Hi from America!

I have been back in America for a week now, and I have spent the last week thinking about this post. I have come up with so many different titles its ridiculous! The thing is, I have some things I want to talk about, but I think some of them might be a little offensive... If I want to say offensive things about Korea, its ok... that's not my home country... I'm an outsider there, its to be expected that I feel strange in Korea... But to be honest... I experienced more culture shock upon my arrival in America than I did when I entered Korea.

The first, and most obvious difference between these two countries was visible the moment I stepped off the plane in Washington DC... I am thin here. Now initially I was thinking "YAY! I am thin again" But the more time I spend in shopping malls, theme parks and other such public venues, the more depressed I become. The state of American health... or rather unhealthy... is really quite sad. I remember when I lived in Buffalo and I would be watching TV and they would have the show about obesity, and they would show all the shoulders-down shots of extremely fat people and I would thing "Man, where did they find that many morbidly obese people?" And now, after spending a year in a country where most of the people are smaller than me (I now fit into a size 8 pants!) I can see that the news men could have shot that footage virtually anywhere.

I really don't know what to think about this, except that my country is very very sick, and needs help soon. No wonder we spend so much on health care. People are told by their doctors "You have to lose weight, eat right and exercise or you will DIE"... and what do they do here? They die. Unfortunately I had a friend that this happened too when I was much younger... I thought it was really sad, but since there were so many obese people around me, I just accepted it as the way of life.

Now, this isn't to say that there are zero fat Korean people, that would be a complete lie. But the thing is they are really uncommon... but if you look at the kids, things are changing. Our American lifestyle is spreading across the globe. People are getting lazy, eating poorly and getting really fat. Now I know some people will read this and think I am some evil skinny bitch, but to be honest, I really have felt overweight for the last year that I lived in Korea... A size 8 is one size fits all in Korea.... So I am pretty big for Korea... I don't know if that helps to soften the blow of what I have been saying.

The question is this... Is this ok? Is it OK that Americans are so indulgent that our bodies cannot even keep up with our lifestyle? We eat so much more than we need to that it all just gets stored as excess fat on our body... I think its great that the cost of gas is going up in America... its still half what it is in Korea. We need to walk more, and eat less. Eat more veggies and less M&Ms. People are buying a Prius when they need a new car, but are they eating less meat to reduce their carbon emmissons? I don't think so. Even though eating less meat and more veggies would help them to be healthier inside and outside. But anyway, Im getting to extreme now Im sure...

On the lighter size, I am keeping track of how many Prius and Hummer vehicles I see on my vacation, since I dont really see any of those in Korea... Here is the current count
Prius 13
Hummer 3

Perhaps later I will write about more of the positive things about my vacation, I just really had to get this observation of my chest, sorry.