 is America the odd one out? Well this is what we're going to talk about today and how did I come up with this topic because I've done years of videos on the differences between the US and New Zealand and so many times people from around the world are saying New Zealand is just like my country. America seems the one that's a little bit different and so I dove in and I just kind of highlight all of the different areas that I've talked about in the past of which America seems to be the odd one out. I've come up with 12 ways and things that they do that are different than everybody else so you're not going to want to miss it. Here we go. We are a family of six that have moved from the US to New Zealand and have been in New Zealand for eight years now and on this channel we just share that journey. I have created a free masterclass for anybody who's thinking about moving abroad, moving to New Zealand. It literally covers everything you need to know and so you might want to check that out in the description if that's helpful to you otherwise I'm excited that you're here and you're not going to want to miss this episode and especially the things near the end. Here we go. Okay number one we have to start with the units of measurement okay most of the developed world uses the metric system. The US uses the imperial system. There's only two other countries in the world that use the imperial system that's Miramar and Liberia okay that's it and everybody else is on the metric system so what why is this why why is America the out one out I don't know you tell me all right and number two let's talk the tipping culture okay tipping in the US is next level compared to other places now there's other countries that you do tip but it's not the same and the US has gotten worse over time like it's crazy I was there just a couple months ago and it was just everywhere you had to tip everywhere they're asking for a tip it was like oh my goodness you didn't even do anything I came in I ordered the food you made it I came in to pick it up I drove over there and you're still charged asking for the screen give us a tip one place I was at a concert they handed me a water bottle they flip the screen and wanted a tip it's like the tipping is out of control and it's like so a part of the culture in fact just so you know if you're in the US that stresses everybody else out coming they're like I don't know how to tip what am I going to do luckily with technology they kind of make it easy like if you want to give this much add this you know what I mean like to do the math for you and so that's a lot easier obviously we have a calculator on our phone anyway but like the tipping culture is just it's so different and so especially in restaurants you know because they are very much expected to tip no matter what because of you know they get a little wage anyway and so people dislike it's like this is like a whole new concept you guys if you're in the US you might not realize that this is not normal everywhere okay you know people pay an actual living wage to wait staff okay and they don't expect everything to be about the tips now one good thing about the tips in restaurants in the US is that you get really good service like almost to the point where it's annoying can I get you anything else can I get this can I feel this can I give you another refill you know just like just stop I'm trying to have a conversation do you guys feel that way anyway my point is tipping culture not the same around the world America is the odd one out and number three let's talk sports okay the most popular sport in the world football but America calls it soccer why I try to do just a little bit of research on that wasn't getting many none of them sound right anyway so if you know why America calls it soccer please comment below but first of all it's just not that big of a sport in the US I mean it is but it's not the same as it is around the world as we've seen with the different shows like rex of or you know opening our eyes with the Beckham series recently like it just like what's going on and like how much of a culture it is in Europe and other parts of the world and it's just it's the biggest sport in the world and we decided to change the name and then we have a sport called American football that nobody out and that's our biggest sport that's the US biggest sport and nobody else really plays it there's different versions of it but it's just so funny I love American football so don't think anything Packer fan here if you're a Packer fan but just know that you know it's the biggest sport and it's just not that big as big in the US you know I would say American football is the biggest one probably basketball after that I don't know the big you know NBA NFL teams that's what matters so interesting sports okay number four we need to talk about spelling differences so there's American English and then there's British English so if you go into your keyboard or your phone's keyboard and you want to choose which language there's going to be American English and then there's the British English and I thought okay so the British English and so that's used but it's used in all the Commonwealth so you've got you know England and Australia and New Zealand and Canada and like these are big countries and they all use different spellings and then the American version is why is that I didn't do any research on it so if you know let me know but like why is that and like they add so many use and they take out you know the Z instead of the S of S whatever let me tell you I have been here for eight years and I keep doing it wrong most people are quite forgiving of me considering I write a lot I'm a professor by trade and they're just like oh she's American that's why she keeps using that and I'm like oh yeah okay you know you try to adjust but like it's hard so why why are we like spelling things differently around the world number five can we please talk about this this should have been number one not sure what I was thinking the date format what does that mean it means when you're writing the date so today is I don't even know let's just say I think it's the 22nd of October so in the U.S. you would say October 22nd you know 2023 but anywhere else a lot of other places it'll be you'd say the day first then the month so the 23rd of October 2023 if there's one thing that's really hard to change when you move away from the U.S. it's that not a big deal but you don't realize how much you have to do it how much your brain keeps going wait a minute which way am I writing this and you know filling out forms and whether it's for the U.S. for New Zealand I'm like oh my gosh the date or depending on you know like some of the dates like you can't tell like are we talking about February you know like it's like the you can't tell like what month or day it is depending on the numbers um and how they line up like are we talking about the second are we talking about the 7th of of February or something and it's just like what I don't know why we're doing this I don't know if it's part of like the Revolutionary War where we just broke away from Britain and was like hey we're gonna do things different we're gonna make it like this is us and we're different I don't know but why the date format difference does anybody know okay number six I have to say health care we have to talk about health care most of the developed countries in the world have some sort of public health system that's decent okay so that anybody can go in and get health services decently decently okay so many like I could just live so many countries but the US continues to run almost exclusively privately and so that drives up costs I mean there's different situations in different states where there's public services but like overall there's not a universal health system available for people when they get sick and this you guys have to understand that that's highly unusual compared to other places so why we do that I think it's just big business for the insurance companies but not ideal for people really and then you know it's just so expensive like even people that travel to the US know that they need to get travel insurance I mean excuse me health insurance when they travel there because they know that if they were to get injured there the cost would be outrageous because they don't have any public health services whereas when you travel to other places you don't have to worry about it you can get a little bit but then also because my kids have been traveling and living abroad and we've been getting some health care and it's so funny because it's like if you want to apply for health care it's here's the application for all these countries and then here's the US one because it's different because it's more expensive to get the US one because health care is more expensive and so the coverage they charge you is going to be more so I could say a lot more about that but I number seven let's talk about university higher education getting degrees beyond high school so expensive in the US how does this still exist with everything changing with the world kind of flattening out with the the age of the internet and how much you can learn on the internet we're still paying $50,000 to go to a brick and mortar school that's probably not updated because the professors you know are maybe not keeping up with technology or you know maybe they I don't know but like seriously the amount it costs in the US is insane whereas a lot of developed countries will have it at such a reasonable cost sometimes it's free some you know there's always systems because it's encouraged that people just continue education it's a good thing for the people that live there right and so it's just so interesting that like the what you have to understand like this whole idea of like applying for school and having to save your parents having to save their whole life and getting scholarships that doesn't exist like in New Zealand for example if you graduate from year 13 here you don't have to apply for college you get automatic entrance into any university that you want to go to because if you have enough credits or whatever from year 13 that's it and it's free for your first year there is zero percent interest on any loan that you do get so there's no reason to really not take out a loan and then yeah and it's really reasonable so like a business degree is like five thousand dollars like it's per year like it's it doesn't even compare and then I could just go into a lot of other countries but that's just what I know really well off the top of my head and yeah what are we doing with higher education okay like I cannot continue without talking about number eight vacation days holiday time off do you realize Americans I'm speaking to you do you realize that in a lot of the developed world the government mandates that people get X amount of time off I don't want to go through all of them but for example New Zealand you get an automatic four weeks of paid time off whether you're full-time part-time casual worker I think you have to be there six months maybe like you have to put some time in but like what like the US has no regulation literally no regulation there could be jobs that there were people are getting zero time off you know probably public holidays and then zero in addition to that and the US has the lowest number of public holidays I mean it's just like you don't want to get time off people are work to death there and if you are American you know that maybe you don't maybe you don't realize how much other people have time off in fact as an American living in New Zealand for the last eight years it feels like a lot of time I feel like I'm constantly getting a day off like I which can be a little bit frustrating because I love what I do I run my own company so I just I'm just I'm running I'm doing stuff and I have to stop again stop again stop again but it's good it's good for my health it's good for my mental health it's good because I'm just a person that would keep running which you know it's just probably part of the culture that I grew up with and like when I value and so yeah I mean America gets things done but well that's not deny that right they like make things happen because they're just working probably harder than everybody else okay and number nine we have to talk about maternity leave the maternity leave in the US like it's just so different compared to everybody else like it's so when you go to other countries you realize how much time they have off like here you can even you can get a whole year and I I don't know if it's like I don't know it's a hundred percent compensation I should have looked at it before I came here to talk to you about it um but it's a lot of it's a significant portion of their their income and then also their their spouse can do it it's just what you know in the US you get a couple weeks that's what it feels like and you gotta go back to work or you'll lose your job whereas in New Zealand it's like they have to keep the same level of job maybe not your job because some jobs require that someone's in it right for someone to be gone for a year doesn't really work but an equal level paying job when you decide to return and there's just so I mean I know that there's certain companies in the US that have really good maternity rules but like it's not nationalized it's not something that everybody gets and like some people just you know have to go back to their job like right away and it's just amazing like I remember when I was in the US I had a professor and I'm trying to remember what country she was from and I went in to ask her a question this was in grad school and she was so upset she was crying and she was about to have a baby and she was so so like are you alright it's like what's going on and she just read the maternity rules it's just that she came from another country and just assumed that it would be similar but then when she looked at it she doesn't really get that much time off and like for her like the value system that she has to want to be with her child and you know like that precious time that you'll never get again and as she gets like six weeks off and it was devastating for her it was unheard of like what like that seems so ridiculous and like she has to work so she has to come back and yeah I just that always was imprinted in my mind and like wow like other cultures do it differently other cultures do it better what is going on in the US why do we not value women why do we not value families why do we not value that time with with your children and like I don't know like oh it's damn bad okay number 10 we have to touch on gun laws in the developed world the US has you know because of the Second Amendment relatively lenient gun laws compared to other people like I mean they're like automatic weapons are outlawed in all of these countries but the US I mean it's not like allowed but it's the regulation is not very strict whereas like if you look at those restrictions in all these other countries it's quite strict for anything you know you know other than a rifle or whatever that you would use for hunting and so it's just what the heck like we have more shootings in the US and we have the most lenient gun laws what does that say okay number 11 we got to say something about the temperature scales so the US uses Fahrenheit and most of the rest of the world uses Celsius why Celsius is very easy to figure out and the US has to be Fahrenheit so let me tell you like people talk about the weather a lot so that's a lot of calculation that I'm always doing in my head because I still think Fahrenheit even after eight years but the worst is like baking you know it's like I'm reading the US recipes I'm like okay so what is that going to be on my you know constantly and I'm just like why why does this have to be so different and number 12 if you have not done a lot of traveling you won't realize how good public transportation is another place it's like I mean they have public transportation in the US and can be quite dangerous in some cities but like it's just not as developed as as part of like the way people people just travel out of cars