Cultural Literacy - AUS to US

I never really thought about being literate in the US culture prior to traveling here. This is because I was very confident that the cultural differences would be very minor and the US would be like Australia but bigger (more population, bigger building etc.). I do believe that every country has their differences in culture with the Australian culture, in comparison to other countries, being very dissimilar. Within Australia the culture is fairly similar between the states with minor differences in slang being used in different states. I believe the typical Australian stereotype is depicted as all of Australia, whereas the US stereotype varies to different parts of America (e.g. south and north have different stereotypes). 

My original thoughts of culture differences of the United States in comparison to Australia would be more fast food outlets and driving cars on the other side of road and having the driving seat on the other side of the car (that’s right, we drive cars completely opposite to the United States).

The culture differences I have discovered upon living in the United States for 6 weeks has grown massively. I could write a few pages on Culture differences of the US and Australia. I will touch on the main differences now, including language barrier, fast food and other differences.

Firstly the language barrier is surprisingly larger than first thought. I initially assumed our languages would be very similar as both countries speak English. Unfortunately this is not the case (especially in the South), I have found many residents in Clemson struggle to understand my accent and I sometimes struggle to understand some strong southern US accents. I am forced to repeat my sentences regularly trying to keep the slang to a minimum, some example of this was the other day when ordering for tomato on my sandwich, the lady poured mayonnaise on it.

Another major culture shock is the amount of diverse fast food outlets there are around the place. They are everywhere and the food is very cheap. 

As you can see, White Castle is a major deal in Australia, as we do not have it back home and the outlet is very popular due to the movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Some of the other differences of which I have never experienced include drive thru banks, no water restrictions and squirrels EVERYWHERE.

The gaps of which I will need to overcome in the near future in the US would be to adapt to the different cultures of the different states whilst traveling in the US. Overall I believe it is very hard to fully understand the cultural difference of other countries, no matter how much you read or hear. I believe the best way to learn and increase your literate of other cultures would definitely be to live in another culture and experience the culture first hand. The best way to adapt and learn the culture of other countries would be to be open to change and be able to accept the different culture and to adapt to the different culture whilst trying to not insult anybody whom the culture is their everyday life.