Thoughts on Being an American

     Traveling to the USA with non-Americans has been incredibly enlightening. There were lots of things that I didn't notice as being different until I had someone ask me the questions.
    The first was four way stops. They don't have them at all in NZ and apparently not in other places where Rob and Tanya have lived. The concept of having to stop even if there isn't anyone else there was frustrating to them. It does seem a bit silly some times to stop all the time.
     Next was explaining tipping. The concept of tipping is somehting that I have struggled with. At one point in university I did a bit of research so that I knew more about it. I felt like I did a good job of explaining things. It was easier to explain it to Rob and Tanya than it was to explain it to the kids. Kaiya was very curious as to why we don't pay people a full wage. I really had no good explanation for her about why our society doesn't always pay people well.
   Kaiya was definitly one of the biggest questioners this trip. We saw some homeless people in Kona. She is not exposed to homeless people where we live in NZ. She asked how people became homeless, how they get out of homelessness, how do they live, what do they eat, why doesn't the goverment help them etc. I was greatful for all the time I spent at the Community Center for Action and Service Learning. I tried really hard to give her an answer that was honest but also intellectually appropriate for her. Jack was curious about homelessness but not as much as Kaiya.
    All the kids, Rob and Tanya were surprised by the number of police everywhere and the fact that they carried guns. I don't know how to explain why they carry guns they just do. I never thought about it in all honesty. To me it is just something that police do. Kaiya thought it might be bacause bad guys in America have guns and bad guys in New Zealand don't. I like her reasoning. I have no idea if it is valid or not but we went with it. Rob hypothsized that it was because some of them "are tooat to chase a bad guy so they shoot instead". While we did see a number of heavier officers I think it was more due to the small size of the Kona police force and the large number of people and need for crowd control than a trend amongst police officers. They were also surprised by thenpolice on bikes. Rob was interested enough in it to take pictures of police on bikes.
    The food was another differnt point of questioning. In New Zealand there are loads of cafes but in the states there aren't. It certiantly makes it harder to feed the kids. They also don't like peanut butter and jelly which is on all kids meals we saw. They didn't get the orange cheese thing. After reading the cheese lable it turns out we dye our cheese. Why do we dye our cheese orange? I really have no idea. I thought cheese was orange...I just thought that they made cheese different in New Zealand. I feel a bit silly that I didn't notice it. The next weird food thing is sugar in the bread. Some of the loaves of bread I looked at had up to have 5g of sugar per slice. You may think I was looking at cheap breads but I looked at loads of them including the uber healthy looking ones with nine grains and seeds. Why do we have so much sugar in our bread? After spending time with the sugar free bread I really noticed how sugary it tastes. While we are on the topic of food our coffees are super big. The American small lattee is the size of the NZ large. I normally get a small here and a large in NZ so it really doesn't matter to my life but it was very noticable.
     The next big question is why isn't tax included in the list price. Adding tax after is just confusing. I toally agree with this. I wish tax were included. I am starting to think the US isn't actually that much cheaper than other places. We just make it look that way by adding little fees every where so the list price looks cheap.
      While we are on the subject of money; pennies. There was a general confusion as to why we have them if they aren't really worth much. In NZ they round so you never end up with something that is 92 cents so NZ doesn't need them. I don't have a good reason for why we haven't gotten rid of them. The kids did enjoy findimg them places. I told them about how they are lucky if you find them with the head up. I remember my grandma telling me that heads up pennies are lucky but I don't know what the origion of it is. I really should look it up for them. I also don't know why we wish when we throw pennies in wells. I don't know the origions of it either. My money history is really lacking. Why do we have odd names for our money and not call them 50 cents and 10 cents like other people do.