Day #2, (Jan 12)

15 min blog!

I had a curious day in LA with our family – realized that LA is not DIGITAL the same way as Hangzhou, but met some really fascinating and curious people. Though many homeless people in the streets. coming here brings family also closer together – that may be also the broader American story.

3 points:

⁃ 1) Digitalization REALLY is lacking behind from Hangzhou – we got in a challenging situation at night, when NO services were available. Got it fixed, but was a good reminder, how things work DIFFERENTLY here than in developed parts of China.

⁃ If in China the thing is MOBILE phone, in LA it’s CAR! You need it! And if you don’t have, you’re an outsider. In LA you can manage well without a smartphone – but not without a car. The ecosystem is around it. Marketing bulletins in HZ are online (all kind of live stream campaigns and meituan deals) – here you have a huge colored bulletin next to the highway: “best service, choose me!”

⁃ All the hotels ask immediately about car and tell how to park your car. “Sorry, I don’t have a car”. They look at you very weirdly, kind of like if I would say that, oh my uncle didn’t come with a “Ms.”, he lives with a guy – oh, aha, no problem, that’s fine.

⁃ And when you walk in the downtown area – and see the businessmen next to all the homeless people hanging around, you really start to ponder. Yes. I’d rather also travel by car than walking or bicycle through these two spots.

⁃ 2 ) Happiness of the people. I’d bet 90-95% certainty that people in Hangzhou rank higher in most of the possible happiness indexes than most of the people in the Downtown Los Angeles. (Don’t know about Santa Monica or Anaheim, but the places we’ve seen).

⁃ Los Angeles has big equality issues, societal gaps, safety and security challenges, people are not smiling regularly, service in the cars, in the Uber’s taxis or anywhere is not as natural and friendly as in most of the places in China – but everything seems to work somehow anyway.

Fascinating PEOPLE:

Having said that, LA and Southern California seems to be embedded and surrounded with fascinating people from all corners of the USA – and the world indeed! I spotted at least three cultural backgrounds that were strongly represented: Latinos, Europeans and Asian. Maybe even in that order. A fascinating mix. A 55-year-old “charming” family father from San Salvador, Jose, took our bags upstairs, and we had a nice talk – in Spanish! I had a chance to revive some of my lost Spanish skills from high school studies… 🙂 The atmosphere changed immediately when we started to talk in Spanish – and probably around 40% of the folks we see here have a Latin background. Breakfast servants speak Spanish, ladies in the street corner with their kids, the restaurants, many drivers… even policemen.

However there’s also a strong ASIAN community here. Especially in the “Little Tokyo” where we stayed today. GREAT Japanese food, which made us feel like Hangzhou food court in the streets or a shopping moll. Except that we saw so many different kind of people walking outside. Really fascinating …

Then the European background, or “whites” as some people say. Yes, many of the the suit wearing businessmen were from European background, but you could spot also some of the homeless people and regular folks in the streets too. An interesting look was a lady from West Virginia who had moved for a year in LA, but stayed 10 years! She found a Japanese husband and works now in a Japanese restaurant. Sort of a “cultural immigration” that too, to come from “Greater Appalachia” to the Spanish dominated “Left Coast” of California.

I liked the atmosphere in the streets and different places on multiculturalism and variety of people, ideas, restaurants… I felt that we fit just well with Aurora and Lumi here to the picture. Not many were wondering our story or background – it was actually pretty common here. But probably not in West Virginia! Or Kansas, Tennessee… Places which I’d also love to visit.

3 ) FAMILY. Lumi seemed to like much in here, people also stopped to talk with her: “Oh how lovely girl you are!” And she got much of smiles from the folks here. We finally got Uber working in the morning and got some interesting rides: an African immigrant, A Chinese driver from “Dongbei” who told us many stories, and yesterday a driver from Bangladesh. But not like in Finland, here they feel more that they are part of the picture, in a place where they “belong”. Such as in Finland you often get people asking or looking how to look or “manage” these folks…

Another interesting and fascinating day. Learning a lot. Exploring more what LA, California, “El Norte”, and the American story is about. Also learning a lot about how to balance between your work, family, and exploring new culture. This “American journey” has already brought our family so much more together – and I suppose that trend will continue also in the days to come. In a sense that is also the broader American story – of individuals from different corners of the world with different backgrounds, aspirations and dreams. Different generations – and often connected with a strong relying and sense of a family. Through our own experience I truly feel we start getting what coming to the U.S. has meant for so many people and families before – and what this country is much about. Let’s keep it up!