Japan vs America

Or Going Back Home to the U.S. for the First Time Since Covid-19

ʻAnaehoʻomalu Beach — Waikoloa, Hawaii — Picture by author:

I was blessed with the chance to go to Hawaii this year for Christmas vacation and to see my family. My parents don’t live in Hawaii but we decided to meet in Hawaii since it would be an easier trip for our young daughter; and a lot warmer.

Now, this was my first trip to the U.S. since Christmas 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic. A lot has changed in Japan since then (where I live now) and I was eager to see what had changed in the U.S. since my last visit and compare the two. Among other things, I was also expecting a bit of reverse culture shock.

While I could write endlessly about the trip, here are three of the biggest things that I noticed on my trip.

1. People Talking to Each Other (USA win)

Photo by on

The first thing that I noticed was evident from the moment we stepped off the plane. While waiting in line for immigration, security, or boarding our interisland flight people were talking to each other. This is something that you would just never see in Japan. Maybe it was just the Christmas spirit, but people were asking each other where they were from, why they…