The country that I come from is in Eastern Europe on the Balkans, and overall the culture is not so different from the American but the mentality of the people seems to be quite different. People in American in general are much more polite. Not necessarily in New York because of its diversity but throughout the US and often in NY people smile at you for no reason, or they are always polite when entering the store which is not always the case in Belgrade, the city I come from. Overall people seem more serious when compared to Americans, but after u get to know them they become very friendly.
One small detail that I noticed as a cultural difference would be observing people around you in your every day surroundings. Here it is considered rude to “stare” or look at someone passing by you for no specific reason, so when walking in New York it seems to me that nobody pays attention to each other, everybody just minds their own business, where as back home people look at you all the time as u walk you will very often encounter people’s eyes and notice that everybody seems to be looking at each other constantly.
Another difference is traffic and just following the rules overall, in the states people follow signs and speed limits quite a bit again in NY much less than in the other parts of the US but still much more than in Serbia. It seems to me that in Serbia we follow the saying; “rules were made to be broken” or so it seems. Of course not everybody but a big number of people, they don’t stop at stop signs, don’t like to wear seat belts, or helmets, love to speed, and enjoy swearing at each other in traffic which can often brake out into a real physical conflict.
Another difference is traffic and just following the rules overall, in the states people follow signs and speed limits quite a bit again in NY much less than in the other parts of the US but still much more than in Serbia. It seems to me that in Serbia we follow the saying; “rules were made to be broken” or so it seems. Of course not everybody but a big number of people, they don’t stop at stop signs, don’t like to wear seat belts, or helmets, love to speed, and enjoy swearing at each other in traffic which can often brake out into a real physical conflict.
These are just a few differences that seemed interesting enough to be mentioned of course there are more however life in general is not that different between these two places.
