Transcription
Hello and welcome back to another video. If you're new here, my name is Maddie. I've spent the past 6 years living in Mexico, traveling all across the country, creating travel videos. But recently, for a variety of reasons that I explained in this video, including wanting to be closer to my family, I decided to move back to the US. Although I knew it would be a tumultuous transition coming back, I genuinely thought that since I'd taken a couple trips per year over the past 6 years, it wouldn't be that bad to readjust. But wowza, was I wrong-o. So in this video, I'll be sharing the surprising reverse culture shocks that I've experienced since moving back to the United States. Please hit that subscribe button to see more videos from me, and let's dive in.
These are in no particular order, but the first reverse culture shock I'm going to mention is the plethora of payment methods and decision anxiety surrounding all of those. Since being back, I've been met with such options as palm scanner readers, Apple Pay of course, tap to pay using the chip on the credit card, the tablets that you get at restaurants now—seemingly all restaurants—using apps to pay, scanning stuff on your phone...and on and on and on. Needless to say, it has been a lot to come back and experience because currently in Mexico, just tapping your card isn't all that common. It's becoming more so, but it's not the norm like here. So you can imagine how confusing and anxiety-inducing it's been for me when some of these things I've never experienced before in my life, like the palm scanner reader thing. That freaks me the heck out. Can I please not? In some cases, I just don't even know what to do anymore. Do I pull out my phone to use Apple Pay? Do I tap my card? Do I give it to the server? Do I hold it next to their tablet reader thing? Do I do the hokey pokey and let you scan my eyeball? I have literally no idea. And I swear, in all of these circumstances, everyone in the vicinity is looking at me like I'm crazy because I'm standing there looking for any clue that I can possibly figure out how to beam my money over to the people. Please help. Send help.
On a similar note, apparently there is now an app for everything. I remember years back when that was kind of a joke, "There's an app for that." But it's not a joke anymore. There really is an app for everything. For restaurants, department stores, doctor's offices, grocery stores, every establishment that you can think of has an app. So then you might be thinking, "Well, just don't use the app, right? If it's so overwhelming or you don't like it." Well, that is an option, but not if you want to save money because there's no physical coupons and stuff anymore either, and you can't even really go by the email that they send out. You kind of have to have the app to scan and earn points. Even in restaurants to "clip the coupon," then you go to the register and have to show your app and your Rewards program. It's a lot. Every time I turn around, I'm having to download yet another app for something. Just like...does Firehouse Subs really need its own app? Does every single grocery store have to have its own app? And this is also a big reverse culture shock for me because during my life in Mexico, I really only used a couple apps on a on a daily basis, in regular everyday life: Google Maps, Uber and Uber Eats, and WhatsApp. So now it's just like, my phone is riddled with apps.
The next reverse culture shock I experienced was pumping my own gas because for the last 6 years, in Mexico, there you have an attendant do it. So legitimately, the first time I pulled up to a gas station here, I sat there waiting and kind of looking around, expecting that somebody was going to run over, and they did not because you do, in fact, have to pump your own gas. In Arizona, I felt really, really silly because this is where I grew up. I spent 26 years of my life here, that should be mentioned, and specifically in Phoenix, Arizona, which is where I am now. So it is odd to come back and be so out of touch with society and how it works that something so simple as pumping my own gas or not is not something that's habitual or like trained in my mind anymore.
Before I go on, I do want to point out that I realize that the majority of these reverse culture shocks are, in the grand scheme of things, quite comical. However, they have added to the turbulence of this transition while I've also been trying to figure out everything in the "adulting" department: buying a car, finding a rental, re-buying all the things that I wasn't able to take with me when I left Mexico, etc. Trying to start over from ground zero while feeling like an outsider in my country has not been fun. Because of that, I have needed more support than my family or the few friends that I have here can realistically give me, so I'd like to thank BetterHelp for sponsoring this video. BetterHelp makes starting therapy easier and less intimidating for many people. It lets you have therapy sessions as a phone call, video chat, or messaging, whatever is the most comfortable version of therapy for you. The way it works is BetterHelp matches you to one of 30,000 therapists in their network to best suit your needs, preferences, and location to give you access to a wider range of expertise than what may be available in your city. To get started, you fill out a questionnaire that will ask you questions about what challenges you're going through and what kind of therapists you'd like, and then BetterHelp can match you with a therapist to help you. You'll be matched in most cases within 48 hours. And just in case it isn't a good fit with your therapist, which did happen to me one time, it's so easy to switch with just the click of a button. I find therapy to be one of the most worthwhile investments you can make in yourself, right alongside a healthy diet and going to the gym, so join me and over 4 million people who have used BetterHelp to find a happier and healthier life. Click the link in the description or go to betterhelp.com/maddiegold. When you use my link, you can get 10% off your first month, so you can connect with a therapist and see if it can help you just like it has for me.
The next one I noticed is that there are so many more kiosks instead of cashiers these days. And I realize, or I think... I'm pretty sure it's because of minimum wage going up and companies are just trying to cut costs everywhere. But call me old-fashioned, sometimes I really like interacting with a human instead of a touchscreen.
Next reverse culture shock is that there are so many streaming services now that I've never heard of. Specifically Tubi and Peacock, which apparently have been around for a couple years, but I somehow had just evaded that knowledge. And so from my perspective, part of the shocking thing about this is that we went from having really expensive cable packages that were like $50 to $100 or sometimes more, to then simplifying things. People got away from that and were just doing like one or two streaming services. But now there are so many. I don't know how people are affording this. It's like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Paramount, Hulu, now Peacock, Tubi, and YouTube Premium. There's probably so many more that I don't even know. So... how is everybody doing this? Because each of these cost like $15 a month or so. Also, beyond just the price of these things, is how does anybody keep this straight? There have been multiple instances where I was watching a movie with somebody, we stopped halfway through, and went back to the TV and it was like, "So now, which service was that on again?" I don't know. Now you have to dive down the black hole of streaming services to figure out where the heck you last saw the movie. Isn't it just... too much?
Going to continue on with the list, but first, what do you think of these so far, and have you experienced any reverse culture shocks? Comment below.
Moving on, this video would not be complete if I didn't mention sticker shock. But wait... possibly a fresh take on this. I'm not talking about, "Oh my gosh, it's so much more expensive here than Mexico." That's kind of a given. Duh, right? But it's seeing things that I bought years ago, six plus years ago, on Amazon and going, "Well, I had to leave that in Mexico, or I'd like to re-buy this thing," and seeing the price be double. For instance, a glass cold brew pitcher. And these are things that are not discontinued. It's the exact model, the exact product, just double the price. And even things that have a newer version of them, like I was looking at the vacuum I used to have, there are newer models of that vacuum out, and yet this one, which again, is not discontinued, and I'm talking apples to apples, same exact thing, it costs like $50 bucks more now. It's been years. How... what.... I mean, I get it, inflation, but like, wow.
And to continue on kind of the same topic, the other side of prices, inflation, sticker shock kind of thing, is the the amount that people talk about it. Not people moving from another country back here like me, but just people in general saying, "I can't afford to go out to eat anymore. It's just becoming so unaffordable to do anything." Which of course doesn't really feel great for me to hear because now I am facing the fact that my cost of living just tripled compared to what I was used to in Mexico. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that I'm going to be able to afford life here. I'm going to have to figure it out, but if even people who are used to these prices are talking so much about it, and they're right, I I haven't been able to to believe hardly going to what used to be considered like cheaper restaurants, you get the check and it's like, "This has got to be wrong, right?" No.
One more thing I'll throw on this topic, another reverse culture shock, which isn't necessarily something I never dealt with in Mexico, but I'm surprised how much I'm seeing it here: getting a check at a restaurant and having the amount be very, very wrong because an item was added, like they made a mistake, they had to re-input it in again, and then that just ends up on the bill. The menu price that it says on the menu, and then what it says on the check being wrong. The happy hour price that it should be, actually shows the full price on the check. I would say this has happened maybe three out of five times. It's something that I came to expect a lot when going to like the touristy areas of Mexico, but I'm a bit surprised to see it happening so often here. Now, there's somebody walking next door looking over the fence. Culture shock, my neighbors are spying on me.
Anyway, still kind of related: tipping. I kind of experienced it a little on the trips that I had, you know, a couple times a year coming back, but I got very used to the custom in Mexico being 10% or 15% at nicer restaurants, or like 15% if you're feeling more generous. So now to come back here, I know 20% has become the standard, but on so many of their little tablets or the suggestions on the tip, it's like the base is 20% to 22% and 25%. So I struggle with that a lot because, you know, there's the whole like, "pay your servers a better wage" kind of thing because otherwise the responsibility falls on the customer. And we're already paying higher prices for stuff. And then, but like, I was a server and bartender for a long time. If you can't afford to tip, don't go out to eat. I firmly believe that. I'm just struggling with the increase just going up and up and up. From what I remember, it used to be like 15%, 18%, 20%. So now to see it going like higher above that, where does it stop?
So switching gears, another reverse culture shock that I didn't really expect, but maybe I should have, is questioning which language to speak. I got to the point where I was thinking more in Spanish than I was in English. So now I get to these very like routine interactions, sort of like paying for something at a grocery store or saying good afternoon to somebody on the street, and I'm like more inclined to do it in Spanish. So it's kind of been an exercise in training my brain not to speak in Spanish. Although many people in Phoenix do speak Spanish, but I also don't want to offend people by assuming that or accidentally saying something in Spanish and then they think like, "What do you think I don't speak English here?" Something like that. It hasn't happened, but I guess that's just my anxiety about messing up social interactions in now two languages, so that's great.
On the topic "buenas tardes," the greetings, that's also something that's been a kind of weird shock coming back is is the lack of greetings. And I know that's always been how it is, and many people comment on that when they go to Mexico: liking or disliking that everybody will greet you. But people just don't do that at all. Like you walk by on the street and you're just like, I'll be like [gestures] and then you kind of see that they're like, "No, don't look, don't look, put your blinders on."
However, another related culture shock to this is although there's no greetings, most of the time the chattiness and the—what I feel like is over friendliness—has thrown me for a loop. There's kind of two sides to this, two things that I've been thinking about it. One, I wonder if people are more friendly in Mexico, but they often assumed that I didn't speak Spanish, therefore didn't chat with me as much. Or two, is it just a genuine culture difference that here people are more friendly and chatty? I'd love to know what you think.
Now, the next reverse culture shock did indeed shock me because I never thought I would be saying these words. When I first moved to Mexico, I had said the driving is absolute chaos. You have no idea what to do because often there aren't like arrows on the roads or signs indicating, or there are, and people just do whatever they want. But over time, I kind of realized and saw that there is an organization to the chaos. And so now coming here, I'm like, "No, driving is pure chaos here." Everybody's doing what they want. People drive whatever speed they want, which adds to a very unsafe dynamic on the road, and you really have to be a defensive driver because everybody does the dumb thing. In Mexico, yes, they do that, but the there's some type of flow there, or possibly I've just gotten so accustomed to their version of chaos, the Mexico version of chaos, that the US version of chaos just feels more chaotic.
Yet another culture shock I've experienced is the go, go, go all the time. And people do make this comparison a lot when going to Mexico from the US, that it's so much more "tranquilo," go with the flow, everything is mañana, we'll do it tomorrow, and everybody's just so much more relaxed. But by golly, it's so true, and coming back here, it's palpable. I feel that "go, go, go" all the time, and I wonder also if that is sort of what's infusing more into the hecticness of traffic. People are just always in a hurry to get to their next thing because they don't have enough time. And possibly, to go back to the cost of living thing, because maybe people have like two and three jobs, so they are running from one thing to the next just trying to survive. I don't know. These are my hypotheses, these are my musings.
The next reverse culture shock is possibly one of the most pleasant surprises to me, and that's how prevalent gluten-free things are everywhere now. I've been gluten-free for over 10 years, so I've actually seen quite a progression in there being little to nothing, or more so, you have to go to the specialized restaurants that are like legitimately or advertise themselves to be gluten-free. And now almost every single restaurant has specifically gluten-free options, even like fast food or kind of fast-casual food like Jersey Mike's Subs, you can get a gluten-free sandwich there, and many other restaurants that I wouldn't expect them to have or that I had been to in the past, and now they offer gluten-free. Same with things in the grocery store. It used to be so much more difficult to find like gluten-free pasta, gluten-free bread.
I've also been so pleasantly surprised to find almost all restaurants here are so allergy-conscious. And usually, I go into the dynamic, or in the past, specifically in Mexico, apologizing, "I'm so sorry, but I'm allergic to XYZ, can you make this without, or can you recommend something to me?" And here in the US, it's like, "Oh, that's an allergy? Let me note that right here so I'll tell the ch— [misspeaks] the chicken. Tell the chicken! [Corrects] Tell the kitchen that this is an allergy for you, and let me check the ingredients." And everybody's so good and knows what's in everything. That's not to say that necessarily Mexico was never like that because often things were made from scratch, so they do know the ingredients, but I think possibly allergies are so much less common in Mexico that they either weren't taken seriously. For instance, I'm I'm allergic to onion, and they bring something out with onion saying, "Oh, but it's just there for flavor." Maybe they don't understand, or maybe there are just not as many people with allergies or speaking up about their allergies or that know they have allergies. Whatever the case may be, it's been a pleasant surprise to come back here and have it be taken so seriously and not be concerned that I'm getting "dosed" with some of my allergy stuff all the time.
On the topic of allergies is food. A big topic slash question that came up before my moving back here to the US was, "Maddie, didn't you have some like seriously horrible health issues before coming to Mexico, and they improved because the food there is so much more natural?" Yes, that is the case. So I was dealing with mercury poisoning before moving to Mexico and had food sensitivities to everything. No exaggeration, I was eating five foods. For example, cabbage being one of those foods. And then when I went to Mexico, for whatever reason, maybe the food is more natural, less GMO, less preservatives, fewer artificial ingredients—I'm not entirely sure—my health improved drastically while I was detoxing the mercury. So that was and is a concern of mine, and I basically said, "I'm just going to hope for the best and hope that my body is healed enough from the mercury poisoning to be able to handle what whatever the food is here." You know, whatever the reasons were that my body was reacting poorly to all the food. But unfortunately, my fears have come to life. I am reacting pretty negatively to the food, noticing lots of inflammation, lots of foods are bothering me again, and having various symptoms that have required me to take drastic action and make drastic changes. Not quite ready to share that yet because I'm still kind of in the middle of it, so I'm not exactly sure what to say, but what I can share at this point is that I've had to change my diet like night and day....more than night and day. Night and day on this planet versus a planet far, far away.
Also coming up, video in Vegas for my birthday! So excited about that one. Also house hunting in Phoenix. Speaking of culture shocks, on the screen here is a video I made in Mexico of my experiences dating, so you can continue watching until I release another video. Like I said, please subscribe to my channel, and one more thing before you go: GONG that Bell so you get notified the next time I release a new video, and I hope to see you there!