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Here's a question regarding small town USA. In Australia, most country towns, no matter how tiny, have a local Chinese restaurant. Run by a Chinese immigrant family, onto which the locals vent their outright racism or their "you're one of the good ones" passive racism. Is it similar in America?
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Dec 30, 2020 23:59
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Not the same as a State/County Fair, but in Melbourne every year there is the Melbourne Show. Show Day used to also be a public holiday, but I dunno if it still is. It's billed as when the country comes to the city. It is held at the Showgrounds, (where else), right next to the big racecourse in the city. Ostensibly it's all about farmers showing off their animals, but for a suburban kid like me, it was all about the showbags, (plastic bags filled with overpriced plastic tat and buckets worth of chocolate and lollies. The Show was the only time I would ever eat a Bertie Beetle.) The Melbourne Show also has The Mad Mouse. A small rollercoaster that has to be at least 70-80 years old by now. Coz when I used to ride it as a kid it was already old, rusty, decrepit and extremely dodgy. It wasn't that fast, but it was rickety and jerky, and every corner rattled both you and the structure and you felt it could collapse at any second. It is a wonder it hasn't killed anyone ... yet. Also whilst fried poo poo is all well and good, the best carny style food is a hot jam doughnut. Where the filling is so hot you burn the roof of your mouth. And it's never from a real shop, always from a parked van.
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Jan 12, 2021 05:58
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Re: Americana food. Which part of America uses the terminology "pot stickers" instead of "dumplings"? I used to have a girlfriend from Indianapolis, and when I went to the US to visit her and we went to a Chinese restaurant she had me completely baffled when she used the term, and didn't seem to know what dumplings were. We are no longer together, for unrelated reasons.
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Jan 19, 2021 11:25
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I don't have a picture, so I'm sorry. But my big recollection from my few weeks in "middle America", (The suburbs of Indianappolis and outer Dallas) ages and ages ago, are that it is a flat barren wasteland populated by giant concrete and steel poles, atop which lie even bigger fast food logos. Seriously, those enormous poles with their massive frightening McDonalds and Arby's logos stick out in my mind as the landmarks of an entire region. Also, in Indianappolis, (Greenfield or Greenwood? It was an outer suburb) I was tired of sitting around my ex-girlfriends house listening to her argue with her mum on my holiday. So I decided to go on a walk into town. It was about a 20 minute walk, but they were all against it because it was too far a walk. How could I manage such a distance without a car etc. Anyway I went on this walk, and they were kinda right, because very few of the streets had footpaths, and I didn't pass a single bus stop. If it is like that in the suburbs of a decent sized city, how do you get around small town USA if you are too young/too poor to own a car?
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Feb 9, 2021 00:45
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Big Beef City posted:No no. In Australia, Drive In Bottle Shops are common. Not only in small towns, but also in the suburbs and in the city. They aren't a big deal.
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Feb 13, 2021 23:52
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The Bloop posted:My mom grew up in Punxsutawney and left in her early twenties and hadn't been back for 40 years until someone died Forgive me if this is a rude question. But what do you mean by the bolded part? People wearing extra big cowboy hats and chewing on stalks of wheat? Peppering conversations with "Y'all"s, ""Howdy stranger"s and "You aint from round here are ya boy?"? Does it also mean they are performatively conservative/racist/homophobic/xenophobic as well? Or something else? Again, sorry if this is a stupid, or rude question.
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Feb 22, 2021 22:17
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The Bloop posted:No it's not stupid or rude and I could have been more clear Thank you for the explanation. So kind of "country" as an act of self-identification, as opposed to just living out in the country.
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Feb 22, 2021 23:10
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I really hate people with stumpy feet. I can't stand them, what with the way that the don't have the 5 little protuberences that normal people have coming out of the ends of their feet. I guess you could say I am lack toes intolerant. 
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Feb 28, 2021 23:34
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If people are still talking about lamb, (and why wouldn't you, it's delicious). The Americans are saying that it is a "special occasion" meat over there. In Aus, it's bog standard barbie meat. No pub raffle meat tray is complete without a few lamb chops. So on that: What is the Americana(tm) equivalent of a pub raffle? Is the meat tray as a prize prevalent, or common over there? And I am not talking about pub trivia quizzes. They are an entirely different thing. I am talking about a country pub raffle, where you can win a tray full of meat, (lamb chops, sausages, rissoles etc.).
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Mar 7, 2021 23:26
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I went to a private school, (I am posh and fancy as gently caress.), with a uniform. So I never had any of these insane dress code rules at school. But I do have a question: Which was feared more? "Gang" related dog whistle stuff, (baggy pants, hats worn backwards etc.), or "satan" related stuff, (metal T-Shirts, those studded wristbands and stuff that me and my mates used to like wearing etc. It is probably an apocryphal story, but I remember being told of a girl being sent home from school for wearing a Stevie Nicks T-Shirt, coz it promoted witchcraft.
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Mar 13, 2021 12:41
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on violent playground games: We used to play "brandy" with a wet tennis ball. The rules were simple. Pick up the ball and chuck it as hard as you possibly could at someone else, so that it left a mark, (a 'brand' if you will). The last one unmarked was the winner. And those who chose not to play were 'wimps'. Why was the tennis ball wet? Because it hurts more when it hits you, silly, and you can see the red welt better. This game was not banned by the school. But a game that was banned was "germ lock". Basically a game of tag, where you touch someone, and immediately after link your fingers and shout "germ lock". This means that you have transmitted the germs to the other kid, and as long as your fingers are linked in a special way, you are safe from infection. The victim has to run and find someone to unload their germs on to, or else be forever unclean. This graduated into "AIDS lock", coz we were clever and edgy, and had a more complicated locking process. This was banned by the principal, because his son had gotten into a game of it and fared badly. At morning assembly one day we were told that the game was banned, under threat of detention, because it was "a game that excludes others, and intentionally makes the outcasts feel bad". Given we knew why it was banned and who was responsible, this did not make his son any less of an outcast, nor feel better.
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Mar 13, 2021 23:51
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I never had a prom. They aren't really a thing where I'm from. So let's have a couple of young couples enjoying this American institution.  
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Mar 15, 2021 12:44
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Re garlic: Not American, but the best Garlic is black garlic. I lived on an island off the south coast of Korea where they grow/make it. If you eat it raw, it's softer and has a more subtle flavour than normal garlic. They also make black garlic juice. And on the island's annual Octoberfest party, they make garlic beer. (Which is just cheap beer with Garlic juice poured into it.) Tastes like soup. 
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Mar 17, 2021 23:57
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All this garlic talk is again ignoring a very tasty part of the garlic plant. The stalk. Again, not America, but in Korea I always loved the chopped up garlic stalks that would be put out as part of the side dishes.
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Mar 18, 2021 22:59
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Gutter Phoenix posted:
This makes me think, given Niagra Falls straddles the border between the US and Canada, which side's authorities have to deal with corpse clean up?
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Mar 19, 2021 07:37
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VideoTapir posted:
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Mar 25, 2021 03:20
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Silly American fact: I heard on QI that all 50 US states have at least one winery. Even Alaska. (I guess they grow the grapes in some kind of artifically heated greenhouse or something.) And all this "my cheese is better than your cheese" talk is bullshit. Coz sure, America's cheese making regions may make some very world class cheese, and many varieties of such. This is not the issue. The issue is that for great swathes of the American population the word "cheese" means orange squares wrapped in plastic. The euro posturing is sad and pathetic at t his point. I mean even Australia makes good cheese. We even have the class to name a brand of cheese after an olde-timey racial slur.  Can Europe or America say that?
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Mar 28, 2021 02:34
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Lenin was such a groovy hepcat, (as the proletariat of the day would call him), that he had a city named after him. Could your American John Wayne or Oprah say that? Checkmate capitaltits.
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Apr 3, 2021 11:13
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Bismuth posted:My favorite part of our HOA is that our neighbor had his truck backed out of the garage so he could wash it and left it to try, and the butt hung like 6" past the drive way, near the end of a dead end street, so the HOA sent him a warning that he had to keep his vehicle COMPLETELY in the driveway/garage (for not blocking fire lanes ofc) Regarding stuff like that. Could you fight fire with fire by filing an official complaint against the leaf blower/landscapers? Or would that just result in the HOA getting pissed off at you, and further targeting you for bullshit petty things?
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Apr 20, 2021 05:28
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This is a kinda tangential question in regards to "American" food. So you know how Chicken Tikka Masala is not an Indian dish in any way shape or form, and actually was invented in Glasgow, (I think?), and that Dim Sims aren't Chinese at all, but a bastardized version of dumplings only sold in Australia. etc. What are the American versions of this? I.E. 'ethnic' food that when it arrived in America was bastardized/mutated/adapted/appropriated in a weird way so that it has become a local staple, but is unrecognisable to the people of the region it is supposedly from.
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Apr 30, 2021 01:53
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Cythereal posted:Most of them are also snapshots of cuisines popular in a specific geographical area and time that saw most of the immigration, which makes for some fascinating ethnographic history. Yeah. Dunno about "American" Chinese food. But there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that most "Australian" Chinese food, especially in country towns comes from Fujian. As opposed to the rest of China.
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Apr 30, 2021 03:43
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Smugworth posted:Gun nerdery is very Americana Question: (and I mean this in the most non-judgey way I can.) Is there a lot of overlap between gun nerds and car nerds? I would imagine in the darker toxic-masculinity sides of both nerd-doms there would be a lot of "look at how tough I am, my gun/car is bigger than yours." But what about the weirdo engineer/mechanic type people who like taking apart mechanical things and seeing how they work and tinkering with things. You would think that both gun and car nerd-ery would scratch that itch.
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May 1, 2021 08:49
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Cloks posted:here's some insane stuff at the Wendy's flagship location in Dublin, Ohio Why is the population in the city that holds the Wendy's flagship shop growing faster than any other municipality in the whole of the United States? Because it's Dublin everyday. (I love to tell this about the capital of Ireland. Thank you Americana thread for giving me a second use for this joke.)
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May 22, 2021 09:30
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Automatic Slim posted:Guys from Indiana are good at that. I think Stephen Fry was made one of these.
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May 23, 2021 02:47
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uber_stoat posted:this kind of patriot restaurant, i think they must sell a kit that contains everything you need to set one up. they send you a big shipping container full of americana kitsch and you arrange it according to the diagram, pick an appropriately patriotic name from the list, off load the frozen fried food to the kitchen and you're off to the races. we have one in my old hometown called Cafe USA, basically exactly the same thing. hard to tell the difference. probably one of these in every town in the nation. almost as common as Chinese spots. A question about these kind of restaurants: If they are so common and prevalent, how often is it that they are sincere? i.e. How often is the Americana kitsch within the restaurant portrayed as "YAY! Rah rah America is great! Look at how awesome we are!", and how often is it ironic as in "Haha look at all this crazy poo poo, isn't it cool."?
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May 28, 2021 01:31
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This may have been covered earlier in the thread. If so, I am sorry for re-litigating old material. I am also sorry if this rant comes across as mean. But why is America so scared of public transport? Only a few really big cities have anything resembling a decent train/metro system. And even fewer of the 2nd tier cities have any decent bus lines or coverage. I have lived and worked in 4 different countries, and have always been able to take the train/bus to work. When I went to University, I lived an hour outside of the CBD, and still easily caught Public Transport to school. I was in Jian'ou, (a small town near Nanping in Fujian, China) for 6 months, and Namhae, (an properly rural island just off the south coast of South Korea), for 3 years and both of those places had more buses and better coverage than when I went to visit my then girlfriend in Indianapolis, a big US city. Hell, I even did a a year and a half in Geelong, which is a shithole, and even there I could take bus from my house way out on the outskirts of the city to the train station and be in Melbourne within 2 hours. I know the arguments of 1)Public Transport takes time and money to build the infrastructure, and US governments aren't into that, and 2)the US is bigger than Europe, (great! who teh gently caress mentioned Europe in any of this?), so for some reason city based public transport won't work, also I have heard a 3rd argument something about the way that US suburbs are planned/built, making travel between them awkward(?) But all of these arguments ring hollow to me. It just seems like the US is ideologically opposed to trains, trams and busses because something something public = socialist! so BOO.
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May 31, 2021 11:02
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Nigmaetcetera posted:Doctors are legally forbidden from unionizing in the united states. Like, they'd no-poo poo send modern day pinkertons after them if they tried. Are they Unionized but under a different title? Like is there an American Medical Association? Or a Medical Professionals of the USA Federation? Or someting similar that just doesn't use the word Union Coz, (as far as I know and I may well be wrong), the Australian Medical Association works for all intents and purposes as a Union for Doctors, but because it is not officially called a Union, is not under the same laws/rules. But then again, if you tried to legislate an entire profession's right to Unionize away here, there would be serious consequences.
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Jun 15, 2021 08:25
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If I may, I'd like to ask for stories/information/reflections of a piece of Americana that has not been fully realized in this thread: breastaurants. Hooters is the big famous one. And to a younger me, they embodied all I needed to know about America. Boobs, bimbos, beer all in a franchise level of mass produced tackiness sports bar setting. If I am in a city that has a Hooters, I make a point of visiting at least once. So far I have visited Hooters in America, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and Korea. Yes, I know the disappointment that is an actual Hooters. Overpriced mediocre chicken, and pisswater beer in big glass mugs served to you by a young girl who is being actively exploited by her employer, and is forced to performatively flirt with middle aged losers who creepily ogle her in a work uniform that is designed to be uncomfortable. When I was in America years ago, I spoke to a Hooters waitress in Dallas who told me that they get paid as little as $2 an hour, so the HAVE to work for tips and do the "present boobs and giggle" otherwise they don't earn enough to eat. Anyway, I know that Hooters is now not the only brand that does restaurants like this, and also that (I assume), it is an America only phenomenon. So I was wondering if there are people who have worked there, or frequent places like this regularly, and would have Americana style stories of and information about them.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:08
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May I please make a request of the poster doing all the pictures of counties to do whatever county Alberquerque is in? Coz as a young-un watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, that place name always sounded so weirdly foreign and American. And little kid me was initially unsure as to whether it was a real place. Either that or Kalamazoo, which I also only know of from hearing mentioned in olde-timey cartoons.
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Jul 15, 2021 02:12
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May I request ##Gary, Indiana please. It's the birthplace of famed normal man Micheal Jackson. And for the longest time I thought it was also the birthplace of Axl Rose. But he comes from ##Lafayette, Indiana. (Which would also be fun/interesting to get pics from.) All I know about Gary is that it is a joke for the kind of derelict wasteland that is outer-urban America. Much like Flint Michigan, but without the water that catches on fire. Thank you.
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Jul 16, 2021 02:25
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Cloks posted:those are absolutely called garbanzo beans and not chickpeas in that restaurant Forgive the ignorant question, but is that common in America? Calling chickpeas "garbanzo beans"? I had heard of it, but most Americans I have met on my many and varied travels have called them "chickpeas". Is it a regional thing? A class/wealth thing? Or maybe even a bullshit political thing like "freedom fries"?
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Jul 18, 2021 02:38
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This is a silly question about what Americans call food. But do Americans call this  a Gyros or a Souvlaki? And are they considered fancy exotic Greek cuisine, or greasy garlicky golden goodness that you buy from a van at 2AM as you stumble home from the pub? A second question: Given that Fish and Chip shops are not as common in the US. What do you eat at the beach? What are the fast food shops that spring up around coastal areas? Sorry if either of these questions are stupid or rude.
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Jul 31, 2021 00:10
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I love that "Mad Dan" in this case means "Angry Dan", as opposed to the "Crazy Dan" that one would usually expect from a retail establishment of that name.
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Aug 4, 2021 01:30
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Now the whole "America hates public transport" issue has been hashed over a couple of times in this thread, and as a foreigner I won't claim to understand why. So I am assuming that none of these country towns have a metro system, or tramlines, or even multiple bus routes like normal places do. But are they accessible by train or bus? I mean Greyhound bus, or inter-city trains. How often do these trains/buses run? Because if not, how in the living gently caress do you get anywhere if you don't have a car? How do you go on holiday? How do you even get to the shops, or into a big city that has the specialist item you need? I hope this question doesn't come across as too snarky.
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Aug 8, 2021 02:54
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Stolen from the Mildly Interesting Pictures thread.
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Aug 11, 2021 04:38
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Aardvark! posted:Adam's County, Pennsylvania home of Gettysburg. A question re: Gettysburg and it's surrounds: This thread has multiple times talked about performative rural-ness and the way that country US people seem to embrace the Confederate flag etc. But how evident would that be in Gettysburg? A place famously connected to Abraham Lincoln, who is just as famously a huge enemy of the Confederacy. So how do the rednecks/country boys/etc. of the Gettysburg area performatively show that they are better than cityfolk if they aren't using the Confederate flag? And if they are using the flag, how do they work their heads around the fact that this place is famous for the guy who opposed that flag the most?
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Aug 14, 2021 03:59
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RoastBeef posted:These haven't run for a few years now, but the New York commuter railroads used to have bar cars. This is awesome. I would love to have a beer and read the newspaper on my morning commute into the city.
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Aug 19, 2021 03:16
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Putting in a request for ##Boca Raton Florida. My cousin lives there, and the one time I visited, (20 odd years ago), I was horrified. They live in a gated community that is aggressively beige, and it is in the middle of nowhere. When I visited, because I didn't want to be a burden to the family, or just hang out at their house all day on my first trip to America, I wondered if I could catch the bus/train into Miami and spend the day there. Well it took a 20 minute drive to get me to one station, where the train only ran once every 2 hours, that took me to a transfer station where I had to wait a further 1/2 an hour for the train that dropped me off in what to me at the time seemed like a seedy, run down part of Miami nowhere near anything of note. I was expecting the cool pastel coloured art-deco buildings and palm trees that you see in the movies. So yeah, I request ##Boca Raton to get a different view of Americana. More beige, middle class, soulless horror than the gravy poured on a fried hamburger at a rural diner Americana that this thread has lots of.
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Aug 30, 2021 02:50
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I have a request for stories/explanations/reminiscences of another weird, (to me), part of Americana that is not often shown in this thread: Dry Counties, and the weird drinking laws within, (i.e. you can't buy beer at a supermarket on Sundays, but you can drink in a bar. Or vice versa. Or places where you can't buy beer, but you can buy spirits, or vice versa. Restaurants that will serve you alcohol, but do not allow BYO. Stuff like that.) How do businesses get around the laws? Do they even try? How do people rules lawyer it? Does it create an economy of bars/bottleshops just one street away from the border? Are laws like this more likely to be in proper dirt farming rural areas, or nouveau-riche gentrified pearl clutching areas? Sorry if these are stupid questions.
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Aug 31, 2021 01:33
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:40 |
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Outrail posted:Have a clean sketchy looking stoner van drive in front of the Toyota Camry filled with drugs. Isn't that what everyone does? Replace drugs with booze, and you are describing the plot to the "Smokey and the Bandit".
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Aug 31, 2021 16:29
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