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> Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly th

by kodah 5y ago

> Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. Made me snort. I grew up here and I've still mindlessly done this. > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all shopping has to be done at a big chain retail store like Lidl or Megamart or Target or any of the other big-names. There are, just not in big coastal cities. I'm biased, but I generally tell people that big coastal cities are not a proper representation of American cultures vastness. They provide a boxed and abridged experience of a very opinionated nature. Instead, traverse the states and see what each geography has to offer. You'll find those things are still alive in the Midwest and South. > Stoves are always electric. No lighter needed. Kinda. Places I've lived usually have natural gas, but electric ignition is standard. > But for bathroom taps, I don’t understand why there’s two different knobs for hot and cold. It’s binary. There should be just one knob which decides the hotness of water, depending on how much it’s moved. I've never thought about this. My current place has one, but other places have two. I'm not sure if that was just style though. As for the comment on curtains, this is mainly cultural. Some people like them, others don't. They require cleaning (moreso than blinds) and not everyone wants to do that. For what it's worth, my mom still hangs curtains. I don't think anyone can convince her that blinds are worthy of a trial. I really enjoyed this read. Thanks for the observations, and I'm looking forward to the next post!

sokoloff 5y ago
What they call “powdered”, we’d actually call “granulated” which looks like salt. Powdered here (in the US) is a much finer confectioner’s sugar that is more of a pulverized dust than a granule.
- Markoff 5y ago
  pretty sure it's same everywhere in world, you have it either powdered (flour like), granulated (salt like, but slightly bigger) or in cubes oh well and then there is China from what I remember, where they sell something like quite big rocks even in regular supermarkets, unseen in Europe
  - Firadeoclus 5y ago
    Depends on where in Europe. You can certainly find rock sugar/lump sugar in supermarkets in, say, Germany (where it's called "Kandiszucker"), whereas in the UK you're likely to have more success in small ethnic shops.
    - Markoff 5y ago
      yeah, but those are rocks with basically same size as cubes/dices, while in China you can find proper rocks like 10+ cm or bigger
bin_bash 5y ago
I always thought rental apartments have blinds since preinstalled curtains likely wouldn't match the tenants style. Same reason they almost always have white walls and beige carpet.
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
> There are, just not in big coastal cities. I'm biased, but I generally tell people that big coastal cities are not a proper representation of American cultures vastness. They provide a boxed and abridged experience of a very opinionated nature. Instead, traverse the states and see what each geography has to offer. You'll find those things are still alive in the Midwest and South. I find this literally to be the exact opposite of the truth. At least in NYC and NJ, these kinds of small stores are everywhere. Because, crucially, we don't have cars to travel to these big box stores and get a months worth of groceries in one go. Within a 5 block radius of me, I have grocery stores that sell Japanese, Greek, Indian, and Hispanic each to cater to the demographic living close. Driving through the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other common big box markets with an ocean of gleaming SUVs in front of them. I can walk 5 miles down an avenue and buy groceries from small shops that I don't even know the name of from a dozen different countries.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  In my (limited) experience, really only New Orleans takes "no big box stores" seriously. NYC and SF to a lesser extent: big box exist, but there are alternatives. Can't speak to Chicago or the northern Midwest though.
- spullara 5y ago
  100% agree in the SF Bay Area as well. Small stores centered around many cultures from around the world.
- kodah 5y ago
  > Driving to the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other big box markets. If you're just driving through, as you stated, and never actually stopped or lived in any of these towns then I'm not surprised you have that impression. What OP was mentioning is this: > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) What immediately came to my mind was feed stores mixed with a farmers market which there's an abundance of in rural areas. You're not going to find that that in a big city. For reference, I live on the West coast (not in NYC) and we have small grocers, but not specialized little mom and pops or something in-between like a feed store.
felipemnoa 5y ago
> There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that >>sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or >>small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all >>shopping has to be done at a big chain retail store like >>Lidl or Megamart or Target or any of the other big-names. >>There are, just not in big coastal cities. As another commenter mentioned here, these types of store are actually very common in NYC.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> There are, just not in big coastal cities. My experience is exactly the opposite.
ikr678 5y ago
Depending where you are, curtains have a better thermal performance to blinds. I vastly prefer solid curtains that block light completely to keep rooms cool.
danachow 5y ago
From reading the list it’s clear it’s from living in a low cost suburban low rise 1960s-80s apartment complex — which tend to be the defacto standard for international graduate students - average frame construction, low cost electric appliances, cheap to replace mid pile carpet, the cheap vertical blinds, the cheapest glacier bay dual valve faucet [1] - all very efficient to manage and turn over. They have convenient parking and decent amenities for the price. In the rust belt/northeast these complexes are 90 percent (made up number) international and some domestic students and old people (there isn’t much difference in these places and most “senior living” places outside of what’s on the sign out front)
protomyth 5y ago
Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. What? Yes, it does. It's actually the cheapest to buy if you are a bit poor. https://www.walmart.com/ip/C-H-Premium-Pure-Cane-Sugar-Cubes-126-Cubes-1-lb/10290718?athbdg=L1200 https://www.walmart.com/ip/C-H-Premium-Pure-Cane-Sugar-Cubes...
- luckysid 5y ago
  No, he's talking about sugar that looks like this - https://www.gomothers.in/store/garg-traders/product/sugar-loose-1-kg-2093.html https://www.gomothers.in/store/garg-traders/product/sugar-lo.... It's small enough but clearly distinct from salt
nomad225 5y ago
Also Indian here. If the OP is used to cubes of sugar, he’s probably quite wealthy in India. Indian middle class consumers usually use granulated sugar as the cubes are more expensive, and middle class Indian consumers are usually quite price sensitive.
- no1lives4ever 5y ago
  I think what the OP was trying to refer to here is the granulated sugar that is more popular in India. Mostly the sugar has crystals that are .5-1mm thick while in the us it is closer to the consistency of powdered table salt.
- dartharva 5y ago
  To be fair the "granulated" sugar grains also look like little cubes if you look closer.
stevekemp 5y ago
On the topic of mixer-taps in bathrooms, the UK typically has separate taps due to the way the water is stored, or used to be stored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA I was pleased when I remodelled my bathroom there and installed a mixer. So much more convenient.
TheRealNGenius 5y ago
Yeah I've been thinking about the two taps thing with shower taps. For my shower tap, you turn it counterclockwise to get water running. Where it goes from slow flow rate and cold, to high flow rate and hot. I thought that it would make sense to have two knobs so that one controls flow rate and the other controls temperature. As it stands, one knob ambiguously controls both the temperature and flow rate of the water. Two taps - one for cold and one for hot makes sense. Since they each control the flow rate of hot/cold respectively. And from what I understand, this matches with the internals as you have one pipe for cold water and one pipe for hot water. Of course, rich people probably have more complicated setups that allow for even more precision...
- iggldiggl 5y ago
  In Germany, the thing I'm familiar with is a small lever that you turn left/right to control the temperature and (depending on whether it's mounted horizontally or vertically) either up/down or to/fro to control the flow rate: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einhebelmischer.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einhebelmischer.jpg
GuB-42 5y ago
For the bathroom taps, I think the reason is purely technical. There are two pipes, one for cold water, one for hot water, each pipe gets its tap. It is the simplest setup and with that, you can control both flow and temperature. Systems that have a cold-hot knob are slightly more complex and therefore they are more expensive and less reliable, especially when they are thermostat controlled. And with a single, one axis knob, you can't control both flow and temperature. I don't know how it works in India, but I know some places where there is no centralized hot water and only a single pipe. When you need hot water, there is a dedicated heater and you control temperature on the heater itself. So I guess that someone who is used to a system like this will find a two tap system unsettling. Anyways, I think we can all agree that the worst system is the one with two separate taps with no mixing, like they still have in the UK.

by kodah 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

What they call “powdered”, we’d actually call “granulated” which looks like salt. Powdered here (in the US) is a much finer confectioner’s sugar that is more of a pulverized dust than a granule.

Markoff 5y ago
pretty sure it's same everywhere in world, you have it either powdered (flour like), granulated (salt like, but slightly bigger) or in cubes oh well and then there is China from what I remember, where they sell something like quite big rocks even in regular supermarkets, unseen in Europe
- Firadeoclus 5y ago
  Depends on where in Europe. You can certainly find rock sugar/lump sugar in supermarkets in, say, Germany (where it's called "Kandiszucker"), whereas in the UK you're likely to have more success in small ethnic shops.
  - Markoff 5y ago
    yeah, but those are rocks with basically same size as cubes/dices, while in China you can find proper rocks like 10+ cm or bigger

bin_bash 5y ago

I always thought rental apartments have blinds since preinstalled curtains likely wouldn't match the tenants style. Same reason they almost always have white walls and beige carpet.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

> There are, just not in big coastal cities. I'm biased, but I generally tell people that big coastal cities are not a proper representation of American cultures vastness. They provide a boxed and abridged experience of a very opinionated nature. Instead, traverse the states and see what each geography has to offer. You'll find those things are still alive in the Midwest and South. I find this literally to be the exact opposite of the truth. At least in NYC and NJ, these kinds of small stores are everywhere. Because, crucially, we don't have cars to travel to these big box stores and get a months worth of groceries in one go. Within a 5 block radius of me, I have grocery stores that sell Japanese, Greek, Indian, and Hispanic each to cater to the demographic living close. Driving through the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other common big box markets with an ocean of gleaming SUVs in front of them. I can walk 5 miles down an avenue and buy groceries from small shops that I don't even know the name of from a dozen different countries.

ethbr0 5y ago
In my (limited) experience, really only New Orleans takes "no big box stores" seriously. NYC and SF to a lesser extent: big box exist, but there are alternatives. Can't speak to Chicago or the northern Midwest though.
spullara 5y ago
100% agree in the SF Bay Area as well. Small stores centered around many cultures from around the world.
kodah 5y ago
> Driving to the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other big box markets. If you're just driving through, as you stated, and never actually stopped or lived in any of these towns then I'm not surprised you have that impression. What OP was mentioning is this: > There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) What immediately came to my mind was feed stores mixed with a farmers market which there's an abundance of in rural areas. You're not going to find that that in a big city. For reference, I live on the West coast (not in NYC) and we have small grocers, but not specialized little mom and pops or something in-between like a feed store.

felipemnoa 5y ago

> There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that >>sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or >>small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all >>shopping has to be done at a big chain retail store like >>Lidl or Megamart or Target or any of the other big-names. >>There are, just not in big coastal cities. As another commenter mentioned here, these types of store are actually very common in NYC.

throwawaygh 5y ago

> There are, just not in big coastal cities. My experience is exactly the opposite.

ikr678 5y ago

Depending where you are, curtains have a better thermal performance to blinds. I vastly prefer solid curtains that block light completely to keep rooms cool.

danachow 5y ago

From reading the list it’s clear it’s from living in a low cost suburban low rise 1960s-80s apartment complex — which tend to be the defacto standard for international graduate students - average frame construction, low cost electric appliances, cheap to replace mid pile carpet, the cheap vertical blinds, the cheapest glacier bay dual valve faucet [1] - all very efficient to manage and turn over. They have convenient parking and decent amenities for the price. In the rust belt/northeast these complexes are 90 percent (made up number) international and some domestic students and old people (there isn’t much difference in these places and most “senior living” places outside of what’s on the sign out front)

protomyth 5y ago

Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same. What? Yes, it does. It's actually the cheapest to buy if you are a bit poor. https://www.walmart.com/ip/C-H-Premium-Pure-Cane-Sugar-Cubes-126-Cubes-1-lb/10290718?athbdg=L1200 https://www.walmart.com/ip/C-H-Premium-Pure-Cane-Sugar-Cubes...

luckysid 5y ago
No, he's talking about sugar that looks like this - https://www.gomothers.in/store/garg-traders/product/sugar-loose-1-kg-2093.html https://www.gomothers.in/store/garg-traders/product/sugar-lo.... It's small enough but clearly distinct from salt

nomad225 5y ago

Also Indian here. If the OP is used to cubes of sugar, he’s probably quite wealthy in India. Indian middle class consumers usually use granulated sugar as the cubes are more expensive, and middle class Indian consumers are usually quite price sensitive.

no1lives4ever 5y ago
I think what the OP was trying to refer to here is the granulated sugar that is more popular in India. Mostly the sugar has crystals that are .5-1mm thick while in the us it is closer to the consistency of powdered table salt.
dartharva 5y ago
To be fair the "granulated" sugar grains also look like little cubes if you look closer.

stevekemp 5y ago

On the topic of mixer-taps in bathrooms, the UK typically has separate taps due to the way the water is stored, or used to be stored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA I was pleased when I remodelled my bathroom there and installed a mixer. So much more convenient.

TheRealNGenius 5y ago

Yeah I've been thinking about the two taps thing with shower taps. For my shower tap, you turn it counterclockwise to get water running. Where it goes from slow flow rate and cold, to high flow rate and hot. I thought that it would make sense to have two knobs so that one controls flow rate and the other controls temperature. As it stands, one knob ambiguously controls both the temperature and flow rate of the water. Two taps - one for cold and one for hot makes sense. Since they each control the flow rate of hot/cold respectively. And from what I understand, this matches with the internals as you have one pipe for cold water and one pipe for hot water. Of course, rich people probably have more complicated setups that allow for even more precision...

iggldiggl 5y ago
In Germany, the thing I'm familiar with is a small lever that you turn left/right to control the temperature and (depending on whether it's mounted horizontally or vertically) either up/down or to/fro to control the flow rate: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einhebelmischer.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einhebelmischer.jpg

GuB-42 5y ago

For the bathroom taps, I think the reason is purely technical. There are two pipes, one for cold water, one for hot water, each pipe gets its tap. It is the simplest setup and with that, you can control both flow and temperature. Systems that have a cold-hot knob are slightly more complex and therefore they are more expensive and less reliable, especially when they are thermostat controlled. And with a single, one axis knob, you can't control both flow and temperature. I don't know how it works in India, but I know some places where there is no centralized hot water and only a single pipe. When you need hot water, there is a dedicated heater and you control temperature on the heater itself. So I guess that someone who is used to a system like this will find a two tap system unsettling. Anyways, I think we can all agree that the worst system is the one with two separate taps with no mixing, like they still have in the UK.