My son has flown over from Japan to relax in San Diego and practice his English before heading back east with me to visit some university campuses. (Yes, it’s nearly that time *gulp*) I enjoying hearing his observations on the U.S., like yesterday when I was trying to find a smaller carton of grapefruit juice than the half-gallon container he was holding in his hand. “This is America, Dad, where everything is huge. Of course this is the smallest size they’re going to sell.” And sure enough, we couldn’t find a smaller container of juice to buy. We wanted to do some “San Diego” things together, so we went on a bicycle tour that takes you down Mt. Soledad through some of the most beautiful parts of San Diego and La Jolla. This being California, the tour guide spoke in an extremely informal and friendly manner — “Hi, where’re you guys from? Are you checkin’ out our tour for the first time?” — because that’s the way we do things here. This was quite different from the extremely polite facade worn by tour guides in Japan, though, and the “cultural gap” between the two countries was very interesting to my son.
Doing fun things in the U.S. with my son this week.
