Things I have learned about New Yorkers
I am approaching having lived in Upstate New York for four months. And as such, I’m starting to notice things about New Yorkers. These are just general observations, and do not mean that every New Yorker is this way, but, living about them in their rural world with almost everyone about having been born, bred and lived their entire within the same 30 mile radius, I’m making generalizations. Further, I must clarify that I love living in New York. I really do enjoy it. It is perhaps one of my favorite places that I have lived (Colorado still wins). But, there are things I’ve noticed.
First, Upstaters tend to be short. I know, I know, I’m short. But I’m not the only one to make this observation. I admit fully that I am short, but I feel less short. I’m 5’1’’, and generally, people around me are fairly similar heights. My mother, only about 5’5’’, says that she will sometimes even feel tall in grocery stores when compared with those around her. I don’t have an explanation for this, but my mother says that a reason for it may be that most people are almost at least a quarter Italian, and statistically, Italians tend to be shorter.
Next, lifestyle choices often drift towards unhealthy. For one, it seems that everybody and their dog is constantly lighting up a cig. I thought it was just that I’d just gotten out of Provo, UT, where pretty much nobody smokes, but I have been informed by my family that it’s not just me. Compared to Seattle (which as much as I didn’t like living in Seattle, is, for one, a vastly health-conscious city), smoking is what everyone does. Further, where everyone in Seattle had to have their coffee, everyone here has a small coffee in the morning, but only to wash down their six donuts. And when I go to the grocery store for weekly grocery shopping with my mother, where in Seattle, you’d see women doing their weekly shopping that included chicken, produce, milk, eggs, bread as well as some snack foods, Upstate NY grocery shoppers (who wear very little clothing, look like they haven’t washed their hair in ages and weigh approximately 200 pounds), have steak, steak, maybe a few apples and a whole lot of donuts. Of every Little Debbie variety. Also, you thought that obesity was rampant in the United States. I am willing to wager that the state of NY has raised obesity rates 10% in of itself.
This is absolutely random, but I have noticed that the Deaf community is much larger here. Maybe I just notice because I can sign, but in Seattle, I saw a Deaf couple signing to one another maybe once or twice. In all eight years of living there. In one shopping trip today, I found three. I have seen more Deaf couples in these two months than I have seen in the rest of my life. I am aware that this might also be related to the Mediterranean influences. Hereditary hearing loss’s demographic group is Mediterranean. That’s where deafness in the European royal family comes from—it’s the Greek Royal Family’s fault.
Apparently, I’m the only one who has noticed, but parents are a lot more hands-on about their parenting.What I mean by this is not that parents are abusive. I mean they're just more hands on. For example, when I was with my father at one of my brother's orchestra concerts, there was a mother in the row in front of us with three young boys. When the children were being rowdy, she would quiet them down. But where in Seattle, mothers might nudge their shoulder and say, "It's time to be quiet," this mother would flick the boy's arm and then say, "Quiet." Or, while in Seattle, a mother might get a child's attention in a grocery store when they were scolding their child by calling, "[Name], you need to look at me" and then proceed to give the correction, here in NY, I see a lot more mothers, run to the child, grab their hand and pull them around so that they are looking at them before telling the child what to do. None of these things are abusive. However, they are much more hands-on parenting techniques.
Most bizarre red tape and control practices. New York lawyers have their fingers everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And there are red tapes everywhere. And they have control issues. You literally cannot do anything in this state without a lawyer (including buying a house) and everything involving the government, "It's going to be a problem." It's actually easier to get a passport than a New York State driver's license because of all the proof of identity that you have to provide. And switching my nurse's assistant certification to NY was a five-week headache. To pick up a child from school, you have to go inside the school, show ID and be a person authorized to pick up that child. Otherwise, the child stays inside the locked school. It's CRAZY!
New Yorkers are unhappy. They are. In fact, New York is the 51st most unhappy state (apparently this poll/survey counts DC as a state). And if you smile at someone, they look like you must be wanting something from them. I was noticing in a grocery store that people just look dissatisfied. They're dissatisfied with their family, with the children around them, with the world, with the produce, with the prices. Basically, they're unhappy. I don't know why. And cashiers and people like that in general are less perky. Again, this is a generalization. I've noticed that those who aren't vastly unhappy are very, very happy. But there's a discrepancy.
Lastly, while I was living in the West, I believed that people who claimed that racism was a problem were just looking for problems and were nutsos. It's not that I believed that there weren't racists. I believed that there were people who lived their sorry lives hating people of other races. But I thought they were few and far between. Until I came to New York, I didn't believe that it was an actual problem. I come to this state, and I see that it is. Blacks are harassed by cashiers, by people on the street and spoken badly of. If a black is driving a nice car, they are pulled over by the police with the assumption that they either stole the car or are dealing. Of course blacks don't have nice cars of their own hard work and labor, they say. They don't honestly obtain money by their own merits. That's impossible that a black person could be a smart, hardworking, successful member of society! What sort of world are we living in? In the West, I think that people are not against blacks, but they can be purely ignorant of them. Here in the East, I see people who are honestly judgmental and racist. It kind of makes me sick.
New York has many, many merits that I love. But, I am not going to pretend that there aren't oddities that I have noticed.
First, Upstaters tend to be short. I know, I know, I’m short. But I’m not the only one to make this observation. I admit fully that I am short, but I feel less short. I’m 5’1’’, and generally, people around me are fairly similar heights. My mother, only about 5’5’’, says that she will sometimes even feel tall in grocery stores when compared with those around her. I don’t have an explanation for this, but my mother says that a reason for it may be that most people are almost at least a quarter Italian, and statistically, Italians tend to be shorter.
Next, lifestyle choices often drift towards unhealthy. For one, it seems that everybody and their dog is constantly lighting up a cig. I thought it was just that I’d just gotten out of Provo, UT, where pretty much nobody smokes, but I have been informed by my family that it’s not just me. Compared to Seattle (which as much as I didn’t like living in Seattle, is, for one, a vastly health-conscious city), smoking is what everyone does. Further, where everyone in Seattle had to have their coffee, everyone here has a small coffee in the morning, but only to wash down their six donuts. And when I go to the grocery store for weekly grocery shopping with my mother, where in Seattle, you’d see women doing their weekly shopping that included chicken, produce, milk, eggs, bread as well as some snack foods, Upstate NY grocery shoppers (who wear very little clothing, look like they haven’t washed their hair in ages and weigh approximately 200 pounds), have steak, steak, maybe a few apples and a whole lot of donuts. Of every Little Debbie variety. Also, you thought that obesity was rampant in the United States. I am willing to wager that the state of NY has raised obesity rates 10% in of itself.
This is absolutely random, but I have noticed that the Deaf community is much larger here. Maybe I just notice because I can sign, but in Seattle, I saw a Deaf couple signing to one another maybe once or twice. In all eight years of living there. In one shopping trip today, I found three. I have seen more Deaf couples in these two months than I have seen in the rest of my life. I am aware that this might also be related to the Mediterranean influences. Hereditary hearing loss’s demographic group is Mediterranean. That’s where deafness in the European royal family comes from—it’s the Greek Royal Family’s fault.
Apparently, I’m the only one who has noticed, but parents are a lot more hands-on about their parenting.What I mean by this is not that parents are abusive. I mean they're just more hands on. For example, when I was with my father at one of my brother's orchestra concerts, there was a mother in the row in front of us with three young boys. When the children were being rowdy, she would quiet them down. But where in Seattle, mothers might nudge their shoulder and say, "It's time to be quiet," this mother would flick the boy's arm and then say, "Quiet." Or, while in Seattle, a mother might get a child's attention in a grocery store when they were scolding their child by calling, "[Name], you need to look at me" and then proceed to give the correction, here in NY, I see a lot more mothers, run to the child, grab their hand and pull them around so that they are looking at them before telling the child what to do. None of these things are abusive. However, they are much more hands-on parenting techniques.
Most bizarre red tape and control practices. New York lawyers have their fingers everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And there are red tapes everywhere. And they have control issues. You literally cannot do anything in this state without a lawyer (including buying a house) and everything involving the government, "It's going to be a problem." It's actually easier to get a passport than a New York State driver's license because of all the proof of identity that you have to provide. And switching my nurse's assistant certification to NY was a five-week headache. To pick up a child from school, you have to go inside the school, show ID and be a person authorized to pick up that child. Otherwise, the child stays inside the locked school. It's CRAZY!
New Yorkers are unhappy. They are. In fact, New York is the 51st most unhappy state (apparently this poll/survey counts DC as a state). And if you smile at someone, they look like you must be wanting something from them. I was noticing in a grocery store that people just look dissatisfied. They're dissatisfied with their family, with the children around them, with the world, with the produce, with the prices. Basically, they're unhappy. I don't know why. And cashiers and people like that in general are less perky. Again, this is a generalization. I've noticed that those who aren't vastly unhappy are very, very happy. But there's a discrepancy.
Lastly, while I was living in the West, I believed that people who claimed that racism was a problem were just looking for problems and were nutsos. It's not that I believed that there weren't racists. I believed that there were people who lived their sorry lives hating people of other races. But I thought they were few and far between. Until I came to New York, I didn't believe that it was an actual problem. I come to this state, and I see that it is. Blacks are harassed by cashiers, by people on the street and spoken badly of. If a black is driving a nice car, they are pulled over by the police with the assumption that they either stole the car or are dealing. Of course blacks don't have nice cars of their own hard work and labor, they say. They don't honestly obtain money by their own merits. That's impossible that a black person could be a smart, hardworking, successful member of society! What sort of world are we living in? In the West, I think that people are not against blacks, but they can be purely ignorant of them. Here in the East, I see people who are honestly judgmental and racist. It kind of makes me sick.
New York has many, many merits that I love. But, I am not going to pretend that there aren't oddities that I have noticed.
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