Q: What facts about the United States do foreigners not believe until they come to America?问：有哪些事情是外国人没去美国之前不会相信的？

 

获得9.2k好评的答案@ Aniruddh Chaturvedi

Everyone is highly private about their accomplishments and failures. Someone's performance in any field is their performance alone. This is different compared to India where people flaunt their riches and share their accomplishments with everybody else.每个人不会公开自己的成就和失败。别人在任何领域的成绩都只是自己的成绩。这和印度相比就不一样，在那里人们都会炫耀他们的财富，会告诉每个人自己的成就。Rich people are thin/ well maintained, poor people are fat. This stems from the fact that cheap food is fatty, rich people don't eat cheap food — they tend to eat either home-cooked food which is expensive or eat at expensive / healthy places. Unfortunately, it is expensive to be healthy in America.富人很瘦/保养很好，而穷人很胖。这个道理源于现实——因为廉价食品含油脂多，而富人不吃廉价食品——他们一般吃自己家里做的食品（这些食品很贵）或者在有高价健康食品的地方吃饭。不幸的是，在美国，健康是昂贵的。Fat people are not respected much in society. Being fat often has the same connotations as being irresponsible towards your body. If you're thin (and tall, but not as much), people will respect you a lot more and treat you better. You will also receive better customer service if you're well maintained. This extends my previous point which mentioned that if you're thin, you're statistically likely to be rich. Reason why I know this is that I went down from being 210lbs to 148-150lbs. The way people started treating me when I was thin was generally way better than the way I was treated when I was fat. As a small example, the Starbucks baristas were much nicer to me and made me drinks with more care.胖子在社会上不太受尊重，因为肥胖通常就暗示你对自己的身体不负责任。如果你很瘦（而且很高，但又不是特别瘦，特别高），人们就会更尊重你，对你更好。如果你保养得好，你就会受到更好地客户服务。这个道理就是我之前提到过的“如果你很瘦，那你一般来说就比较富裕”的延伸。我是在我从210磅减到148-150磅的时候明白这个道理的。我瘦的时候比我胖的时候受到的对待要好得多，举个简单的例子，星巴克里的咖啡员对我就比之前好得多，做饮料的时候也更用心。Almost every single person in America has access to basic food, clothing, water and sanitation. I haven't been to states like Louisiana and cities like Detroit, but from what I can tell, nobody is scrambling for the basic necessities required for sustenance.在美国，几乎每个人都能得到基本的食物、衣服、水和公共卫生。我还没去过路易斯安那之类的州以及底特律之类的城市，但是在我看来，没有人需要为了维持生计、为了基础的生活必需品拼死拼活。Americans waste a lot of food. It is very easy to buy in bulk because it's so much cheaper and as a result a lot of wastage occurs.美国人浪费了非常多的食物。因为太便宜所以大家都会大量购买，结果就是大量食物被浪费。Obsession with coffee — Starbucks, Dunkin' etc is crowded with office-goers and students every morning. I don't understand why they can't drink or make coffee before leaving for work. Such a waste of money! ($5/day * 5days / week * 52weeks/year)!对咖啡非常痴迷——每天早上星巴克和康恩都乐等店里都挤满了上班族和学生。我不明白他们为什么不在上班前去喝或者制作咖啡。太浪费钱了（5美元/天*5天/周*52周/年）！

 

(来源:沪江)