Quote:
Originally Posted by
CMD.EXE 
You're absolutely right about one being more comfortable in a setting he is used to. If you take particular elements of that comfort however, you do see certain things to be certain ways in some places.
One of the largest issues is space. Personal dwellings in Europe and often much of the world ie Japan, etc are on average far smaller than average American dwellings. The answer I got from a lot of people in Europe asking what American lifestyle is was "big car, big house". I'm not saying big cars and big houses are the "right" way to go, but if you're used to them you might not be comfortable elsewhere where that comfort is not a standard.
I will take a wild guess that you are Italian. I can tell you that most likely food-wise, the US is not a comfortable place to live unless you like the food there. The same can be said for many other europeans. On average our bread is horrible compared to Euro bread especially from countries with bread traditions. In the US bread is usually made in a factory setting, in Europe at a local bakery. I liked the average quality of the produce better in Italy than US, it was also cheaper usually. I like that in Italy you can get an espresso for 1/3 of the cost of starbucks.
So, what I am saying is I think he will be more comfortable in America. What I am not saying is America is any better or worse than any other country. If he chooses Japan I think that will be a great experience to understand the "big house, big car" thing in a radical way. Also, the Japanese are probably the most honest people I've encountered.
lol- I am German not Italian. I've been to both Italy and the US often enough though to agree with your observations on houses, bread and coffee.
One of the comforts I have come to appreciate about my own country is health coverage. We don't have socialised health care in the same sense as the British with the NHS (although from what I read in The Economist, that system is not without its flaws), but we have statutory health insurance, meaning anybody who has employment has coverage. When you get a job, your employer is legally obliged to stop a percentage from your monthly wages in insurance premiums and forward it to a health care provider of your choosing. The good thing about it is 1) no state-authorised health insurance company can reject you, regardless of how low your wages may be (since the percentage is the same for everybody the insurers obviously make less money from low-income families), and 2) it doesn't matter if you are perfectly healthy or drastically ill - even if you develop a serious, chronic illness, the treatment of which far outweighs whatever you pay in contributions, your insurer can neither kick you out nor raise your contributions - they stay the same forever unless the government decides to raise them for everybody.
Actually if you lived in Berlin and in Munich you are probably aware of all this. Students of politics or economics can well argue over whether this kind of system is ideal (or even fair) but the fact remains that if you were born in Germany, you grow up taking health coverage for granted. There are plenty of things I like about the US but I don't know I could get used to a precarious health insurance system. Although I'll admit I'm a little unclear as to what has changed since Obama's health care reform.
