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frojack writes:

The Times of India has a story about what an Indian university student thought were the most surprising aspects of his experience studying in the US.

Aniruddh Chaturvedi came from Mumbai to Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., where he is majoring in computer science. This past summer he interned at a tech company in Silicon Valley.

It's interesting reading, some of which you might expect, about economic differences, supermarkets, obesity, etc. made his list of surprising things.

But Americans in general seem to come across to Aniruddh somewhat better than we come across to ourselves:

• Nobody talks about grades here.
• Everyone is highly private about their accomplishments and failures.
• Far from being competitive, Students were highly collaborative
• Strong ethics — everyone has a lot of integrity
• Girls are not very promiscuous, contrary to most Hollywood films
• Almost every single American has access to basic food, clothing, water and sanitation.
• Emphasis on physical fitness/being outdoorsy

His observations were not filled with the anti-American observations that Americans have come to expect from visitors, or that many of us see in our daily lives. He is not totally unaware of some less negative aspects, discrimination, waste of food, money, and prices. But by and large these aspects did not seem a major part of his impressions.

One wonders whether his naïveté will get bruised and he will come to his senses as his studies progress, or if the US is actually nowhere near as bad as many of us think it is.