Christmas time

Christmas in America is only one-day event: Dec. 24th is a normal working day, as well as Dec. 26th (students of course have the winter breack). The Christmas Eve is a feast dinner, but not at the scale as in Poland, with 12 dishes and lot of traditions. The normal dinner is turkey and ham, as in Thanksgiving. You can see houses colorfully lit, Christmas trees and decoration, but again not as much as in Europe.
It is more common to hear "Happy holidays" than "Merry Christmas", and needless to say, when people say "holidays" they don't have necessarily in mind "Holy Days". There are two clear trends: the "PC" trend (see below in the Pocket Dictionary of Modern Acronyms) whose followers use the "happy holidays" greeting, and the "Christmas" trend, which is getting momentum (for example, families get together to sing Christmas carols; you can also google the phrase "Put Christ back into Christmas" and see the millions of results).
Americans spend the last day of the year normally at home, watching a movie or having dinner with friends at the most, i.e. with less exuberance and craziness than in Europe. Whether it is due to the present crisis or because of puritanism, it is difficult to say.

Pocket dictionary of modern Californian acronyms

ABC - American Born Chinese, i.e. Americans of Chinese extraction (totally polite expression)

BS - Bull sh...t, i.e. a light form of an impolite expression

PC - Political Correctness, Politically Correct

UCLA - University of California, Los Angeles; also: University of Chinese among Lost Americans, for the big proportion of Asians at that university

USC - University of Southern California; also: University of Second Choice or University of Spoiled Children, because it is a private university where the children of rich people that did not make it to UCLA go

[to be continued]

Formal informality

Americans are said to be direct and informal. They address people by their first names, say "Hi!" to everybody, like improvisations, rarely call people by their titles, and dress casual clothes for most occasions including at work, especially in the West Coast. Informality is not considered a lack of respect towards the other party, rather it is consider a sign of sincerity. Moreover, informality is related to the true belief in the egalitarianism of the American society: we are all equals before God and the Law, therefore there is no need of formalities and barriers.

However, there is a certain note of "formality" in this informality. If one looks at the eyes of a casual person for 1 second, he or she will fill the need to say greetings. If one wears a jacket --not to say a tie or suit--, he or she would be pushed first at the door, just in case he or she is somebody important. Hence, if one wears a suit and looks in the eyes, all formalities awake and are due again.

Flowers and weeds

The gift culture alone would not give birth to the innovation cluster of the Silicon Valley. There is also a compelling environment pursuing the frontiers of feasibility. The Silicon Valley is an area for hunters, not fishers.

I don't know the exact statistics, but it seems that Californians do not have the "killing instinct". After one or two generations, Californians become fishers. The killing instinct is therefore imported. California is a land of opportunities; however these opportunities are sized by non-conformists from the the East Coast, the Mid-West, and abroad.

Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, says that "invention is a flower, innovation is a weed", i.e. if you want to succeed, you don't have to be nice, but effective in proliferating your idea.

I haven't still figured out how can the flowers of a "gift culture" co-exist with the weeds with "killing instinct"...

A gift culture

"If you're going to San Francisco

You're gonna meet some gentle people there"

sang The Mamas & the Papas back in late '60s. It remains true and it is part of the Venture Capital eco-system of the Bay Area.

In a radius of 50 miles around San Francisco, there are two outstanding universities (UC Berkeley and Stanford), 46% of the American Venture Capital (c.a. 20% of the World's VC), hundreds of IT (including HP, Apple, Dell, Adobe, 3M), bio-tech, and clean-tech companies, thousands of savvy entrepreneurs, and the list goes on. How can they survive and not kill each other?
One of the answers is the gift culture that proliferates in the Bay Area Venture Capital eco-system. A gift culture is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal quid pro quo exists). People help each other, interact, meet, share information and experiences. A business proposal may be refused by 30 funds before finding a sponsor. Therefore, one knows that maybe in the future I will be considering a project that was rejected by others or hire a professional that worked for the competition. Instead of annihilating the community, they grow together.

If we want to have a successful venture environment in Europe or Latin America, we will have to learn that there is a great joy in giving.

Citizenship, nationality and ethnicity

The first time I realized the difference between citizenship and nationality was when I moved to Europe. I had an Argentinian passport, but was Polish. In countries of the New World this difference is not obvious per se.

Many European countries are a composition of nations: Flemish and Waloons in Belgium, Catalonians and Basks in Spain, etc. A mosaic of nationalities enrich a country's culture.

In the United States, the concept of country and nation are equal. When Americans speak of the nation, they have in mind the country; to have the American citizenship means to be an American in nationality. If an American asks you what country are you coming from, there is no further question about nationality. However in many official documents in the US (for example, to get the Social Security Number), one has to declare his or her race/ethnicity: "American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White, Hispanic Latino", while the question of race is rarely or never placed in Europe.

The concept of nation is not univocal in Europe and America. Europe is a composition of nations and will never become a country; America is a nation composed of different ethnicities, all proud of their country. Another characteristic that makes America so unique.

Thanksgiving: B2B, not B2C

Thanksgiving is probably the most celebrated family feast in America. All races and creeds join the feast and many people, usually dispersed across the country, go back to their home cities and towns to join their families. The feast is celebrated on the forth Thursday of November. The normal meal include a turkey.
I spent my first Thanksgiving with the Bowmans, who had an open-house party. Most of their children (they have 11) were there and neighbors also showed up. After dinner, some of the children, who are already adults, started telling family stories from their childhood, where in every case their dad was the heroe.
Traditionally, it was a time to give thanks to God for the harvest and express gratitude to others for our many blessings. While historically religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday. For instance, during Thanksgiving there are at least 3 football games and people click in front of the TV for hours. The day after is the so called "Black Friday", basically a consumerism "feast" with big sales, to the point that crowds line-up before stores early in the morning to get into the shops.
It would be worthy remembering the roots of Thanksgiving. B2B (Back-to-Basis), instead of B2C (Business-to-Consumer) approach.

Citizen Patrick

American democracy is a citizens democracy. Americans not only believe in it, but also live it.

Democracy at a macro level. On the Veterans Day, I went with some friends to Sacramento, the capital of the State of California (Photos). During our visit to the Capitol, one of my colleagues showed me the name of his State representative in a board in front of the State Low Chamber. I asked if his representative was Republican and he denied. I was surprised for I knew him to be very conservative. Hence, I asked if he voted for a Democrat during the last State polls and... he denied again! Seeing my even bigger surprise and confuse, he explained that this particular Congressman was not voted by him, however was his representative. What a difference to what we experience in other countries! "If Smith/Kowalski/Garcia was not voted by me, he is not my representative", we say. If we want to a democracy, we have to learn the basis of democracy.

Democracy at a micro level. Driving in America is easy. Almost all the cars are automatic, the lanes and streets are well signalized, etc., etc. There are some particularities that newcomers should know, and one of them are to full "STOP" signals.

I was one of those "newcomers" driving back home early in the evening. When I parked the car in the parking lot, I saw a track entering the parking lot as well and asking me if I have a driving license. I answered that I have an international driving license. He next told me that I passed at least 3 "Stops" without fully stopping and that I should take care. I introduced myself, ask for his name --Patrick--, and next I thanked him for the advise and promised to be more careful in the future. [As an explanation, I can only add that sometimes these "Stops" are difficult to see.]

Patrick is the model for American democracy. The state is the sum of individual persons and not an abstract imposing rules. I surpassed "his" laws and he was responsible and kind enough to drive to my place (who knows how far?) and teach my the basic rules. We need more "Patricks" in our home countries.

Excellence, magnanimity and XXXL size

Americans are generous with space, quantities and sizes. Let's put a few examples.

1. In a hotel anywhere in the world, one must hang the towel on a hook or fold the towel in a bathroom bar, while in America the bars at the hotels are wider than the towels, which by the way are bigger than usually anywhere else.

2. If you are going for an ice-cream in America, ask for only 1 (in words: only one) scoop, or --if you are really hungry-- 2. Once I asked for 3, and the seller said he cannot put 3 scoops in a cone, although the cone was really big. So I asked for 2 scoops. What was my surprise when I saw the huge ice-cream!

3. Small and medium cars like VW Astra, Toyota Corolla, Peugeot 406 are typical in Europe. In America, everybody seems to drive a car as big as possible.

4. Coffee may not be strong, but it goes in big quantities.

5. In fast-foods, you pay once for you drink and you can refill it as many times as you want.

However it may be misleading to think Americans make things big just because. They do things right, with professional excellence. Sometimes there may be a lack of aesthetic, but works are always well finished.

Squirrels, buildings and earthquakes

What squirrels in California grey? Evolution.

Buildings in California are made almost entirely of wood because of the earthquakes. Wood is more flexible than concrete, and not as expensive as steel. The voluminous demand of wood made the landscape more rocky and harder for red squirrels to camouflage in the surroundings. As a consequence, the squirrels in California evolved to a more grey color.

Needless to say, the above mentioned "theory" is hilarious.

However, certain details are true: buildings are made of wood and many faults run across California.

About this blog

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (29 July 1805, Paris – 16 April 1859, Cannes) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies. Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.

An eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition, Tocqueville was an active participant in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution,Volume I.

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In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through America in the early 19th Century when the market revolution, Western expansion, and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life. He saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as the community.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville

In this blog, I will try to describe in an interesting way the American society, especially in the West Coast, and what can we learn from them almost 180 years after Tocqueville's famous book.