What was your biggest culture shock as a European living in the USA?
欧洲人住在美国最大的文化冲击是什么？

获得72.2k好评的回答@John McAnallen：

I stayed in California for a while, specifically in ‘Silicon Valley’ and the biggest culture shock to me was the huge disparity of wealth in the San Francisco area.
我在加州待过一段时间，具体说是在硅谷，对我来说最大的文化冲击就是旧金山地区巨大的贫富差距。

As someone coming from a country whose homelessness is amongst the highest in the U.K., I still couldn’t believe the sheer volume of homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area.
我来自流浪人口位居首位的英国，但仍然对旧金山湾区的流浪人数之多感到难以置信。

On the other side of all this homelessness, I saw frivolous wealth. 20–30 year olds with more money than they knew what to do with. All of them were in the software development sector and across the board, all of them behaved like “The Valley” was one big youth club that they were a part of. Money meant nothing to most of the people I met.
和这些流浪人群形成鲜明对比的是轻浮的财富。20-30岁的年轻人钱太多都不知道怎么花，他们都在软件开发部门工作，而且他们所有人都表现得好像硅谷就是个大的年轻人俱乐部，而他们就是其中一员。对我所见到的大部分人来说钱都不算什么。

There was no denying there is a chasm in the bay area. To me it didn’t even seem to have a middle class, you were either in a tech industry or you were poor, there was no in-between.
不可否认的是旧金山湾区的贫富差距很大，我觉着在那儿都没有中产阶级，要么从事技术产业，要么就是穷人，没有中间人群。
 

获得3.2k好评的回答@Maureen Hughes：

I lived in America from the mid eighties to 2003 and was fortunate in having a good job to go to in San Francisco, which quickly became my favourite city in the whole world.
80年代中期至2003年之间我一直住在美国，很幸运在旧金山有一份好工作，这里很快就成为了这个世界上我的幸运城市。

One of the main things I noticed was how positive people were. In the UK people tend to be a bit negative and suggest things may be difficult whereas in America people would say “Go for it” or “you can do that” which I found very refreshing. Also, it was very easy to make friends. Americans seem to assume you will be a nice person to know. My friends were a mixed lot of white Americans, black Americans, Asian Americans and ex pats from all over the world, as well as all sexual orientations. But that, of course is San Francisco, which is not representative of all the US.
引起我注意的主要事情之一就是人们的正能量。在英国人们有点消极，遇事都有畏难情绪，而在美国人们会说“去试试”或者“你能行”，我觉得这些话很能让人精神振奋。在美国也很容易交到朋友，美国人似乎觉着别人都是可以认识的好人。我的朋友里有美国白人、黑人、亚裔和来自世界各地的移民，什么性取向的都有。但当然是在旧金山这样，并不代表全美国。

The only things I couldn’t understand were how really, really bad most television was, how crooked many of their politicians appeared to be, and why it was so hard to find good cheese.
我唯一不能理解的是电视节目的确很糟糕、很多政客都很虚伪、还有为什么很难找到好奶酪。
 

获得2.4k好评的回答@Lucienne van Eijck：

I came to the U.S. in 1965 as a young adult. Since I have been here longer than in my home country, my perspectives have changed over the years.
1965年我来美国时还年轻，因为我在美国比在祖国待得久，这些年我的看法有所改变。

On the drive to my new home, I was amazed at the monotony of the suburbs, with the pastel-colored cookie cutter houses. After six months it was the pride of freedom of speech while being extremely intolerant of thoughts that were different. Another thing was the obsession with cleanliness. Everybody here had a bathtub or shower - and still people worried about how they smelled!
去新家的路上，我惊讶于郊区的单调，全都是千篇一律的色彩柔和的房子。六个月以后我又惊讶于言论自由的自豪感，然而又对不同的思想零容忍。另外一件事就是洁癖，在这儿每个人都有一个浴缸或淋浴，然而人们还是担心自己身上味道不好。

The religiosity and conservatism of the population as a whole still amaze me to this day. Although social norms have changed over the years, at the same time there seems to be more extremism on all fronts.
人们整体上的虔诚和保守直到今天还让我震惊，虽然近些年社会准则改变了，但同时在各个方面人们好像更极端了。

But after five decades in the U.S., I can honestly say the biggest culture shock came from two issues that are just as relevant today: Racism and the obsession with guns; the resulting violence of the combination of the two is something I will never get “used to”.
但在美国待了50年之后，我能诚实地说最大的文化冲击来自现在仍相关的两件事：种族主义和枪支的困扰，这两件事共同导致的暴力是我永远习惯不了的。

What remains to be mentioned is the friendliness and generosity of the American people. For that alone, I love America!
我还要提的就是美国人的亲切和慷慨。就凭这一点，我爱美国！