The American Scene; Impressions America Makes

I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. Good morning. The American scene holds a great deal of interest for people throughout the world, and it is often said that first impressions are usually right. Well assuming that there is at least some degree of truth to this, it is our intention this morning to investigate what some of the first impressions are that America makes on her visitors. And to help us do this this morning, we are pleased to welcome Mr. Arthur Billy, a

native of Beirut Lebanon and currently a student in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Illinois Institute of Technology. And Mr. Yogi Dayal from Delhi, India, who is a graduate student in physics also at Illinois Tech. Art to begin with, can you describe to us what your very first impression was of America? Oh yes, of course. The first thing was when I worked my way over in a super tanker, and the first thing I saw in America was the coastline coming up the Delaware River. And passing on these gigantic bridges, of course, landed at an eagle point in Philadelphia, I believe. The first thing as it was this New Year's Eve, I wanted to see Times Square and overseas, you'll see it in movies and millions of people. And so I made my way up to New York and it smacked into Times Square and it was quite a fantastic impression to see it in real life, whereas as before in many countries that I had visited, such a massive people congregated in one spot I had never seen before.

And of course, the first impression I had was the size of everything, the gigantic cities, which although European cities are quite large, but in comparison to my hometown, it would be considered a small village in comparison with New York City. But the only thing I may add is that although I was quite flabbergasted at the size of buildings and cities, but unlike most young foreigners that come here, I had worked for an American alt company for about six, seven years. It used to be a deep seed diver for the Arabian American alt company. And I had quite a lot of contact with American people, so I had quite an idea about America in the way of life. But as I say, I was quite flabbergasted at the size of things, which was the first impression. Yogi is just... That is quite true, that was my impression also. The extreme vastness impressed me tremendously. I remember, unlike Arthur, I flew into New York and I could just see the lights there and it was fantastic all those lights. Really, I've never seen as

vast places that, of course, the airport was so big and so vast, it's unbelievable. And you have a regular bus service which brings you from the airplane to the particular airline that you come from. Otherwise, you can never find your way, I'm sure, if you get lost. Since you both came to New York on your first trip to America, what were some of the other impressions about the cities in America? Well, frankly, after being in New York, I was there for about a month before I came to the Middle West. But my impression of New York is a very cold city and the fantastic pace of people, which, of course, having lived in the Middle East for a long time, where tomorrow is another day, why do it today? The Russian, Harry and Bussle, sorry, in the beginning, I couldn't quite keep up with it. And my opinion was, after staying there for nearly a month, was that New York City is not the city for a foreigner who is

for the first time in America to come in. Because being in such a cosmopolitan city, you have such a mixture of people and you want friends, you want warmth and people to help you out because you're quite lost. And I must add that when I came to Chicago, I felt quite at home here, the first week I was here, whereas even now when I go back to New York for visits, I'm still lost in that city. Well, I didn't know about that, but I think I found New York, of course, as you see, the pace was extremely fast there, no doubt. But I think it was a very warm city. I mean, the very fact that it was cosmopolitan, I think, means that it was in nature very warm. At least, maybe it was fun. All right, I mean, I agree with you. You have all the restaurants, anything you want, any country can have there. But the point is, you're a total stranger. People don't bother with you. They don't give a hang. Even with not only the strangers, but with themselves. I've stopped people, and asked them for directions, and they just gave me a funny look, and they tell me they'd been living 16 maybe years in New York City, and they couldn't tell me, especially that subway. I mean, the subway system, I had never seen such a system before in my life. And I would supposedly be on

the right train for one destination. I'd find out I was in a complete wrong direction. And then one thing, I've been at sea for very many years, and I think I'm quite oriented. I can find my directions. But the moment I would step out of a subway, I wouldn't know where I was going. I would have to walk a block, and I guarantee you a block in New York is about five times what a block is in my city, before I came to the next street sign to know where I was going. The subway system here, of course, is not as good as it is in London, and places like that, but that's extremely... But the reason why they probably didn't tell you the right... I know of a friend of mine, and she's wearing a saree and all that sort of stuff. A mutual friend of mine. No, and people just came up from all over asking, I mean, wanting to show her the ways and so on. I think as far as people are concerned, I think they're very warm. At least I found, maybe, because when I was in New York, I was with some friends. Well, I see it's a different

story. When you're with friends and people you know, but what I'm talking about is if you come in as a total complete stranger, you have no friends, you don't know anybody. So it's different. Like you take the Middle East, where if you're a stranger, you know this, right away, of course, in New York City. There's so many people there, nobody cares who you are or what you are. But you come to my home town, you're a stranger. People will go all out, to the old traditional hospitality of the Arabs, and I believe that's the same in India. Yes, to help you along. I mean, they won't wait till you come up and talk to them, but maybe to strangers in my home town, they think people are a little bit too forward. But they will try to make you feel at home. And this is the first thing that sort of the first letback, was that the right word? Letback that I had when I came here. Well, another thing that people often express amazement at is the traffic in the large cities. Was this something too that you found? Well, the traffic system is fantastic. Frankly, the roads in America are something that I got really impressed with. I've traveled the Pennsylvania Turnpike from here to New York. And just as an incident, I had, my best friend was studying University of Wisconsin, getting his master's degree, and he had never seen his

baby, which had been born before I left. And I promised his wife, who was an old -school chum of mine, that I would go to Wisconsin and see him. Well, I was in New York, and I assume it's about a distance of 1 ,000 miles or 1 ,200 miles. Well, when I wrote them that I had gone this distance in the matter of hours, it was, I mean, it was amazes that you could do that. And another thing, I mean, that's not take the super highways, but the cities themselves. I've driven a carf on one street for hours before I even got to the end of it. And which we at home don't have. You're in many of the, of course, many of the group and cities you have it. But you take Paris by golly, you go on in circles there, and you never find your way out. But I mean, here is the wonderful thing, the way the roads are set up. And then the transportation, the trains. I don't like trains. I'll be very frank, they're too slow, but they're interesting, because you meet a lot of people. And of course, you can refresh yourself in the club car to take the boredom away. But the transportation system quite amazed me. It's indeed very good, compared to the system that they have in India. Of course, it's very good. And the stern pipe system is,

the highways are also very, very good here. I believe the auto bonds in Germany and so on are equivalent if not better than this. But I never have seen such a vast, I mean, every road here is so nicely done up and so well done. I believe they're even going to have a system by which all you have to do is go on the roads and the car will be piloted automatically, so you can play chess in the back seat if you want. Well, you would all be wielded by the automobile traffic in the city. Very much so. I mean, I've been driving for a long time overseas. Of course, some countries you have different things. We're driving on the left side of the road instead of the right. But at home, we don't have a traffic light system. It works beautifully. And usually it's just two lanes. The roads are very narrow. The cities are old and they couldn't widen them. But just for an example, they decided to put in light systems. And although our drivers are supposed to be the craziest in the world, we have a very low accident rate. But I

must say one thing. I think a fondly American driver to be very discurteous to the other driver. It's every man for himself sort of. And if I can get ahead of the other fellow, that's that. But coming back to the light system, we used to have about two policemen on each intersection. When they put the lights in, they had to have about six. And finally, the drivers got so mad at having to wait one or two minutes for the light to change. That they just used to go up and fight with the policemen verbally. And of course, sometimes they'd taken off the jail, so they abandoned it. But of course, the traffic quite bewildered me. I must agree. And when I was a brother in New York City, and he took me down a central park to practice driving. And I sort of felt a little bit annoyed at that as I had been driving for many years. And then he said, all right, our next day only turned right. And I don't quite remember where it was. But it was one part of New York City, the busiest part on five o 'clock. And I'll tell you, I just pulled over the curb and said, you take over. Because, you see, this idea where you have two cars, one on your left, one on your right. And you have to be very sharp. You have to be much more concentrating on your driving. In the beginning, it bewildered me, but you get used to it. But of course, I

think the only way of coping with the traffic that you're like in Beirut, maybe, or in Delhi, the traffic is not as great. No, I agree with that. I think it's extremely good way, as a matter of fact, of coping with the traffic having three lanes or four lanes to show the traffic around. Which is very good. At least, I think the traffic conditions I think in Chicago are better than they are in New York. Oh, much better, so. Because at least I believe there you can turn right whenever you want to. And it's extremely bad there. Well, as a pedestrian, how did it strike you? Oh, the pedestrians right away. Well, I own a car here, so I don't like it too much, because the people always walk across before I cross. Well, coming on this pile of pedestrian, you know, the rule says that the pedestrian has the right -of -way. Oh, and I'm a pedestrian. I want my right -of -way, but when I'm a driver, I get a nod of the pedestrian. How about depressed areas in the cities? Were these obvious to you? Oh, frankly, no. They're not as obvious as in some cities that I've seen elsewhere. But if

you really go into the areas, which, oh, when I ever come to a city, I like to know the city I'm in. And I consider Chicago like my hometown, sort of, but actually it's Riverside, which is not very far from your suburb. But I was quite appalled at the situation, especially in the, well, I would say, I wouldn't mention specific cities, but the slums, if they're slums, they're really slums. Is this something you expected? Well, this is not really something which I expected. And as a matter of fact, the very fact that the contrast between the good parts and the bad parts make the slums even more worse than they actually are. Actually, coming from India, where they have, where the condition of living is fairly poor, I mean, in certain parts. The slums here are, but still come, I still thought the slums here were very bad because of the fact that the contrast between the two. And I would never, one never expects this because from the movies and the magazines that you read, it's like you expect a very, very high standard of living and so on. But I believe the slums are, of course, a minority here, but

still the gap between the majority and the minorities is very, very large. You mentioned the movies, and I must point this out that most young people get their impression and that includes myself about American life when they're, let's say, in their teens, teenagers from the movies. And I'll tell you, the life in America is not as depicted in the movies. And you get the idea that there's beautiful women with flashy clothes and you can sort of come up to a girl and not to her and on the street and kiss her and find out the hard way you can't. And in general, the movies, I think, give a distorted view of the American way of life because it tends to depict the life as something of luxury. And a lot of young people have the idea that America is a place where you just come up and sort of pick up gold in the streets. And they never realize that you really have to work hard and this is what you call it, a rat race or a dog race here. For everybody is after the dollar. I mean, life is much too fast for me here. I've gotten used to it now, but this just drives almost to get ahead of the other person

and you really have to work hard here in comparison. That's true. Were there other ideas that you had formed about America before you came over? Well, of course, like all the other people who'd seen the movies and read the magazines, we had all expected to find Indians on the warpath here and cowboys with guns around their shoulders and their waist and so on. Well, speak for yourself, Mr. Roby. Did you expect to find it? Well, as I said before, I mean, I had already formed an impression of having been in contact with Americans. Of course, my main contact was with rough necks and oil drillers and engineers and so forth, but of course you meet there nice people too and very honest people. But I must say one thing is the general idea I had about the typical American, that's what I wanted to see. I didn't want to see the flashy business man with a Cadillac and all that. I wanted to see what the real typical American family lives like because in our country we have these information services. And my idea for them there was the

typical American families, the nice little home and children, big lawn, which I didn't find in the cities. I was quite disappointed in the city dwellers, but I think my own personal view is that the real American who will show you what an American way of life is as I got it from the magazine and from the information services in the small towns. I've been to several one in Eskinawa, North and Michigan and the other one in Havana, Illinois, where I think Havana is about 4 ,000 people. But I really thought, my idea is, now I may be wrong, but in my opinion this is what I would think of a typical American life in a small town. Where they're down the earth, they're not in this rat race in the big cities, and where they're sincere. And this is one thing I must say, I've found out a lot, which I was very disappointed was that a lot of young friends that I've made here don't really know the meaning of friendship. It's true. They're not sincere. They're not as wrong as you have done yours. But

in a small town, it's different, and I really enjoy it. I go back very often to visit the friends of mine, these small towns that I've gone to. And my opinion, which I think is a good thing, because if I had stayed in the city, I would have got quite a wrong view of the typical, let's say, averaged down the earth, American life, family. Your first impression was not what you had expected, but you did find it. I did find it, yes. And I don't think if I can help it, that I would live in a big city, if I can. But I had different ideas of what it would be like. I had a lot of disappointments, but then again, a lot of ideas that I had about America, which I had formulated during the years, were changed to the better. I very frank about that. Was this the same with you, Yogi? I had a slightly different impression at the beginning. I mean, the impression I had of America was, I had expected it to be a fast life. And I don't know whether the average, whether you can say the average American is one who lives, you know, peacefully quiet in a home. I think I would think that at least what America is famous for, and the American people in general,

the bulk of the economy and so on is controlled in these large cities. And I think at least I think a typical American would be someone who's an average American, a typical American, I would say. Or some American whom I remember would be someone who's living in the city with a very fast life. But of course, as Art pointed out, I've been to some of these villages in Paris, Illinois, and so on. And I think the way of life there is completely different. It's very, very much like the way of life that you have in India. I mean, same war with the same families around things and a house and garden and so on. And which, I mean, there's a real contrast between the life in a city and a life. Oh, definitely. Well, did you expect to find the life in a small town as you found it? Yes, I expected to find the life. Because of course, certainly we've seen movies of homesteaders and so on. And that was really a very, very pleasing sight to see and a very, very pleasing thing to go into.

Were there any specific things within a city or about America that you particularly wanted to see that you had heard about before you came over? Well, I heard a lot about this. Well, you read about so many things. I particularly wanted to see Chicago because of the underworld gangsters, yeah. I'll back you up on that because Chicago, the word Chicago oversees is synonymous with gangster. It's only and members of my family were quite afraid when I wrote them that I had transferred over to the Middle West. And I'll say this, not that I am a resident of the Middle West, but I prefer the Chicago area to any of the East Coast. Were they exclusion of New England? I love New England. It's very nice there. Chicago is pretty good until the stock yard smells good. But the expectation to see gangsters was not good. Well, we didn't really. I believe of course there are a lot of gangsters and syndicates and so on. Crime

syndicates and stuff here, but I never got into contact with them. But of course, there are certainly lots of others. I think what I really particularly wanted to see in America, where all these various beautiful sites which you've seen on the movie so often, like Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon and so on. Which I haven't seen the Grand Canyon yet, but I believe it's really a beautiful site. Of course, we have a fantastic site. Well, we'll come back on the subject of what I want to look for in America. Maybe this is a little bit off the line, but I've traveled as much as I can because I'm planning to become an American citizen. I'll be one next year and I wanted to know my future country as well as I could. And every opportunity I've had, I've traveled and I've seen quite a few of the states except the further on from here. I haven't been to the West Coast yet, but I've come across the same thing. The young American people take America for granted. They don't realize what they've got. Because I'm just an example. I used to walk 10 miles to go to school twice a day.

I was really surprised. I mean, I expected a lot of cars in America and all that. But what I didn't expect was to see teenagers and young men going to school or even high school in flashy cars. I mean, it was quite surprised to me to see that. But a lot of young people, they're quite ignorant of things outside their own sphere. And they just don't realize how good they've got it here. Because I'll be very frank when in my hometown, if your not father isn't of at least has substantial means, you will never be able to go to college. And when I came to Chicago, I had $7 in my pocket and I'm just about ready to graduate. I was making more money than the president of the Republic, of course, officially, shall we say. But I'm going to school and sort of living a fairly decent life. And I don't think the average young American appreciates that. I would appreciate it's not the right word. He doesn't realize what he's got here. And this is all over. It's true. But I think the young American, I think it all

stems from the fact of over self -sufficiency. I mean, the average young American doesn't need anything at all. And that's why I don't think the high school system here and the junior school system here is very good. Compared to the system that you have. I've taught in a sort of parochial school part -time to help kids who are backward in their studies, are staging science and math courses. And of course, our school system is quite different. And you feel the effect of it also from students who come to college. And I would say with no bad feelings that the school system at home is far more advanced in the high school level. But I'll tell you one thing. Though I've visited many of the high schools. The actual physical outlay, the structures and the buildings are unsurpassed. We don't have this type of fantastic buildings, swimming pools, swimming pools in high schools. If you are lucky, you had a one -see in your hometown. That's where you swam. If you weren't on the coast, of

course. I was educated in a British high school, but then the only decent university at home is the American university. And there is where, again, I have the advantage over many other students who come to America and that I got in contact with American life quite early. So I sort of had an advanced thought of what to expect here. But again, some things did not live up to my expectations. And then a lot of views and ideas that I had about American life in general, which were not quite as they should have been, were completely changed here to the better. One thing which is another area which seems to impress people is the industrial side of America. Oh, yes. That is the, at least coming from India, where, of course, these days, they are having the five -year plans and so on and emphasis is being laid on industry. The industrial program here, industrial development here is extremely fast. And that, of course, comes from the free enterprise and all

that. And it is really good. It is fantastic to note the amount of products being turned out here. And I believe the steel production and Gary in the end of just that one plant is about twice or three times the production of the whole of India. And I think that's because that has to, I think, compared to all the other countries, I don't know about Russia and so on, but compared to other countries, I think, the industrial pace, which is set up here in the United States is extremely high. But, of course, they have to be careful about the surplus, which is the overproduction, which causes them to deteriorate in price. But one thing which I find which is, which might sometimes hinder this American foreign trade, is the fact that the prices are going up so much due to the inflation and stuff like that. Steel prices are going up incredibly and at least I know about India. India gets quite

a bit of steel from America. And it will be extremely difficult for a country like India to continue to get steel from America. If the price is higher in America, then it is from other countries. I agree with that, with Germany, competition with Germany and so on. But I think the industrial pace is much higher than anywhere else I've been to. And myself being in mechanical engineering, where you don't get heavy emphasis on theory, of course, quite a bit of lab work too, but in my travels in the United States, I've tried as much as possible to see different industrial plants and stuff and comparison to what you see overseas. Of course, you have gigantic plants there, but the way it's done, one thing I'm very impressed with is the cleanliness. Even in public, shall we say, washrooms and stuff like that, the cleanliness is one of the things that really amazed me, which I didn't find overseas in many, many countries. And then the cleanliness of the plants themselves. The factors and stuff and the comparison of the worker. I was quite surprised

that, for instance, a worker who, an average unskilled labor, or maybe skilled laborer, would have a car, a beautiful little home and all that. Which you can never have overseas. I mean, the average worker cannot afford what the American worker has here. Well, labor is honored here to a great extent. Oh, yeah. I mean, manual labor especially is very, very highly paid in these countries. Absolutely unbelievable. A hundred times or two hundred times as much as, at least in India, where labor is so cheap. It comes from unemployment, really. There's so much population in stolen. What were some of your impressions of the cultural side of American life? Well, my first impression was this rock and roll. And I'm afraid I'm not a rock and roll fan. But I'm quite a theater fan and I like classical music. And of course, your dog offers a lot of that grand park. And I like to go up the opera house. But I think I may be wrong there. But just, and I haven't had very much chance to circulate too freely in the city,

meet new people. Because most of the people that I do know are students or teachers. But on the average, I think the youth does not appreciate the sort of more refined parts of cultural music, art and stuff like that. But I certainly think that America has a definite culture of its own, has reflected in the American Indian, American Indian culture, which there was recently an exhibit in Chicago. And of course, the culture here, there hasn't been as much time in the United States to develop a culture like in the Middle East or like in India, where it's been going on since 2003, 2000 BC. And moreover, America is such a conglomeration of people from all over the world that it's really just a mixture of the cultures. And there's no, really, I don't think you could talk about typical American culture as such. Of course, it's reflected in some of the, there

are some modern poetry and Broadway musicals and so on, which, and ballet, which is, which of course are, I think definitely, maybe not as, not as, not don't have as much power as the European stages in ballet, but certainly are something which duplicates as American cultures. But when you said culture, it's a very broad statement. I think it means fine arts and so on, I think you mean. Yeah, the idea is that America has no cultural life. Well, it has, but I think it's very limited to a select group, frankly, because one thing I noticed here is that people of different origins, like, say, Polish, German or whatever the origin may be, seem to congregate together, which quite amazed me because my idea of coming to America, and I've actually met people of foreign extraction, let's say foreign born, who became naturalized citizens, whose children are American born, who cannot speak English, which quite surprised me. And thank you. Thank you very much, gentlemen. These

have been some of the impressions America makes on new arrivals. Of course, they have been individual expressions, and America can and does impress each person in a different manner. But some of the thoughts expressed this morning can be generalized. And if we feel that first impressions are important and that they should be good impressions, perhaps these ideas can indicate some of the areas in which first impressions made by the American scene might be improved. Good morning for the American scene.