What's it like living in the States / NZ or Oz ?

Quote: Dr. Math

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What I can't understand is the suggested video for the one you linked to was a whole lot more videos from Bill Mayer....and then 1 video of Allan Donald bowling a cricket ball at Steve Waugh.

I'd like to throw in my two cents here.

Much of this thread has discussed the American cultural differences between North and South.  I want to point out that this is really the difference between Urban and Rural USA.

I grew up in northern Indiana, minutes from the Michigan state line.  My home county is a bastion of Conservative Republican politics to the point that no Democrat has served in the county-level government in my living memory.  Elections are decided during the Republican Party primary, not the general election.  Despite being part of that "liberal North", it shares a government-wary, gun-loving, truck-driving, immigrant-fearing, God-loving culture with the South.  Heck, you can find Confederate flags up here, and the Klan still holds publicity stunt rallies on the county courthouse steps.    We still hunt and fish and shoot, and we want the government to leave us alone.

But we Midwesterners differ with our Southern kin on a few things.  Our racial makeup in the Midwest is noticeably more, ahem... monochrome than the South.  There is no NASCAR fandom up here (racing fans look toward Indianapolis and Detroit rather than Daytona and Talladega).  Less basketball, more football (not soccer).  Less alligators and more deer.

Midwesterners are just as ardent about religion and faith as Southerners, but we feel that religion is a very personal matter and consider it rude and impolite to aggressively push religion into a non-believer's face.  In my experience, there is far less evangelical proselytizing in the North than in the South, but that doesn't mean we don't live the faith.  Church communities are the biggest form of social order and cultural activity here.  Teens participate in church youth groups to such a level that the Boy Scouts have been unable to maintain Troops here. (Personally, I moved out of the Midwest specifically to get away from Jesusland.  It was too much for me.)

I want to college on Long Island, and boy what a difference.  The New Yorkers around me were so rude.  They were always in such a hurry, and were always rude.  Many were either too eager to be chatty (Midwesterners are quiet types), or were instantly suspicious of me.  Urbanites were quick to judge a person by their clothing, which never happened to me in Indiana.  Nobody hunted or fished or did much anything outdoors except jog.  I missed the Midwestern simplicity and honesty, but mostly I missed the quiet.

After college, I moved to Arlington, Virginia, in the shadow of the federal government that we all love to hate.  Northern Virginia has more in common with New York than it does with Indiana, but all I have to do is drive an hour out of town to feel a little of the Midwest again.  Northern Virginia has been referred to as the "yankee occupied South".  Washington DC is justifiably called the "city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm", neither of which are really true.  We get Southern summers and Northern winters here.  One thing I do like about DC is the mass transit.  In the Midwest, there are no buses or trains or taxis.  Everything is five miles apart (about 10km), and driving was simply the only viable means of transit.

But what strikes me most about Washington DC is how few people who live here are from here.  Almost everyone I know in the DC area is from somewhere else... North, South or West.  Washington's metropolitan area is truly a microcosm of the nation as a whole, and also has a sizeable foreign population here representing their home nations.

I have lived in the rural North, and I have lived in the urban South.  Trust me, everything that has been said about the South really applies to Rural America, while everything that's been said about the North is really true for Urban America.  So please don't judge Americans by latitude, judge us by our attitude.

I think it's the same most of the world round.  I grew up in a rural community a small town of about 900 people.  Everyone knew everyone else, everyone was friendly and would stop for a chat.  When I went to Auckland and I would nod and say "good morning" to anyone who I made eye contact with walking down the street, they would look at me like I had 2 heads or something.  Because smaller communities are more close they tend to be more friendly than big cities.  

I was at the cricket last week and there was a family that had come over from Britain to watch England play us.  There was an elderly man (60-70), his wife, son and grand daughter.  They only had 2 chairs so the two men had taken them and left the elderly woman to sit on the ground.  I offered her my spare chair and she said "OH THANK YOU, you're so kind, New Zealanders seem to be more friendly, nobody in England would have done that"  I was thinking "Really?? nobody would offer an elderly lady a spare chair?"

Entitled people.