Culture, Language &…Ghosting: US vs. Europe (1)

My guest today is Feli of the YouTube channel Feli from Germany.

She is a German person who has spent a lot of time in the US and she

talks about cultural differences, and so that's kind of a bit of

what we're gonna talk about today.

Hello, Feli.

How are you?

Hi, I'm good.

How are you?

Do you say Feli or Feli or how do you pronounce your

name?

Right in between there Feli.

Feli?

No Feli.

This was an E, but the, the um...

Feli.

Feli Okay.

Feli.

Mm-hmm.

Feli.

Feli.

Okay.

Or Feli.

Feli.

All right.

No, it's not with an A at the end.

Okay.

Feli.

Feli Feli.

Sounds good.

All right.

So could you describe a bit what you talk the kinds of things

that you discuss on your channel?

And we will leave a link, by the way, in the description.

Awesome.

Uh, yeah, I just mainly talk about my experiences that I have as a German living

in the US in the Midwest specifically.

I live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Um, and I kind of ended up here by accident, if you will.

I did an exchange semester during university.

I am from Munich.

That's also where I went to university, and that was like during the last

semester of my bachelor's degree.

And then I just really liked my time in Cincinnati and I kinda

got stuck here, if you will.

And obviously that was a little over six years ago.

Since then, I've encountered a lot of things that have made my life better or

more challenging living in the US as a German, you know, things that you would

never think about, like how suddenly getting groceries is a challenge 'cause

you don't know how certain things work 'casue like, You're just so used to

how things work in your home country and suddenly you're here and you

have to deal with all these everyday things and you're like, wait, how?

Like, I remember one of the first things that was really embarrassing to me

was that the, the whipped cream that comes out of the spray can, those spray

cans are differently for some reason.

And I was like with my roommates, I was 22 years old and I had to

ask them how to work this thing and they were like, wait, you've never

like used one of these spray cans?

I was like, yeah, have, but they're different in Germany.

I don't know how to, how to work this one.

And that's kind of like overall, what I talk on my channel is just these little

difficulties and things that I really, really enjoy about my life in the US,

and then I also sometimes try to teach my American audience about German culture,

German holidays, Octoberfest, um, things that people in the US ask me about a lot

whenever they find out that I'm German.

You know, it's interesting of course, whatever you find different in the US as

a German, uh, Americans are gonna find different in Germany when they're there.

So yes, it kind of goes both ways.

Yeah.

But, uh, yeah, and of course talking about the things that are interesting

or different or fun in Germany can be a motivator for people to learn German,

which, uh, you know, is a major language, major language in Europe, major language

in history, and so forth and so on.

But what are some of the things, so you arrive as a...

well, were you 22?

Did, did I hear you say you were 22 when you arrived in Cincinnati?

Yeah.

That's right.

I, so I wonder if you were to pick sort of, okay...

how, how about you pick three or five things that you found

agreeably different in the US and three or five things that you found

disagreeably different in the US?

I actually have to ask, what does that mean?

Agreeably different and disagreeably different?

Well, uh, this is different than at home.

This is better.

This is more fun.

This is more pleasant.

Or these are things that are different.

Gee, it was better at home.

Okay, gotcha.

Um, so I would say the things that I really liked about the US that I

still like better about the US is the mentality, but not all of the mentality.

Of course, there's certain things that I like more about German mentality,

but for me at the time, I really noticed how the more positive attitude

towards a lot of things really influenced me in a positive way.

Like I felt like from a personal development, it was great being in an

environment where when I told people that I had a plan to do something,

um, and you know, like a, an idea for, to start a YouTube channel,

for example, people would usually just go, oh my God, that's so cool.

Go for it.

I love that.

That's awesome.

Whereas in Germany, my environment was more typical German in that sense,

where it would usually be like, oh, why?

Are you sure about that?

Um, and I like to summarize that with, in my experience, Germans, if

you wanna summarize it, have more of this like, approach to life and

a lot of other decisions in, in, in life uh, where it's more like, why?

And Americans are always more like, why not?

Like, just try it and what do you have to lose?

And that was like the main thing that I really, really liked about being here.

Because I just felt a lot more encouraged to do things.

Um, honestly, that's the main thing.

Other than that I would probably have to say, and it's kind of kind

of embarrassing that I really started to like the convenience in the US and

that's not necessarily something I'm proud of, but it was kind of fun to just

be able to do anything you want at any time and you didn't really have to plan.

Like I just really like being spontaneous in this country.

You can go to the store at 1:00 AM if you wanna buy something great,

you don't have to plan ahead because stores are close on Sundays, et cetera.

So, and also, I found to be much more spontaneous when I wanted to do

something at night with friends, I could just hit up like 10 of my friends

and at least half of them would be free and we would just do something.

Whereas in Germany, you sometimes have to ask people like two weeks in advance.

Germans are not like as spontaneous in general.

Um, let me think.

Is there like...

I would say probably the third thing, 'cause those are like the main things.

I think my main points were always just people's mentality.

'casue when it comes to the system of the country, there are more things that

I criticize, I think about it than I actually prefer over the German system in

terms of, you know, healthcare, et cetera.

Just the, the typical topics.

But the third one would probably be how things are less complicated

in terms of bureaucracy in the US.

So for me, like buying a, I bought a house here for example,

that was super quick and easy.

I was kind of shocked by it.

Um, I started a business here.

All those things were just really easy for me and I felt like even

though I was new to the country and to the system, I could tackle them.

So those would be my three things that I like better.

In terms of things that I don't like as much, I actually made a video

about that at the very beginning.

One of the things was washing machines.

That's probably way too, uh, particular of a topic.

But, um, when I first came here, American washing machines really drove me crazy.

Um but I would say the general things, I like the German healthcare system better.

Um, you don't have to pay for an ambulance, you don't have to worry

if you go to the emergency room.

Um, you know, those kinds of things.

Doctors don't cost tens of thousands of dollars just for taking a look at you.

Um, I had surgery here actually one time, and I saw the hospital bill.

It was a risk surgery.

It took like four hours and the hospital bill said $50,000 just for the surgery.

Um, so that's definitely something I like better about Germany.

Same as the education system.

I like a lot about the American education system.

I love campus life and all the stuff that's included, but it's

just not accessible to people.

It's just so insanely expensive in so many students in the US graduate

college with a hundred thousand dollars debt, which is normal.

And if you go to a better college, you have way more than that.

So that's definitely something I like better in Germany.

And in some ways I also have to contradict myself to what I said earlier.

In some ways I like the German mentality better.

So for example, when it comes to directness, I sometimes really miss

in the US that I don't know exactly where I stand with a person 'cause

they're gonna be overly friendly.

Um, when it comes to business also, it's sometimes difficult.

You can't just be direct with them.

If someone does a bad job, I feel like I have to kind of tiptoe around it first.

Um, so sometimes I really miss the German directness.

Okay.

Well that's very, very...

That was a long answer, I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, very interesting.

Uh, so, and as someone, you know, I, I lived in Japan.

I lived in France for three years.

It went back to Canada, and Canada's quite similar to the US in many, many ways.

And it is true that it's easier to do things, uh, you know, just

getting a bank loan or, or anything.

It's just easier.

People are more inclined to just make it easy to do things, whereas in the

older countries, they're inclined to make it more complicated to do things.

Uh, Canada's a little more bureaucratic than the US and I think that's why

in the US there's such a dynamism.

You know, they're business dynamism.

They're either go for it, they do things and the regulations

don't stand in the way.

And, and people are very friendly.

I found people in Germany uh, insofar as you know, healthcare

Canada's kind of in between Germany.

Canada has a universal coverage system, but it's not as

good as the one in Germany.

Uh, fewer beds per capita, fewer, you know...

and a little more ideological sort of rigidity to not allow any kind

of private delivery of services or strictly limit private delivery.

So the system's kind of quite fragile, but I think I agree with you, the principle

of universal coverage is, is I, I can't see any argument for not having universal

coverage and uh, similarly with education.

It is, I agree with you, it's ridiculously expensive in the us.

Um, so, but those are things that can be altered.

On the other hand, there is a dynamism in the US which is undeniable,

more dynamic, uh, commercially business-wise than Canada, more

dynamic than Germany, although the Germans absolutely are more thorough.

So all of our appliances at home are at German appliances.

They're thorough, you know, and they're gonna make it.

Whereas, uh, north America, It's, it's kind of, you know, whatever.

This is good enough.

So out the door it goes.

I'm exaggerating, but it was quite interesting.

Your observations would be quite similar to mine.

Um, but by and large, one other thing, you know, so you're living in the US

um, when we go to another country, It's almost unreal because we're living in a