Californian Thoughts V 1.0

It’s 11 days here in California. I am still in a hotel and yet to get settled here. Settled in the sense living in our own (rented)house, getting the Social Security Number, getting California driver’s license, sending my son to the school, having an idea where my wife is working, getting familiarized with the neighborhood place I am going to live etc. So far I have no idea about how our income and expenditure account would be. But it looks like we can’t save much (or anything) because of many factors.

I spent this weekend with a relative in San Francisco. Had lots of Indian food (thanks a lot, guys!). It was a beautiful place in a hilly area. We can see the downtown San Francisco from there. Their neighborhood had more Filipinos than Indians. I did not miss any chance to visit shops there. Almost anything and everything had further choice here. Milk and yoghurt is available in varied fat levels and in big big quantities (I did not find any half liter milk)....onion, orange, apple they all comes in different varieties..

We can see obese people everywhere. U.S has everything that can make you fat. I was surprised to see some teenage looking girls wearing kind of plus size (may be its not plus size here) jeans. This is not the case with India and that is not because Indians do not have anything to eat. It has everything to do with what and how people eat and their physical activities. Here even the trash bin is sensor monitored and we don’t have to press the pedal and waste our energy to open it. Just place the hand over the lid and there it opens. Machines to wash and machines to dry too (yes, its catching up in India too). Most of the food available here in the restaurants is packed with tons of calories. And the funny part is I hardly saw anybody walking here (there are exceptions like school hour and some odd people taking their dogs out).

I happened to read a statement by our governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that biking (bicycle) is a healthy option to commute. But here in California, one can hardly live without a car. It looks like people are scared (of mugging, mostly…Why do people mug? For fun? Not really.. its mainly coz of poverty and unemployment) to walk. Back in my apartment in India, people start morning walk and jogging by 5-5.30 in the morning. This is one aspect that I liked about Hong Kong (this could be the case with many other Asian countries too...same is the case with Paris). People walk, they have excellent public transport system too.

There could be business behind this. It’s all about marketing. Capitalism…I believe in science but also believe in applying commonsense. Do normal kids need vitamin supplements just like that? We can find vitaminized candies (for kids), milk and eggs, fortified rice, ‘heavy weight’ potato and onions, tons of frozen foods etc at one end and organic products at the other end. At one shop, I saw a strange over-the-counter tablet. This offers comfortable sleep (apart from acetaminophen, it contains a mild sedative). I wouldn’t have minded testing one but it came in a double pack containing 250 tablets each ! One bread company says ‘Eat more bread’ and I saw it written on a white bread. It looks like most of the health issues here starts from stomach. And what about the health system? Its damn expensive. If you do not have insurance, you are done with it. The other day a taxi driver told that a doctor charged 250 dollars for a check up (for his kid) and finally he had to shout and bargain to reduce it (he told this coz we hired his taxi for an appointment with a doctor. On our way, when we almost reached the hospital, they called up and cancelled the appointment saying that the doctor went for an emergency). Now I understand why India is promoting medical tourism. Last month, I happened to talk to a dentist and he said if people have some major dental things to do (like couple of root canal and a cleaning), it is cheaper to fly back to India and get it done. These days, we can get high quality health care in India and Singapore at cheaper rates compared to developed countries. In some ‘developed’ countries we need to wait for our turn even for surgeries.

As I mentioned earlier we need to apply commonsense. Nobody here force you to take high calorie food. No rule says one should not walk. But in the contrary, here in California, pedestrian has the right on road.

I was checking out the possible part time jobs here and I found one strange job. ‘Interns to lead campaign’. Campaign means next governor election campaign and this campaign is against human trafficking. This was a surprise for me. (The CIA fact sheets about many Asian countries states that human trafficking is a major issue in these countries and thy keep mum on U.S). This is what that organization says:

“17,000 slaves are sold in the United States each year—70% are female and 50% are children. At the same time, American minors are being exploited as sex slaves in the pimping industry. Today, a convicted human trafficker can walk free after 3-5 years under California law”

(check out : http://www.californiaagainstslavery.org/)

So, women are treated ‘equally’ everywhere in the world? Even in the U.S.?

Another shocker for me was the internet connection which drops very often..

Am I being critical about US? Nope, I was just observing things around me and naturally, my head and mind started comparing it with the places I had been, especially the place from where I am from. May be I had a different picture about U.S in my mind. or too much expectation?