I think a broad observation I have of India via US, *including the ritzy parts of India* is that in a similar way that Japan is just a bit nicer than the US (things are cleaner, there's conveniences like double press on elevators etc), the US is just a bit nicer than India. Things like the floors in rich shopping centers will regularly be uneven in India or you'll have someone trying to pull you into their car at the Uber line at the airport (don't even get me started on Indian airport security). I don't have a good explanation of this anymore than I can explain why Japan is nicer than the United States.
This is very interesting to see as a counterpoint to your original culture shock post!
On checked bags: It used to be universal for domestic U.S. flights to offer free checked bags (with certain weight limits), and Americans did more routinely check bags then. I feel like the change toward charging for checked bags happened sometime around 2010 (although maybe I'm off by a few years) and may have been an imitation of European discount airline practices. The fees have definitely reduced Americans' use of checked bags.
On restaurants: There are many restaurants in the U.S. that will pack leftover food to go for the customer. I don't know how to describe the difference between those where the waiter packs the food and those where the customer packs the food, but I've seen both forms. I feel like there's a trend over time toward having customers pack their own food in more and more restaurants, though.
An interesting side note: apparently in earlier generations it was considered embarrassing for customers to ask to take restaurant leftovers home, so they invented the euphemism "doggy bag" which implied (as a face-saving measure) that they were going to feed the leftovers to a pet dog. Actually, they were going to eat the leftovers themselves, but they got to pretend they were taking them home for the dog.
On the super-fast delivery services: There were some startups in the U.S. that experimented with having delivery drivers drive around all the time (with food in their cars) in anticipation of receiving an order. Some also tried having their own warehouses in city centers, I guess like the Indian services are doing. To my knowledge, all of these U.S. startups have failed or changed their business models, so I don't think this service is widely available in the U.S. It could very well be partly because of labor costs here.
On food delivery in general: South America is also amazing for very fast and cheap delivery of a wide range of stuff, normally by a guy on a motorcycle or a moped. Probably also labor costs. I hope more of those mopeds will be electric soon, because the air quality in many of those Latin American cities is also pretty bad.
On texts for transactions: As Shelly B said, you may be able to opt into this with your bank. My impression is that some banks offer it as an opt-in service, while others will only send alerts when their machine learning systems consider a transaction unusually likely to be fraudulent, rather than for every transaction. I believe some banks are also concerned that these text alerts are themselves an avenue for phishing, since a criminal could send a fake warning from a bank about a suspicious transaction, with a notice to call the "bank" (really the criminal) in order to resolve the matter (by giving one's account details and contact information).
I definitely agree that SMS is less used by businesses in the U.S. than in many other countries. I don't know all the reasons for that; one odd theory is that U.S. consumers are much more likely to sue businesses for causing them to incur carrier charges for the SMS (and I think there have already been several large lawsuits related to that, using the class action system where a "class" of consumers can notionally sue a business for a kind of harm that all of them have experienced). If so, this may have made businesses afraid to use SMS for any purpose that customers might consider frivolous or unnecessary, lest lawyers claim that the business must pay for causing mobile carrier charges!
I'm sure you can find some differences between the U.S. and other countries that are downstream of U.S. litigiousness. I certainly remember my sense in Brazil that people were more willing to allow people to be exposed to risks, which I thought probably had a lot to do with personal injury and negligence lawsuits being much rarer in Brazil.
Appreciate your extra context as always, Seth! I think you're right, there must be more differences due to the second order effects of US litigiousness than I'd normally assume. I won't be surprised if it's one of the major factors that causes things to be different here.
Ahh the parking... I do miss the 'shove into open spot' style of parking, but I kinda miss the convenience of having the bike more.
I haven't used any of the 'rapid delivery' apps yet, but I'll give them a shot in time around.
I enjoyed reading this! Having read your 'after 2 months' and 'after 3 years' of the culture shock blogs, I think I can have a pretty good guess about 'after 5 years' version of it, since I just completed 5 years. But I'll leave that for the next time we catch up!
Thanks bro! It's true I miss my bike so much, imagine going to CommerZone on a car everyday, that would've killed me LMAO. I'll do a west coast trip this year for sure 🫡
Interesting findings. I think one of the most obvious ones I was expecting you to write is that just how much red stained Indian roads, public wall, and places are as compared to USA. I know you would understand what I mean.
Very interesting...we could make out what an eventful , insightful trip you have had....seems you hardly had any free time .. literally to just sit back and relax on this holiday...
Nice read. I wanted to note that you totally can get texts for your bank alerts in the US - I set them up for over a certain threshold $, so I'm not getting bombarded with texts but something shady should show up.
Also check out Tushy for a bidet you can install without modifying your toilet at all!
I think a broad observation I have of India via US, *including the ritzy parts of India* is that in a similar way that Japan is just a bit nicer than the US (things are cleaner, there's conveniences like double press on elevators etc), the US is just a bit nicer than India. Things like the floors in rich shopping centers will regularly be uneven in India or you'll have someone trying to pull you into their car at the Uber line at the airport (don't even get me started on Indian airport security). I don't have a good explanation of this anymore than I can explain why Japan is nicer than the United States.
Spot on.
This is very interesting to see as a counterpoint to your original culture shock post!
On checked bags: It used to be universal for domestic U.S. flights to offer free checked bags (with certain weight limits), and Americans did more routinely check bags then. I feel like the change toward charging for checked bags happened sometime around 2010 (although maybe I'm off by a few years) and may have been an imitation of European discount airline practices. The fees have definitely reduced Americans' use of checked bags.
On restaurants: There are many restaurants in the U.S. that will pack leftover food to go for the customer. I don't know how to describe the difference between those where the waiter packs the food and those where the customer packs the food, but I've seen both forms. I feel like there's a trend over time toward having customers pack their own food in more and more restaurants, though.
An interesting side note: apparently in earlier generations it was considered embarrassing for customers to ask to take restaurant leftovers home, so they invented the euphemism "doggy bag" which implied (as a face-saving measure) that they were going to feed the leftovers to a pet dog. Actually, they were going to eat the leftovers themselves, but they got to pretend they were taking them home for the dog.
On the super-fast delivery services: There were some startups in the U.S. that experimented with having delivery drivers drive around all the time (with food in their cars) in anticipation of receiving an order. Some also tried having their own warehouses in city centers, I guess like the Indian services are doing. To my knowledge, all of these U.S. startups have failed or changed their business models, so I don't think this service is widely available in the U.S. It could very well be partly because of labor costs here.
On food delivery in general: South America is also amazing for very fast and cheap delivery of a wide range of stuff, normally by a guy on a motorcycle or a moped. Probably also labor costs. I hope more of those mopeds will be electric soon, because the air quality in many of those Latin American cities is also pretty bad.
On texts for transactions: As Shelly B said, you may be able to opt into this with your bank. My impression is that some banks offer it as an opt-in service, while others will only send alerts when their machine learning systems consider a transaction unusually likely to be fraudulent, rather than for every transaction. I believe some banks are also concerned that these text alerts are themselves an avenue for phishing, since a criminal could send a fake warning from a bank about a suspicious transaction, with a notice to call the "bank" (really the criminal) in order to resolve the matter (by giving one's account details and contact information).
I definitely agree that SMS is less used by businesses in the U.S. than in many other countries. I don't know all the reasons for that; one odd theory is that U.S. consumers are much more likely to sue businesses for causing them to incur carrier charges for the SMS (and I think there have already been several large lawsuits related to that, using the class action system where a "class" of consumers can notionally sue a business for a kind of harm that all of them have experienced). If so, this may have made businesses afraid to use SMS for any purpose that customers might consider frivolous or unnecessary, lest lawyers claim that the business must pay for causing mobile carrier charges!
I'm sure you can find some differences between the U.S. and other countries that are downstream of U.S. litigiousness. I certainly remember my sense in Brazil that people were more willing to allow people to be exposed to risks, which I thought probably had a lot to do with personal injury and negligence lawsuits being much rarer in Brazil.
Appreciate your extra context as always, Seth! I think you're right, there must be more differences due to the second order effects of US litigiousness than I'd normally assume. I won't be surprised if it's one of the major factors that causes things to be different here.
Ahh the parking... I do miss the 'shove into open spot' style of parking, but I kinda miss the convenience of having the bike more.
I haven't used any of the 'rapid delivery' apps yet, but I'll give them a shot in time around.
I enjoyed reading this! Having read your 'after 2 months' and 'after 3 years' of the culture shock blogs, I think I can have a pretty good guess about 'after 5 years' version of it, since I just completed 5 years. But I'll leave that for the next time we catch up!
Thanks bro! It's true I miss my bike so much, imagine going to CommerZone on a car everyday, that would've killed me LMAO. I'll do a west coast trip this year for sure 🫡
Interesting findings. I think one of the most obvious ones I was expecting you to write is that just how much red stained Indian roads, public wall, and places are as compared to USA. I know you would understand what I mean.
You'll be shocked but I don't recall seeing a *single* red stained road or wall on my entire trip. Progress!
Really nice to hear about India from a Pune perspective. Super interesting piece.
Thanks Kishin!
Very interesting...we could make out what an eventful , insightful trip you have had....seems you hardly had any free time .. literally to just sit back and relax on this holiday...
True but it was all fun so I can't complain 😂
Nice read. I wanted to note that you totally can get texts for your bank alerts in the US - I set them up for over a certain threshold $, so I'm not getting bombarded with texts but something shady should show up.
Also check out Tushy for a bidet you can install without modifying your toilet at all!
Ah, good points!