When I arrived in London, I expected to be surprised by a lot of things, but I instead found that it was remarkably similar to the United States. People in England have to go to school and work just like we do, they have to buy food just like we do, and the food they eat is similar to ours. People are people and under our global capitalist system, we all have to do the same things to provide for ourselves.

One difference I felt in the UK was that everyone was nicer. It seemed like all of the signs were designed to directly connect with people’s emotions. People are less selfish in the UK than in the US. I suspect this is because of the ideal of individuality in the US. Egocentrism is encouraged by politicians and this rubs off by citizens. I don’t think egocentrism is encouraged very much in the UK.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the US and the UK is the UK’s obsession with royalty. In the UK, you can see “E II R” on every phone booth, books about the Queen line the front shelves of every bookstore, and even advertisements have references to royalty in them. In the US, we only have tabloids about the royal family in grocery stores that nobody looks at. One may argue that the prevalence of royalty in London is due to tourism. This is probably true, but people talk about the royal family seriously in the UK. BBC, the most important news service in the country, has often been talking about Prince Andrew’s association with Jeffrey Epstein. In the US, we have never had royalty, so the British royals family is something for us to point and laugh at.

This is an example of how people are products of their environments. While people in the UK are obsessed with the royal family, us yankees get glued to our TVs whenever it’s time for another presidential election. These things both look stupid from the outside, but we copy what other people are doing, so it is normal to us. When you make fun of other people. don’t forget that you could be made fun of as well.