DISCOVERING AMERICA
The Real Reason America Felt So Strange to Me in the 1990s
In the 1990s, I had my first opportunity to live in the United States for an extended period of time. Today, information about foreign countries is everywhere. Open YouTube, and you can instantly see American supermarkets, restaurant culture, even how the mail is delivered. But back then, things were completely different. The internet had not yet become part of everyday life, and there was no easy way to learn the small “everyday realities” of another country beforehand. That was exactly why everything I saw felt fresh. Everything became a surprise. Everything became a discovery.
From the moment I stepped out of the airport, the atmosphere felt different from Japan. The sky looked enormous. The roads were absurdly wide. Parking lots felt gigantic. Residential neighborhoods were quiet, almost unnaturally quiet, like movie sets built for a film rather than places where real people actually lived.
At first, I simply thought, “This feels very American.” But the longer I lived there, the more I began to realize something deeper. It was not just that things looked different. The entire structure of society had been designed differently from Japan.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
Supermarkets. Restaurants. Mail delivery. Streetscapes. Public space. Food. The distance between people. Little by little, through those tiny everyday details, I began to see a completely different way of thinking about society itself. And what fascinated me most was that, at first, all of these experiences felt unrelated.
What I noticed in supermarkets. What surprised me in restaurants. The strange feeling of American streets. The confusion I felt trying to find a restroom. At the time, they seemed like isolated moments. But years later, looking back, I realized they were all connected by a single invisible line. It reminded me of what Steve Jobs once said about “connecting the dots.” The meaning only became visible afterward.
Things that made no sense to me at the time slowly became understandable years later. “Ah… so that was the kind of society it was.” This section uses real experiences from 1990s America as an entry point into a larger map of understanding America itself — daily life culture, commercial culture, infrastructure, food culture, and social design philosophy. This page serves as the central archive connecting all of those experiences together.
Conclusion: Every Confusing Experience Had a Reason
Looking back now, most of the confusion I experienced in America was never about “good” or “bad.” Japan and America were simply prioritizing completely different things as societies.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
At the time, I could not explain it clearly in words. I only felt that the atmosphere was somehow different. The structure of cities felt different. Even the emotional distance between people felt different.
Conversations in particular felt incredibly natural in America. Cashiers casually started chatting while scanning groceries. Restaurant cooks sometimes came out and talked directly to customers. Complete strangers spoke to you as if it were the most normal thing in the world. At first, I did not know how to interpret that closeness. Was it friendliness? Was it politeness? Over time, I realized it was simply a different form of communication from what I had known in Japan.
Japan was built around compactness and organization. America, meanwhile, felt designed around vast land and automobile culture — a society built on the assumption of space itself.
That was why the roads were so wide. Why the parking lots were enormous. Why supermarkets looked gigantic. Even the scenery of residential neighborhoods felt fundamentally different. Things I could not understand at first slowly connected together over time.
Japan Was Still Living in the Shadow of the Bubble Era
Looking back now, I realize that I had taken “Bubble Era Japan” completely for granted. Convenience stores kept multiplying. Cities overflowed with products and services. Japan looked as though it was becoming the most convenient country in the world.
👉 How Japan’s Bubble Economy Looked from America in 1990
Service became increasingly polished. Cities became denser and denser. More and more importance was placed on making life comfortable and convenient for users. That may be exactly why the “spaciousness” of America left such a strong impression on me.
Massive parking lots. Relaxed, oversized roads. Residential neighborhoods that felt strangely quiet. At first, I thought this was simply “American style.” But later I realized I was actually witnessing the contrast between Bubble-Era Japan and suburban America itself.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
The First Sense of Confusion
The confusion started the moment I left the airport.
First of all, the sky looked enormous. Of course, the sky exists in Japan too. But in America, the sky somehow felt dramatically larger.
The entire city looked visually clean, almost like a movie set. The roads were wide. Buildings were low. Residential areas felt quiet.
And above all else, something that always filled the sky in Japan was suddenly missing: utility poles and power lines.
👉 Why Are There No Utility Poles or Power Lines in America?
This left a huge impression on me. In Japan, looking upward almost always means seeing cables crossing the sky. In America, the sky remained open and uninterrupted. At first, I simply thought, “This place looks like a movie.”
But later I realized it was not merely a difference in scenery. Suburban culture. Car-centered society. Underground infrastructure systems. Urban planning built around vast amounts of land. All of those things combined to create that unique landscape.
The distance between people also felt different. America had less of the formal, highly structured customer service common in Japan. Instead, there was a far more casual culture of conversation. Employees talked naturally with customers. Conversations with strangers started unexpectedly everywhere you went.
At first, I did not even know whether to call it kindness or friendliness. I only remember thinking that the atmosphere of society itself somehow felt warm and appealing.
1. Confusion in Everyday Life
Daily life in 1990s America itself was a culture shock. More than tourist attractions, it was supermarkets and restaurants that left the strongest impressions on me.
■ Supermarket Culture Shock
American supermarkets were enormous.
Huge parking lots. Huge buildings. Wide aisles. Some shoppers even rode Japanese-made electric mobility carts called “scooters” while shopping.
The products themselves were gigantic too. Milk containers larger than anything I had seen in Japan. Mountains of cereal and popcorn. Ice cream sold in bucket-sized containers.
👉 Top 3 American Food Culture Shocks
At first, I thought, “This is a country built on efficiency.” But what truly surprised me was the checkout area. Cashiers casually talked while scanning items. They discussed last night’s football game. They commented on what you were buying.
“Oh, I like this too.”
“This goes on sale Thursday — you sure you want it today?”
The conversation flowed naturally while the transaction continued.
👉 Inside an American Supermarket in the 1990s
Behind the cashier, dedicated bagging staff efficiently packed groceries into bags. Then they pushed the shopping cart all the way to your car. When I once tried to politely refuse help, someone told me, “If we don’t do it, people lose jobs.”
That was a completely different mindset from what I was used to in Japan.
Japanese customer service is highly polite. But American supermarkets had a different kind of warmth — a friendliness rooted less in manuals and more in everyday human interaction.
👉 Related Articles:
→ What Is the “Express Lane” in American Supermarkets?
→ Is It Really Okay to Eat Before Paying in American Stores?
→ Why Do Americans Open Multi-Packs and Buy Individual Items?
■ Restroom Confusion
Oddly enough, one of the biggest culture shocks was public restrooms.
The issue was not that they were difficult to find. It felt as though they were intentionally designed not to be found.
👉 Why Are American Restrooms So Hard to Find?
In Japan, restrooms are clearly marked almost everywhere. In America, signs were often missing entirely. Sometimes restrooms were outside the store area. Sometimes you needed to borrow a key. Sometimes there was not even a restroom symbol on the door itself.
At first, I was genuinely confused. “Is using a restroom in America considered something special?” I seriously wondered that.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
Looking back now, I realize it reflected a completely different concept of public space. In Japan, store restrooms are treated almost like part of the public environment. In America, restrooms often felt like controlled private spaces. Crime prevention. Maintenance costs. Homelessness concerns. Those background factors slowly became visible over time.
That was when I realized even restrooms reflected the philosophy of society itself.
■ Restaurant Culture Shock
Restaurants also felt very different from Japan.
Most menus had no photographs. Just names. Just text. Minimal descriptions. At first, I often had no idea what would actually arrive at the table.
👉 Why Don’t American Restaurants Use Menu Photos?
As a result, conversation with staff became naturally important.
“What do you recommend?”
“What does that taste like?”
“Is it popular?”
Ordering food felt more conversational than transactional.
What surprised me even more was that, even in family restaurants, cooks sometimes walked into the dining area and spoke directly with customers.
“How was your meal tonight?”
In Japan, kitchen staff rarely come out to casually talk with guests. In America, however, conversation itself felt like part of the dining culture.
I later realized this reflected a broader communication style throughout American society as a whole.
2. Confusion About Social Systems
The discoveries were not limited to daily life. America’s systems themselves also felt fundamentally different from Japan’s. What fascinated me most was how those systems connected to the same atmosphere I felt in supermarkets and restaurants.
■ Impressions of the Postal System
At the time, I never personally felt that American mail service was “bad.” My mail arrived normally, and I never experienced serious problems. That was why I later found it strange when people described American mail as unreliable.
Still, looking back now, it definitely did not feel as obsessively precise as Japan’s system.
Japan strongly prioritizes punctuality, redelivery services, careful hand-to-hand delivery, and meticulous customer service.
America felt focused on something else entirely: how to efficiently deliver mail across an enormous country.
👉 The Ultra-Rational Logic of the American Postal System
It reminded me of the roads and supermarkets. Japan optimized density and convenience. America optimized functionality across massive distances.Even the postal system reflected those larger differences in social design.
👉 Why Are American and Japanese Systems So Fundamentally Different?
👉 Related Articles:
→ Why Don’t American Mail Carriers Leave Their Vehicles?
→ Why Are American Mailboxes Lined Up Along the Roadside?
→ What Is the Red Flag on American Mailboxes For?
■ Infrastructure Shock
One thing I still remember vividly about America is the feeling of how enormous the sky looked.
Later, I realized the reason: there were almost no utility poles or overhead power lines.
👉 Why Are There No Utility Poles or Power Lines in America?
It honestly shocked me. In Japan, when you look up, your view is constantly interrupted by cables and wires. In America, the sky stretched outward without being divided.
At first, I simply thought, “This looks like a movie set.”
But later, I began to understand the larger ideas behind it:
- underground infrastructure systems
- suburban residential planning
- disaster prevention strategies
- landscape-focused city design
- neighborhoods built around property value preservation
All of those things reflected a completely different philosophy of urban planning from Japan.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
And what fascinated me was how that “wide-open sky” connected to everything else — the size of supermarkets, the width of roads, the spacing of neighborhoods. None of these were isolated details. American society itself had been designed around the assumption of space.
👉 Related Articles:
→ Why Are There No Utility Pole Advertisements in America?
→ Why Do Japanese Cities Look So Visually Cluttered?
■ System Shock
Even public pay phones and vending machines revealed major differences between Japan and America.
👉 Why Don’t Japanese Public Phones Return Small Amounts of Change?
Take vending machines, for example. In Japan, you press a button and the product comes out. That reliability is taken for granted.
But in America during the 1990s, products genuinely got stuck sometimes.
The first time it happened, I was stunned.
“Wait… it got stuck? What about my money?”
That kind of thing actually happened.
👉 Why Do American Vending Machines Get Products Stuck?
What felt strange, though, was that society still functioned normally despite those imperfections. America seemed less focused on eliminating every possible failure and more focused on making the overall system work efficiently enough as a whole.
👉 Related Article:
→ The Time I Saw Change Taped Directly Onto a Product in an American Vending Machine.
→ Why Could Products Get Stuck, But Phones Never Stop?
3. Taste Culture Shock
Food itself became another major culture shock.
At first, everything simply looked exaggerated. Giant ice cream containers. Mountains of fries. Cakes with impossibly bright colors.
👉 Top 3 American Food Culture Shocks
Then came the taste itself. Sweeter. Heavier. Larger portions.
👉 Why Does American Food Feel So Hard and Dense?
But what truly shocked me was the flavor direction itself.
Root beer.
The first time I tried it, I was honestly stunned.
“This tastes like liquid medicine patches…”
That was the only thought I could form.
Then there were Hot Spiced Apple Cider. Licorice Candy. Strange herbal flavors I had never encountered in Japan before.
At first, I thought they were simply “weird American foods.” Later, I began to see the deeper background — immigrant food traditions, herbal medicine influences, European flavor histories. Even taste reflected the historical structure of society itself.
I also began to realize that fast food in America itself often felt more Japanese than I had expected from the original American culture. Even the names used for French fries differed between chains in Japan. The same food somehow felt completely different depending on the naming and presentation. Over time, I realized how deeply American brands had adapted themselves to Japanese culture.
What Was the Real Source of the Confusion?
Looking back, the real source of my confusion was the difference in cultural priorities.
Japan prioritized precision, uniformity, consideration, and explanation.
America, at least in the 1990s, seemed built around spaciousness, practicality, conversation, freedom, and efficiency.
That was why supermarkets were gigantic. Roads were wider. Even the sky looked bigger. And human relationships felt different too.
At first, all of these felt like disconnected differences. But over time, they slowly connected together.
Conclusion: Confusion Eventually Becomes Understanding
At first, my experiences in 1990s America felt like ordinary culture shock. But with time, each confusing moment gradually gained meaning.
Why did the sky feel larger?
Why did cities feel different?
Why did people feel emotionally closer?
Why did even food taste different?
Behind all of those things were deeper social structures: suburban culture, immigrant society, automobile dependency, infrastructure philosophy, commercial systems, and urban planning fundamentally different from Japan’s.
👉 Why are American and Japanese systems so fundamentally different?
At the time, I did not understand any of this consciously. I only felt that things were “somehow different.” But looking back now, that vague feeling may have been the most important experience of all.
The world I had assumed was “normal” turned out to be only one possible version of society. Living in America during the 1990s slowly taught me that another world could function according to entirely different assumptions.