I had this conversation recently with my co-workers at lunch and I thought it would be fun to post it here for everyone's enjoyment.

If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?

Now this thread is just for fun, so answers like "freedom of speech" don't really count - for the sake of argument we will assume that you now live in the country with the same level of personal freedoms. Also let's not turn it into America-bashing thread because this is not my intent at all (Primarily I want to see the list of things to be missed and not vice versa).

The simple things I would miss the most would be

1) Baseball
2) Leaf-changing weeks in Connecticut in the beginning of October
3) Quick and friendly service in most diners/restaurants
4) The abundance of ethnic restaurants (within 5 miles of my house there's Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Erithrean, French, Cuban, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese... and, of course, American).
5) Thanksgiving week

That's all for now, but I'll reserve the right to add more later.

As for the things I would not miss I would put
1) the amount of commercials on cable TV

If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you to abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?

MOST: Freedom
LEAST: the Americans

Fun topic, English Horn

It depends on where I would be going. Actually, one year isn't really enough to miss anything for me

I would miss the convenience. There is just something great about being able to get diapers or formula at 3 in the morning. Once, my baby's swing broke at midnight, and Mr P went out to get a new one...came home at one in the morning with a brand new electric swing. There's no way our first could have slept without it (he had a sleep disorder). Same for virtually any problem...locksmith, plumber, ect.

I would miss the customer service. There is nothing like it, as far as I have experienced, anywhere else.

Strangely, I would miss taco bell. I only know this because it has happened to me twice when I lived overseas for years. I go to taco bell about once every two and a half years, but for some reason....I have to know it is near.

For least, I'd have to cite television as well.

I have been away for an extended period of time..., and I would disagree with you yeoshua about missing the Americans. I spent about 6 months in Afghanistan sleeping in a tent and eating horrible food, wearing that uncomfortable Marine corps camoflauge and a pair of not so heat resistant boots. Being a reserve Officer, not only was I away from home, but there to do a job I only train part-time to do. What did I miss the most? Not my running shorts or Budlight. I never missed Starbucks or Sunday night Movies. I didn't miss cable TV or my wonderful Chevy Truck (ok, a little). What I did miss was talking to people in the grocery store line. I missed going to see a football game at the local bar and talking to the random people on my left and right. I missed seeing the warm faces at church on Sunday whom didn't even necessarily know my name, but never mind me playing with their children in the foyer. I missed the happy hours w/ co-workers and most importantly my loved ones. These were all Americans. There are many places in this world where even Marines who are there to help don't get a warm and fuzzy welcome. Even on my way home, as I'd taken the rifle from my shoulder and wasn't followed by a platoon of rifle carrying men... I really didn't get the same fuzzy feeling. I stopped in Kuwait and Turkey. Both times, all I could think of was landing in DFW and hitting my local watering hole ... (OH-NOT TO MENTION SOUTHERN WOMEN!!!)

Miss the most:
Teaching.
Our outstanding food.
My wonderful circle of friends.
Tailgating for college football, SEC football, THE most hospitable fans in the country.
Attending the KY Derby and the month of revelry that precedes the most exciting two minutes in sports.
Unless I went to the United Kingdom, golf courses.
My small mouth bass honey hole at Dale Hollow.

Miss the least:
Rush hour.

Edited to add:
After reading aevans176 post, I'll concur, Southern women.

The most is open spaces and National Parks. Most places just dont have the sprawling land that we do and so much space per person for personal use.

The least, Homogenation-chain store everything. In cities and towns the US often looks cookie cutter, this pervading sameness from east to west. The worst of this is the same horrible food chains everywhere. In other countries the food and customs change dramatically from one part to another and chain stores and restaurants are few. (only the american ones) It gives living a much more personal feel.

Theres one more thing Id like to add, since we are all so politically inclined- I did not miss US politics. I found being out of ones own country gives you a break from taking politics really seriously, theirs is only of minimal importance to you and yours the same by nature of distance, its very freeing, like being in the wilderness for a month without seeing a newspaper and realizing it doesnt matter because nothing ever changes.

Most:

1. My Cats, if I couldn't take them with me. In fact, I probably wouldn't leave home without them. They are better than American Express
2. The coffee shop
3. Baseball

Least:

1. George W. Bush
2. Tom DeLay
3. Karl Rove
4. Texas in general

What I missed the most when I was out of the country was not being able to eat vegetarian (aside from my time in England). Its so difficult to find a full satisfying meal out thats not pizza (or Indian) when Im out of the country. Its also harder trying to explain it. When I first became vegetarian, I used to complain all the time about not being able to eat in restaurants but only after living abroad have I realized how truly easy it is in the US.

Also, I missed:
free local phone calls
dryers
certain candy (like Almond Joy and Sour Straws and Corn nuts and mint chocolate)
and like Mrs. P, the convenience to a certain extent.

what I didnt miss:
having to drive all over the place
expensive wine (or champagne)

MOST:
Steve Kimock shows
Oregon weed
Mirror Pond Pale ale


LEAST:
Republicans
FoxNEWS
My noisy neigbor
Taxes

[quote=English Horn,Jan 6 2005, 04:37 PM]
If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?


Miss

1. Pro football
2. New York City in the spring
3. Road trips
4. Movies without subtitles
5. Pacific Coast Highway
6. Cheesburgers

Not Miss

1. Politics
2. Baseball
3. Reality TV
4. Gun Nuts
5. Shopping Malls
6. American porn

America in the rear view mirror can be a happy or sad sight according to the situation causing the departure. If the culture you will visit is a diversity you enjoy then you may only miss the obvious loved ones, friends, food and the American culture you leave behind. If the culture is repulsive you will blame the country you are in when you stub your toe on a rock.

The simple things I miss the most are and have been:
On the top of my list is radio, the ability to tune into a comfort zone as it changes during the day. Upon return from an overseas trip the sound of local events being announced on the radio say you are home! Where a language barrier exists you must rely on friends to know a world famous circus in just five miles away. Without the master of the language the radio hits the top of the list in offering spontaneous choices for free time activities.

Plumbing and electrical differences and change of water that can make you feel like you showered in gasoline as your skin cracks open. In Korea in the late 60’s and 70’s western commodes could only be found in international hotels and military bases. Trains, rest stations and public restaurants and other facilities used porcelain local commodes you must squat over, their logic for stopping the spread of disease.

Newspapers and magazines you love.

Privacy differences in cultures. In Korea for example the restrooms on the freeway rest stations are bi-sexual and men face a wall to use urinals as men and women proceed past to use the commode stalls in the back. In Germany it is common for a cleaning woman to enter as you are using the restroom. Single bi-sexual dressing areas in public sports facilities. Loss of personal space norm, in Puerto Rico in the workplace it is a daily ritual for all coworkers to; males shake hands exchanging greetings and females to await a kiss on the cheek and gentile hug.

Driving rules differ greatly. In Germany they drive offensively and often have unmarked intersections with understood right of way rules and if you forget the rule one time you get a big white Mercedes reminder in the side. In Korea right of way rules are the same as the US but Korean busses and taxis don’t yield to American driven vehicles on yield on ramps. Not because they don’t like you, because they see you looking at them to see if it is safe, they never acknowledge you exist by staring strait ahead and rely on peripheral vision to laugh as your bumper goes down to provide them right of way. In France don’t even try to drive in the cities. They love the women and trash the cars; it’s typical to see a French driver make space to leave a parking space by pushing the car in front or behind in the manner one would use when stuck in snow. The Freeway sucks in Italy when you blow the engine on your rent a car.

Shopping in general and for food. In Germany all the stores closed promptly at 6:00 PM and at 12 noon on Saturday. If you didn’t make by then you need to work on your planning skills hard especially if you had to go to the dry cleaners and the supermarket and it was toilet paper you forgot in your after work rush.

Ordering a meal in a restaurant.

Going to the doctor is an interesting experience. My wife had all medical care for our first son to include the birth in a German hospital.

Climate differences. I spent a year in one town in Germany and saw sun only six days. Bosses didn’t complain when you left the office for no apparent reason without the usual umbrella in your hand. Going to the beach on an island in the North Sea on the 4th of July weekend found 50F with 35MPH winds. Here in Puerto Rico our coldest night was last night when the temperature dropped to bone chilling 66F. Being on an island watching a hurricane a thousand time greater in mass makes you feel helpless. In Korea a typhoon is even worse. There typhoon rain and the terrain causes the turtle ditches, rock lined 6 X 6 foot deep & wide quickly and overflow with overwhelming speed. The ditches are nicknamed turtle ditches not because creatures fall in them but a soldiers replacement is nicknamed a turtle because he is so slow getting there to replace you, so when he arrives you take him down to the village get him drunk and he falls in the ditch and can’s get out. Anyway, torrential rains fill these ditches and overflow and my entrance gate guards had to stand on desks in the compound to stay out of the overflow nearing the top of the desks flowing through the guardhouses.

And the least…

Poorly made commercials on TV or radio.
The fake background audiences on network TV shows telling you how to perceive what you just viewed and heard.

If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?

Things I'd miss the most:
The California coast
Family and friends
Hearing my native language (although I think more people in Europe speak it than people in LA! )
Hamburgers and good barbeque

Things I'd miss the least:
The Bush administration in toto
TV (reality shows, sitcoms and inane commercials in particular)
Clear Channel monopoly radio
Right wing talk shows
Huge grocery stores
Malls
Walmart
Cell phones
The rush-rush mentality
Celebrity worship
LA traffic
LA smog
Billboards
Homophobia
Prudishness
My crappy rental

Fife and Drum, Oh! but there are some wonderful old racetracks in Europe; Longchamp in France, Aintree, Ascot, Cheltenham are only a few in Britain, and Australia and New Zealand have many...gosh, you gave me another reason to travel just thinking about it!

A few more things I've just remembered (Ol Sarge reminded me of one)

I'd also miss:
Personal space. Definitely. Especially in parts of Asia I've been to, where concepts of personal space seem non-existent.

Water pressure, in England or Korea. Italian water pressure was great.

Not miss:
Prefab houses and carbon-copy neighborhoods which look the same as far as the eye can see.

If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?

Never having lived in another country, I can only guess...

I would miss the delusion of thinking I know what's going on!

There is definitely an easygoing feeling going to the local grocery store, talking to the people in line at the checkout, knowing what is legal and what is not, etc.

I could go to France and get by with my limited French vocabulary, but it would be a real challenge to listen to French that isn't always spoken slowly and distinctively as it was in the language lab at school. As far as being in other countries, I would have to depend heavily upon those who speak English in order to survive, assuming that the country spoke a different language.

I would miss American currency and the facility of using it.

Regarding having to eat different "cuisine," I am accustomed to the same junky, popular food as most people are here at home.

Of course, there are several things I would not miss, but I will not elaborate on them here except to say that it is tiresome always hearing American voices urging me to buy something or suggesting that my life is somehow inferior or incomplete without their product.

I would miss the protections I have that allow me to shoot off my oversized and always ready to inflict comment mouth without ending up in a cell.

The familiarity of the landcsape as you travel, you know: 7-11, Gas Station, Mall, Mc Donalds, Nail Salon, Blockbuster, Starbucks, Starbucks, Gas Station, Starbucks, Burger King, Gas Station, Lowes, Home Depot, Gas Station, Starbucks, Joe's Coffee, Pep Boys, Mall, Gas Station, homeless guy at every highway exit--any side, Church, Suburbs, Gas Station, Inner City, Farms, Gas Station, Wild, Farms, Gas Station, Suburbs, Gas Station, Inner City, 7-11, Gas Station, homeless guy at every highway exit--any side, Mall, Mc Donalds, Nail Salon, Blockbuster, Starbucks, Starbucks, Gas Station, Starbucks, Burger King, Gas Station, Lowes, Home Depot, Gas Station, Starbucks, Joe's Coffee, Pep Boys, Mall, Gas Station, Church, homeless guy at every highway exit--any side, Suburbs, Gas Station.
Although its comforting to know that if you go to Canada ONLY the Street signs are a little different. Otherwise places like Ontario look like the Midwest without all the bill boards.

i'll admit I have only been to Canada--the places in Mexico don't count as they were for non family orientated activities in non touristof any common sense areas. and don't reflect the rest of Mexico. So with the exception of currency exchange I found no actual difference in the places themselves.

Sprawl seems to be killing off character.

If you had to leave United States for an extended period of time (let's say your boss sends you abroad for 1 year training program) what about the United States and American society that would you miss the most? And the least?

I am from and live in the UK, and I've spent a total of five weeks in the USA in my life, so I can't really answer this the same way as current residents and natives.

So I guess I have to answer in a slightly different way, talking about the stuff I liked most and least about my stays, and the things I found most different form what I expected:

Liked most

• Cinnamon-flavoured candies, gums, and the like
• Taco Bell
• The vast distances and huge scale of everything
• The customer service - it really is the best in the world (or what I've seen of it)
• Cheap motels, hotels, and accommodation generally
• People are willing to chat and pass the time of day, and are really interested in your opinions of America as a foreigner

Liked least

• All of the broadcast media (except HBO - all the non-payment channels have way too much advertising. And the radio is broadly rubbish. The thing I missed most about Britain was the BBC in all it's forms.)
• The fact that the vast distances and huge scale of everything mean hours and hours of driving to get anywhere or see anything, even in the cities. Trying to get around on foot is a struggle, even in older cities like NYC, Boston or San Francisco.
• The relentless commerciality of everything. Nobody seems to be able to, or to want to, do anything without spending or earning money while they do it. You even drive 50 miles, spending money on gas, so you can go for a walk.
• The way people complain about how much everything costs when the things they are complaining about the most (taxes and gasoline prices spring to mind) are laughably low by comparison to back home.
• American English. That's not to say there's much wrong with it per se I just really missed British English, especially the spelling and the regional accents.
• American roads. Long and straight is not in itself bad, but fix the damned potholes. Then you won't all need to buy huge gas-guzzling off-road cars just so you can drive to the mall without having your teeth being rattled out of your head!
• American cars. On the rare occasions when I did find some roads with hills and curves, the enormous overpowered soft-suspensioned boats most Americans drive around in (and all the rental companies have in abundance) completely give up trying to do what the steering wheel and accelerator are telling them. Plus you have to pay extra for "stick shift" manual gearboxes. I'm sorry, but I know better what gear I want to be in than a set of cogs and springs that make the car heavier anyway.

Was most surprised or taken aback by

• The views and motivations of most people I came across seemed fundamentally different from what I am used to here. Americans are a far more exotic race than I had imagined, which I find intruiging. By comparions, most of the Europeans I have met have been fundamentally quite similar, despite more obvious superficial differences in language and culture.
• I had imagined that Americans were spontaneously friendly and would make most of the running in conversation in public places (e.g. bars, diners) especially if they'd heard me speaking with a British accent. (We're constantly told here that Americans just love British accents, especially the women . ) While people were perfectly friendly once I'd initiated a conversation, I found that I did have to always be the initiator. Which is not much different from here, so it was only a slight disappointment.
• Broadcast media journalistic bias, in all directions. Over here, journalism itself is supposed to be bias-free in broadcasting. Certainly the overall presentation has to be bias-free overall - opposing views have to be given equal airtime, even in party politics. (Parties don't pay for the airtime, which has to be provided as a condition of being given a broadcast licence. They just pay for the production costs of the broadcast.) I had never imagined that a news anchor would be allowed to keep their job after voicing their own partisan views of a current story - but I saw it with my own eyes in Boston.
• Quite how cold the New England winter is - I'd just been skiing in the French Alps, and that was fairly chilly, but this was ridiculously cold. Well into minus double figures Celsius. Nobody comes to Britain for the fantastic climate, but I have to say I rather like the fact that "very cold" here isn't really all that cold, and that "very hot" really means "pretty warm, but not unpleasantly so".

A little partisan here? hahaha... I LOVE TEXAS! What's so bad about Mr. Bush and Karl Rove? I bet you'd miss us here in the lone star state....

I'd miss clean water to drink and food I wasn't afraid to eat.

A great steak dinner and good BBQ (you really can't eat BBQ north of Kansas City in the US and it taste decent).

I'd miss the wide open spaces and the wild places with no development.

I'd miss my gun.

I'd really miss Rush and Sean and all the other conservatives.

I wouldn't miss the people that have to beat down the US with every sentence.

I wouldn't miss the all caught up in emotion Liberals.

I wouldn't miss PETA.

I wouldn't miss the traffic or the restaurant chains.

Oh yeah, another thing I missed: Girl Scout cookies (I miss those even now that I live in the US. They really should be year 'round), and Cadbury Cream Eggs (and those lucky Brits get them year round! Its not fair).

The Most: FREEDOM!!!!!
Lacrosse
The New York Jets
Red Sox Nation
Italian Food
Capitalism
Seeing the Statue of Liberty daily
Hearing the NJ accent daily

The Least: Philiadelphians in Jersey Shore Towns in the Summer
Moralistic government
Bad drivers/The Turnpike during rush hour
The Olive Garden and their stupid commmercials and horrendous food

CP

Doesn't it depend on where you're going?

I mean, if you're sent abroad to say....er, Canada, say to Windsor or Vancouver, you may not miss much at all from what you're saying.

Having traveled a bit abroad, I'd say if I were going outside of North America I'd miss Americans. Not because I'm particularly fond of Americans over anyone else, but because I'm "in tune" with Americans. I've been to Europe and those folks NEVER SMILE. And you will actually go bonkers when you try to smile at them and they NEVER respond.

I like different perspectives and different people are interesting, but sooner or later you just want to relax with something you know.

I'm used to Americans, I hate explaining things to people, I hate having language barriers, and I hate not having the same sensibilities or perspectives. When I was younger I used to pride myself on being globally aware. I learned Spanish, Russian, some French, some German....now I'm less tolerant of having to make an effort to deal with people.

I like Americans because we're on the same page.

I like my community, I like the coffee shop that I go to all the time, my local theater, my friends, my family, my local restaurants, my local sports teams, my alma matter on Saturdays in the fall and basketball in the winter, I hate the weather but whatchya gonna do?

I can't even bring myself to find a job in another state, much less leave the country. The older you get, the more you come to find things you like about where you live.

You all do know freedom and capitalism does exist outside the US too..right?

I have lived outside the US and what I always miss is..
mum and dad
jess
the beautiful county America is
the friendly people
and the ability to always turn around and start new

I haven't lived in America - but everytime I go I am always impressed by the food! - So I guess thats what I miss - mmmm

I mean, sure, it's incredibly fattening, but soooo tasty...

What did suprise me about this post is that what everyone said they'd miss about America was almost exactly the same as what I'd miss if I left Britain / Europe...except we have nice castles, which I would also miss...