My European friends have long said Americans are obsessed with work... the 24 hour shops, no mandate for paid vacations/pensions etc. and too few holidays.
The lowly apprentice had 42 paid days off the first year in Austria... vacation, state holidays, church holidays... etc.
My Asian friends say Americans are lazy...
All a matter of prospective.
Edit... "Perspective"
Traveling to other countries is educational.
In China, we noticed many things, VAST overbuilding of highways and huge apartment buildings compared to people living in shacks and still working in "rice" paddys. People who were middle class, wealthy people, and deep poverty. Families living in small vans. They sleep in the van but it is their business in the working trades. There are people in the part of China we visited who are boat people. They have been living on boats for centuries and they are looked down on by the Han Chinese. We also saw quite a few movable multi story dorms for the workers building all of the stuff. The buildings are blue for some reason and look like the old style motels. You could see these dorms in some of the videos from China when they were quickly building the hospitals for the virus. From what I read, they had no patients in the newly built hospitals because the CCP did not send in staff to make the facilities useful.
Another thing we noticed was school children in their uniforms walking to and from school. Elementary and Middle schools had different uniforms which were basically gym clothes. The kids would be walking by themselves with no help form parents. Unlike today in the US.
I don't think high school kids had a uniform but I don't know if we ever saw any HS kids either. They had a high school on the edge of down and the kids LIVE at the school. China, like I think most/all Asian countries appreciate and desire education. Parents will greatly sacrifice to get their kids a good education.
We did some walking around at night and were surprised at the number of business open. I remember a tire repair place being open at 10:00pm. There was very little traffic, most of the traffic is motor scooters, and I doubt he got much business. Flip side is that business was most likely his home so being open was not a big deal. He was awake, watching TV, and if some one needed service he was available.
There was a different feel to the place. Vibrant in many ways. Hustling, busy, yet ancient and modern. Wish we could go back.
On our trips to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, many of the businesses are family owned, and when it was getting close to dinner time, they closed. :shocked: What a concept! :laughing: It was odd, yet nice, to be walking around a major city in the evening with little people or vehicle traffic. They seem to have more time to do family things together or other hobbies. It seemed very civilized yet so unlike the US.
We had a trip planned to the Netherlands but that is 99.9999% canceled. We were really looking forward to visiting the country to experience their culture. What we have read and been told, is that the Dutch are very direct. They will get right to the point and say things that an American might consider rude. Their response to the virus has been interesting. They closed down schools and other public places, way after NC and I think other US states. I don't remember them doing mass testing either. They have had a huge increase of cases and deaths but they think they might be starting to plateau. Next Tuesday the government will meet, look at the numbers and decide if they should extend the lock down or ease off. They seem to be dealing with the out break with much less of the political drama that is in the US. From my reading of the Irish and Northern Ireland papers, they don't seem to have much political angst either. There was some jostling on when to shutdown the schools but eventually they did. Again, much later than we did in NC.
Viewing how other countries are handling the virus is interesting.
Later,
Dan
