Guestblog: First words you learn in the USA

How are you?

Those are the first words heard by a newcomer to the United States of America. You can answer with “fine”, or you ask the counter question (“How are you?”) or the third way of responding is, you ignore it.

Do you think people are really interested in you and “how you are” at this moment? No, I don’t think so...the question is more a friendly way of saying “hey.”  And a question like “How are you?” starts every conversation on a friendly basis. And that is a good feature. Or is it?

I’m Max Kellner, an intern at Wf360.  I come from Berlin, the capital of Germany.  It’s a big City with 3.5 million people and an area a little bit smaller than New York City. But New York is not the same as Berlin. They are two amazingly different cultures. Perhaps it would be best to describe my experience after my first month here with adjectives: fast, busy, cool, chic, crazy…that sounds for me like a typical metropolitan City.  But in what ways does New York distinguish itself from Berlin or even all Europe?

Sometimes when I sit in the train I feel like a European. I’ve got the notion that everyone must see that I’m a foreign person. European clothes, different way of sitting or not enough coolness… I don’t know…something must define me. Or is it just fantasy? The last few days, my roommate confirmed my idea that there are differences between the two of us.

  

The best way to the see differences is to go to places where all people must go.  For example: the shopping market. In my eyes, the typical New Yorker around my age has an IPod, sneakers and wears baggy pans, most of the time with a baseball cap. That is the cliché, but I think it is accurate. However…the cliché says nothing about the person and if you answer the question “How are you?” in the third way that I mentioned above (by ignoring the question), then you never will learn more about the American culture beyond the stereotype, that is certain.

Furthermore I’ve learned that here you must get comfortable with being very open to others.   That appears to be very normal here. People talk to you in the train, bar, supermarket, elevator and all other places. It’s normal and the people don’t appear annoyed.  At least most of the time.  That is a big difference from Germany, where people are more reserved.

Everyday is a new day for me. Often I’m not sure I’m doing the right things. I want to give you an example. Last weekend, I went to a Bar in SoHo, which had live TV coverage from Yankee Stadium. What I didn’t know is that the Yankees (Blue/white shirts) were playing against the Los Angeles Angels (red shirts). The problem on this evening was that I wore a red shirt, so I looked like a real LA Angels baseball fan. That is the reason I got in trouble with a group of three drunken people after the game:  all because of my red shirt. It was crazy! I don’t know what the people were talking about but I understood from they behavior that something was wrong with me.

   

Those are the small things you learn over time. You don’t learn these things from a book; if you come into these situations like I have, you will be learning it from experience. Guaranteed!