Advice to Pinoys working or studying in the US for the first time
Someone on one of my Philippine-based teams is going to be studying in the US for a quarter in 2024, and I offered to share some cultural advice/reflections to her prior to her departure; I figured it might be a fun post to open-source & share more widely, so here goes…
In no particular order — and being super explicit, even if some of this is obvious — as that’s kinda the whole point of this post:
- In American culture, it’s common to ask “How are you?” (e.g. when walking past each other on the street or seeing each other for the first time in the morning). If you respond with more than 3-5 words, the American will likely to start to feel uncomfortable, as they likely don’t really care how you are feeling. (That is, unless they ask a follow-up question to your initial response.) “How are you?” or questions about the weather are basically the American equivalent of saying “good morning”...