The U.S. is Great, but...That Doesn't Mean We DESERVE to Waste

As a young student in China, Min Luo, knew little more about the U.S. than what he garnered from his English phrase book. (See 900 sentences) But after thirty years of life in the United States, he’s had a chance to observe many things. I asked what he felt were the greatest challenges facing America. He mentioned our “Wild West" attitude, invading others to right the perceived wrongs of the world, and the America-centered, Hollywood-centered media. (See Interview: Part Six, Part Seven)

Min Luo continued:

“Number three: the U.S. is not resource conscious," Min said. "We’re spoiled. Every car has one driver. We are per capita the highest user of fossil fuels. We need to set a good example.  Added to that, despite our riches, we don’t have the highest life span, and we have way too many fat people. ‘Because we are rich, we deserve to waste,’ is not a good attitude."

(This difference in attitude was demonstrated to me the other day when my husband and I were trying to make a quick trip from the mountains into town. When we first moved to the mountains fifteen years ago a trip into town took twenty minutes. Nobody travelled up to the mountains; it was, “Too far.” Nobody used our windy mountain roads as a shortcut to get to the beach. The other day, though, our simple mountain road was bumper-to-bumper cars. My first reaction was, “We need to move. We need to find another isolated, unspoiled area.” My Chinese-born husband’s thought, after watching car after car after car, was, “Whatever happened to the proposed bullet train?”)

(…to be continued. What Does the U.S. Bring to the World Table?)