comparison

one thing that romanians (easter europeans) are is: resilient. and another thing my fellow americans are is carefree. both young groups of people party hard in their college days. the alcohol plays a bigger part in the american culture compared to the romanian one.
on a different not, the american young people get a job when they are 16, and they get paid by an employer. the romanian crew works in the family business: at the grandparents field and their sole reward is a good meal at the end of the day, which they learn to be very grateful for.
money come by easy early, and frugality is a foreign concept here.
and for peet's sake, everybody has an opinion about everybody here, and peer pressure is as real as the sun, throughout the entire life. as a teenager you are more vulnerable to it, but the peer pressure never end: in the work environment, there is the pressure to go hangout with everybody else, and party for one reason or another. i'm still not in that habit. when you are a new mom, all the other moms give advice and talk talk talk about how they do things with their babies and how early should a baby learn to speak read and write. what school to take him to etc. and i'm talking here about the american culture. back in romania, back in the days, if you kept your child healthy and well fed you were alright.
i learned to read and write when i was 7, after i went to school. in kindergarden we learned to draw lines and circles and play and draw more. I think my intelligence has nothing to do with how early i learned to read.

i occasionally meet romanians in my store and i get to talk to them. the hardship of life rolled of their backs. they have the most dramatic stories and yet they have an ease in their eyes and they laugh at life and all the things they have to overcome daily. on a different note, it is rather refreshing to met carefree people, whose ideals and spirit had nothing dragging them down, and they just blossomed and blossomed in faith and courage ... and these are my fellow americans. playful and carefree.