Moving into the U.S. has been a challenge for me. Not only because of the distance, but because of the cultural differences between Russia and U.S. First thing I noticed that the Americans have a different attitude towards work, specially on the Eastern Coast. People here value the work time much higher above the personal time. Normally people with 2-3 jobs who work 10-12 hours a day are considered as an example for the rest. I've been to the West coast too and the relationship is conceptually different. When you come to Los Angeles people give an impression that nobody works there, which is another extreme. In Russia people normally have more vacation days and holidays which shows the value of the personal time.
Another striking difference are the interpersonal relations. For example, when I was first asked the question: "How Are You?", I had to think what to say as I didn't know that "Good, Thanks" would be the more or less standard answer to it, which on one hand shows the positive attitude towards life, but from the other - some degree of superficiality in interpersonal relations.
Living here has changed my rhythm of life drastically. Before, I used to see the fridges with many different magnets on them with all sorts of notes only on TV, but now - is reality, as I wake up and see my own fridge door covered in all sorts of same notes I've seen in movies, as my life is being fit into this tight schedule.
Another big difference I observed, is that many people here do not cook at all because of the lack of time and the abundance of cooked food and fast food sold on the streets. While living in Russia, the absolute majority of my meals were homemade.
But as time goes on I can say that I see less differences and less things seem unusual as I accept them as a norm.
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I also noticed that New Yorkers are very work oriented. People work extremely late and hardly ever go on vacation. In Europe, people usually try to leave early and have about 5 weeks of paid vacation. In return, employees over there are highly efficient in order to meet their deadlines. I think it is essential to have a healthy balance between work and personal life, but unfortunately most New Yorkers sacrifice their mental and physical well being in order to advance themselves. In the long run they will suffer from burn-out syndrome or other illnesses, which will prevent them from further pursuing their career goals.
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