Five Things I Love About America

I've just come back from a whirlwind, two-week tour of the East Coast of the United States. Because I live in London and only return to America about once a year, my visits back to the States often feel like an in-your-face immersion in all that is American.

Sometimes that immersion can be jarring. On this most recent trip, for example, I was struck (negatively) by the degree to which fast food, car culture, and gun-toting partisanship had pervaded my home country. But some aspects of American culture always leave me beaming with pride. And so, in a tribute to my country of origin, allow me to wax poetic on five things I absolutely love about America:

1. Superstores: While it's cliché -- even trendy -- to bemoan America's love affair with cheap consumerism, I'd like to put a word in on behalf of the superstore. Whenever we go back to the States, my husband and I devote an entire day to shopping at Target. We even have a running "Target list" on our computer to which we add items regularly throughout the year. (Any takers? Emily??) Where else, I ask, can you buy the industrial-sized Saran Wrap, a digital camera and an entire wardrobe for two children in a single bound? Over here in the city-that-wishes-it-were-still-a-village (a.k.a. London), I'd need to schlep to at least three different locales to make all that happen (sans car, thank you very little), and I'd have to pay twice as much. So to heck with local charm. Local charm, local schmarm. I love you, Target, and love means never having to say you're sorry.

2. Friendliness: When I taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a local joke that went something like this: "How do you tell an extrovert at MIT?" Answer: "They look at your shoes when they're talking to you." I feel a bit that way about England and America. While visiting my mother's townhouse complex in northern New Jersey last week, I frequently went out for an early morning jog. Without fail, every single person I ran into at 7 a.m. greeted me with a friendly smile and a "Hello." Over here, people actually look away when you say hello. No kidding. It's amazing how far a smile from a stranger at the start of your day can take you.

3. Customer Service: I've written before about the glaring lack of customer service that accompanies the (formerly) booming British economy. For a complex set of institutional and cultural reasons, the British just don't do customer service. Over the past three years, I've gotten used to that (having screamed into a telephone help line enough times to realize how very fruitless it was...). Imagine my delight, then, when my husband and I sauntered into Crate & Barrel on our trip and produced two gift certificates from our wedding 11 years ago. Amazingly, the gift certificates were still valid and we bought the equivalent of $300 worth of china! I practically leapt across the counter and embraced the saleswoman (who, like all good Americans -- see point 2 -- would surely have returned my hug...). Only in America, my friends. Only in America.

4. Barbecue: Americans may not be known internationally for their cuisine. But allow me to say that there's nothing quite so refreshing as diving into some pulled pork with a side of greens and following it up with a glass of sweet tea. We found an amazing barbeque joint in Groton, Conn., of all places. Who knew?

5. Civic Engagement: One of the things that has really jumped out at me since moving to Europe three years ago is how little civic engagement there is here as compared with America. People just don't do volunteerism in quite the same way or with quite the same level of enthusiasm. As with the lack of customer service, part of this is cultural and part of it institutional (and largely, I suspect, the legacy of having a larger state sector that does more for its citizens, creating less need for a vibrant civil society. Thank you, Alexis de Tocqueville.). Be that as it may, everywhere I went on my trip back home I encountered people of all different ideological shapes and sizes who were running for town council, volunteering at their churches and synagogues, or simply coaching Little League. Volunteerism is one of our best national traits and a signature feature of the new administration. Let's hope we keep it up.