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America. Probably one of the most interesting places on Earth. America has always been a source of fascination and wonder for people all over the globe, with Romanians making no exception. Everyone has their own ideas and theories about America, based on accounts of friends and family, movies, the Web and hundreds of other sources. Everyone thinks they know all about living, studying and/or working in America, but how much do they really know? Sure, we all have the distant cousin or the high school buddy who lives in the U.S. or who went there once. We've all heard the stories.
Since we like these stories so much, here's another one for you. It's mostly bits and pieces about the American economy, society and culture; some interesting and some plain, vanilla flavored. But, in the end, the big picture is made of bits and pieces, so here we go.

A note of warning before we start, though: this author will try to be objective, even though that isnt' always possible. Keep in mind that this is a personal account after all. Furthermore, comparisons with Romanian society, economy and culture are unavoidable.

The first thing you notice upon arriving in the States is that things are different than what you knew from Romania. Let's start with the people. Americans are really relaxed and laid back. People smile. They are helpful, open, friendly and outgoing; it's not that everyone wants to be your friend (human relations in the U.S. are colder than in Rofmania) - but people are just friendly, which is kind of nice. You don't see the mean or depressed faces you get in Romania all the time, where people aren't helpful even if they get paid to be that way. There's probably a difference in how people see life and deal wth issues; whereas in Romania everyone makes a big deal out of everything and nothing ever gets solved or accomplished, in the U.S. people are more focused on solving problems and accomplishing things. Sure, that's a lot easier in the U.S., but still there's a big difference.

Americans are highly focused and motivated in their personal and professional endeavours. So they tend to be pretty self-centered, which is not really a bad thing if you want to get things done. The American society is very liberal, and allows the existence of countless (and at times conflicting) ideas and points of view. This is one of the most interesting aspects of American society, and possibly a leading cause for economic and social development. Still, Americans tend to be over-sensitive about certain issues, such as discrimination, political corectness or physical appearance.

Surprisingly, the U.S. is one of the most nationalist countries on Earth; There's a high patriotic sentiment in the nation, and American flags and symbols are to be found everywhere. This is interesting and kind of nice, but at the same time Americans tend to overestimate their country's influence, role and likeability in today's world (even though American economic, political and cultural influence is undeniably huge around the world).

A fascinating aspect of American society is social activism. There are countless organizations and associations directed towards various social, environmental, economic or political goals; Americans like to make their opinions heard and more importantly, they get involved in promoting their beliefs and act on them.

An interesting thing about American society is diversity. You find people of all races, religions and cultures living and working together, which, again, is kind of nice. As a foreigner, you get a chance to interact with people of various different cultures - an opportunity that you would not get in Romania. For reference: 72% of the American population is white, 13% is black, 11% is latino and 3.8% is asian. Another interesting thing is that about 11.5% of people living in the US were born in another country (2.5% of the population consisting of illegal immigrants, the majority of which are Mexican). these statistics do not take into account the big number of American-born persons whose parents were born in other countries.

Sure, Americans believe in various stereotypes regarding Europeans, Mexicans, or Canadians, for instance. But in general, Americans are pretty open to accepting and dealing with people of different cultures. I'd also like to note several mentalities of a typical American. Some are quite interesting, while some are plain funny. People born and living in the U.S. usually believe that the way things are in America is the way things are (or should be, at least) everywhere else. Since people willingly get limited exposure to news from other countries, and do not care to get in-depth information of foreign cultures and events, they are all perpetually puzzled about various developments and customs of countries around the globe. This leads to a certain narrow-mindedness in evaluating and analyzing events and situations that happen in other countries. Taking this into account, and noting the specifics and structure of American society (which provides rules, laws and support for every aspect of a person's life), at times Americans appear somewhat naive when dealing with the real world.