets, these huge pieces of fish that don't even look like fish.
A lot of people sort of sneer and say Americans are so privileged and spoiled. The truth is, they are privileged. That's just a fact. Spoiled implies that it's wrong, and I think there's a lot of people who think Americans take their privilege for granted while they should be doing something to help people who aren't as much, and maybe that's true, though that implies that every American is privileged and doing nothing but soaking it up. The reality, I've often found, is much more complicated.
I don't want to make any statements or judgments on this idea. What I do want to say is that it's just clear to me how much the environment shapes you. Seeing the way life is set up here, in every possible aspect, explains to me why people look, act, think, talk as they do -- generally speaking. It just seems to make sense, and now trying to put it in words, it seems clumsy and too specific, but it's just a feeling I get. Like the world and its people fit with each other, and if the world were altered, so too would the people.
And as for this particular world I find myself in, it is most definitely a first-world country and impossibly rich. I don't mean anything by that, only that it is, and it's confusing me.
