Seattle Bewilderment Blog - David Frank

Seattle #13: Supermarkets

22/12/2017

Supermarkets here are tiered in expense, quality and customer social class, like the UK. This is really mind-blowing for me because Australia has a supermarket duopoly that directly compete at the same tier. (This is changing with the introduction of discount supermarket Aldi.)

Walmart was not as trashy as peopleofwalmart.com led me to believe, although the staff are clearly paid less, the customers were of a lower socio-economic demographic bracket, and for the first time in my life, as I exited a supermarket someone checked my receipt and went trough my cart. Big store, especially by UK standards, but not a mind-blowing mini-city like I had heard. They're apparently based outside cities, which is true for Seattle.

Costco WAS the mini city that blew my mind though. Wow. Definitely my favorite, if I had a car.

Safeway and Quality Food Center are mid-range (and close to my place.)

Trader Joe's is smaller, does a lot of its own brands, specializes in organic food, aiming at slightly above mid-market.

Target is not the same company as in Australia. Their mix of food, apparel and home goods confuses me.

Whole Foods and Metropolitan Market are very expensive, but lots of really nice foods.

Pike Place Market is tourist attraction is expensive, but again, lots of really nice and exotic food.

Local farmers' markets on certain days of the week. Common, popular, vary a lot. Ones closer to the city tend to be more like artisan markets with little range in fresh produce and high costs.

Have a specific food question? Ask away.

Seattle #12: How judgmental people are of food, especially non-organic food

15/12/2017

Tonight, a complete stranger in my apartment building walked up to me eating my dinner on the communal rooftop area to point out the BBQ sauce was a cheap one that uses high fructose corn syrup. I checked the label, and sure enough, it's the first listed ingredient, and therefore main ingredient. Something I wish I knew when I bought it. Good to know. Really.

He then went on to explain he only buys organic, and the lack of the word 'organic' on the label' is another reason he wouldn't buy it. I had to bite my tongue before I made a comment about how blindly following such things is foolish. I could easily have given him many specific examples where it's simply a money-maker because the items were organic anyway, there is little or no advantage or a serious disadvantage for certain foods to be organic, or certain foods aren't really organic because of greedy companies labeling non-organic items as organic to boost their profits.

I did that 'smile and nod' thing I have heard so much about. It worked wonders. He moved on to ask what I do and what my thesis is on. Of course I excitedly told him it's on food labeling, and how we can alter consumers perceptions, even taste perceptions of foods through packaging. I grabbed the sauce bottle and used it as a prop to explain how we marketers can get consumers to pay more by making them *think* something is premium, when it really isn't.

He...did not like that. He did not like that at all.

Other label gimmicks are rampant. Chickens here can't be given growth hormones or raised in cages, but every chicken product in the supermarket has to say "hormone and cage free", lest consumers think the company that doesn't do this is worse than the others. Not to mention gluten free items for product types that have no gluten to begin with.
Game show idea: give three marketers 30 minutes in a supermarket to find as many products that they can that do this. Winner gets a year's supply of fat-free yogurt that is packed wish sugar.

Addendum:
My favorite podcast did an episode on organic food, and I'm stoked they mention the type of research my thesis was on. In blind taste tests people think vegetables *labelled* organic taste better (when it definitely doesn't).
I'm tempted to do a talk on organic food and market it to people who consume organic food, if only for the schadenfreude of being like a person telling a class of kids Santa isn't real.
To be clear, I'm not saying it isn't good, but it is not what most people think it is. Check out the Organic Food episode of Science Vs podcast.

#11: Driving here. I love it.

8/12/2017

Wide lanes like Australia, everyone follows the rules like in Australia, and people are courteous, but that might be because some people carry guns in their car, unlike Australia.

Driving on the opposite side from the UK, Japan and Australia means I need someone next to me repeatedly reminding me to drive on the right side, but the difficulty was reduced with every trip, and now it's just exiting parking lots where I need the reminder. The other mistake I kept making was looking to my top right to check my rear-view mirror instead of top-left, and turning the wrong way when checking my blind spot, but these faded with enough practice. I wonder how I go when I visit Australia and have to switch back, briefly.

When buying the furniture and kitchen items I needed I used rental cars and vans from Zipcar where I just paid by the hour. I really love it. Last week I got to drive a brand new Subaru Impreza with <250 miles on the clock. Plus, considering how rarely I drive right now, this works out to be extremely economical, and I don't have to even think about maintenance. Unless they're all booked out or I'm going somewhere with no parking, one-way car-shares like Car2Go (Mercedes cars) and ReachNow (Mini and BMW) are also convenient and cheaper than a taxi/Uber/Lyft.

This is another reason I love living in a large, modern city, and yet another way this place is an upgrade to my lifestyle.

#10. They swear a hell of a lot less here.

1/12/2017

But then, the Australia who lived in Scotland was always going to find that.

My moment of realization: Yesterday I left my bank card in the slow-as-can-be ATM. As I was walking down the street, the wholesome-looking teenage boy who was with his kindly-seeming mother who was in line at the ATM behind me ran up to me and yelled "mister, you left this."
I immediately remembered, and yelled "oh god damn it!" purely on instinct.
And then I realised...

I was telling this an Australian female friend who had this story to tell.
I was in a bar in Boston watching the Superbowl playoffs, when some dude yelled out "aww, shit!" and was immediately told off by about 3 other dudes to "watch your language, there are ladies present!"
Oh, my poor delicate female... ears? I didn't get the chance to tell him that I'm Australian and therefore immune to his adorable American swears, but it was temping.

#9: More giant men than I expected.

24/11/2017

Apparently it's due to the region being settled by Scandinavians.
It might sound strange, but when there's a change in your height relative to the people you're surrounded by, you notice. I'm 5'10" (178cm). In Australia and the UK I'm average male height, in Japan and Vietnam I'm a giant, and in the Netherlands, the world's tallest country, I feel small. Here, as in South Korea (Asia's tallest nation), I feel normal height but I keep noticing giant men. It's weird. I'm assuming noticing these things is normal, right?

Also attributed to the region's Nordic ancestry, people in Seattle are also a little harder to befriend. It's called the Seattle Freeze.

#8: Buying things. (And their expense.)

17/11/2017

Moving to a place that doesn't do furnished/equipped rentals is expensive. You have to buy everything, and as a new resident, I had no (and therefore poor) credit history, so was not eligible for a credit card, so no extra warranties, insurance, cashback rewards or points to offset the cost. I suppose traditionally people live at home until marriage, wed early and fill their home thought their wedding registry.

While people acquire items over time, I did the calculations and it's cheaper to sell and give items away and buy new again than to ship items from Europe or Australia to America. Try it yourself. Look at your books, appliances, furniture, clothing, whatever, and see if it’s worth bringing or replacing at £3 / AUD$5 / USD$4 per kg (about half that per LB).

By contrast, I lived for a couple years out of my suitcase in Japan. Just look at the size of my central Tokyo apartment in the video below. I happily lived out of a small sized backpack when I backpacked around Asia and lived in Hanoi, but I knew that was all temporary, so I paid a premium for furnished homes. I had no sympathy for my friends who complained they had too much junk. I was busy envying them for having useful everyday items I simply didn't have.

One friend living in her third country who loved living light occasionally played a game called "10 Things," where she would go around the house and get rid of 10 things she hadn't used in a while and didn't really need. Try it yourself, it's great!

Edinburgh was frustrating though. I was reluctant to buy anything to ease my life, knowing I was there for just a few years. Purchases would be a waste, and disposal a hassle. But an American/European couple in Edinburgh whom I was friends with when we all lived in Tokyo put it to me this way: if I do end up buying something, best get it early on, as later purchases will get less use. So I did buy a few things, and was all the happier for it. And that's how a friend was gifted a lovely air-fryer when I departed.

Being able to buy things in the US, while painfully expensive doing it all at once, also felt great. I am finally able to have practical home items, from a blender to a giant shoe horn, and all sorts of things. Owning more than two pairs of shoes still feels weird, but I'm still constantly appreciative of all these little things I wanted for years, and I'm still good at not acquiring junk. And no, I still don'd have any sympathy for people who complain they have too much stuff!

#7 Tipping and Tax

10/11/2017

Before moving here I assumed tipping was the same across America, at a flat 15%. It turns out it is...
0% if you're poor and mean, or just mean.
15% as a bare minimum if the service was below-average. Some people just do this all the time though.
20% if it was good.
Up to 30% (and beyond) if it was amazing.

Tax is never included when listed in the advertisement, label or menu. It is layered on at multiple levels, and sometimes invoices show this. Here the taxes are:
Washington State: 6.5%
King County: 3.5%
Seattle city: 0.1%
Total: 10.1%
(Supermarket raw ingredients are not taxed, which is normal in the other places I have lived.)

This makes calculating tips in Seattle easy - just double the tax on your bill. However travel outside the Seattle city zip code (e.g. go to a satellite city), county or state, and your tax, total at the till, and the tip you must calculate change.

It's all become a bit much for me and I've resigned myself to just paying whatever the new total is.

#6 Buying second-hand here is expensive.

3/11/2017

It's really weird how used items are not discounted much here.
People often list goods on Craigslist and other noticeboards just 25% below full retail price, and yet items go quick. But savvy shoppers like me can get the items brand new from a discount retailer for the same price.
I actually returned some of the kitchenware I bought at the Goodwill (second hand) store because I found the same brand new, brand-name products for the same price on sale at normal retailers, or at discount retails at the city outskirts.

In fact, there's a more upmarket competitor to Goodwill here called Buffalo Exchange (mostly selling clothing).
Mind you, in Tokyo second hand stores of all tiers and specialties were popular, all the way up to an eight-storey second-hand luxury brand department store called Komehyo in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
A Google Image Search for Komehyo captures the store quite well, actually. From last year's luxury fashion, to jewelry and more, the place was surreal to browse, and a place I insist all visitors to Tokyo visit.

Getting back to my original point, I think the reason Seattle gets away with having a second hand market that doesn't discount much comes down to the rapid growth of the city, both with Amazon, and rotation of students attending the large university. Interesting to me, nonetheless.

#5: Bad things about living in a big city

27/10/2017

1. City noise. Traffic and construction, though the latter comes with a booming economy.

2. City pollution. Bring on the electric-car revolution!

3. People in the service industry have more energy than I am comfortable with. A friend visiting from Scotland recently said the same. Perhaps my years living there affected me.

4. I find non-tax-inclusive pricing to be a very deceptive practice, and a failing of government. They can layer on federal tax, by state tax, county tax and city tax, so driving 20 mins away, outside of the city limits, items are taxed differently. Price tags and listed prices are always exclusive of tax which is calculated at the register.

5. I encounter a lot of homeless people and people with mental issues and substance addictions. Also, living close to downtown and catching busses often, I encounter them even a lot more. Seattle has one of the highest number of homeless people in the US. Having said that, to quote one homeless man on a bus, if you're homeless in Seattle, you'll never go hungry, and never need for the bare basics (he specifically mentioned clothing), as they will be given to you.

6. America-level violent crime. I still can't get my head around shootings actually happening, let alone being [frighteningly] common. Just last night a poor girl walking her dog in the nearby University District was shot 5 times in a drive-by shooting.
My entire adult life I have lived near cheap, high crime areas. Oats St, Perth; Kabukicho, Tokyo; Hanoi; and Leith, Edinburgh. I've never been involved in an altercation because I follow strict, common-sense rules and have been very lucky, but this place, with so many mentally ill people on the streets, and guns so readily available, it is just so much worse. I neither work nor live downtown, but I never feel safe when I am there.

Overall, I'm loving Seattle, but if I've learned one thing, it's that every place has its pros and cons. I maintain I made the right decision.

#4 Good Things About Living in a Big City

20/10/2017

I moved here from Edinburgh, population 500,000, without so much of a downtown/central business district as much as a historic center. Glasgow, an hour away felt like a modern city, whereas Edinburgh, though a great place to live, did not.

Seattle feels alive with people and is buzzing. Something as simple as the sheer size of buildings, whether skyscrapers or large in other means add to the buzz and atmosphere. The local Boeing factory and airfield means all manner of interesting planes fly very close overhead but make little noise. There's excellent public transport, excellent food (groceries and restaurants, both common and with plenty of new things,) lots of diversity among the people, wide car lanes and excellent roads, diverse choices for where to live and what type of home, good shopping, lots of economic opportunity, and lots to do and explore in and around the city.
That's what I wrote when I first landed here, and I wouldn't retract anything, but six months in and I would add that there is so much going on in the way of events and entertainment that you choose what nights to take off, knowing you're missing out on some event, or don't want to know what you're missing out on.

I'm definitely a city mouse, and this was definitely one of the many reasons why I quickly declared this permanent move to have been an excellent decision.

#3 Americans are loud.

13/10/2017

I know this is a stereotype we've all heard and perhaps observed at times, possibly much to our amusement at the reception desk of a museum in Milan, *ahem,* but today I was in Pike Place Market, and two middle-aged grocers, standing perhaps 2 meters (yards) away from each other were yelling their conversation at each other. Do they always use their outside voice, or was their conversation about why that specific breed of asparagus is tastier because of a certain chemical perhaps a work of performance art designed to increase sales? I don't know.

Seriously though, us Australians are just as loud as Americans, myself doubly so, so I think I may have found my people. I'm especially loving how friendly people in the Pacific North West (PNW) are - as friendly as West Australians, which I have found nowhere else. It didn't take long to be glad this is my new home.

#2 Portion Sizes and Doggy Bags

6/10/2017

This one's a favorite to discuss on the Aussies in America Facebook group.

It's one thing to be told all your life how big the restaurant servings are in the US and how it's normal to take home leftovers, but it's another to be faced with it.
But on week one I shocked myself by finding I'd already finished my delicious ravioli, the free garlic bread AND the free chicken and leek soup that came with it.
The person next to me expressed their amazement that I finished all that.

So yes, I need to learn to take leftovers, which six months in, I still forget to do.
My great-aunt lived in the US for 30 years. All my life, whenever she wanted a doggy bag, she'd ask the server for the container so she could pack it herself. It stemmed back to a (now hilarious) experience in New York where the waitress came back with massive a massive bag for her. My Aunt asked "what's all this?" and the waitress said in hushed tones "I gave you everyone else's too" with a wink.

#1 Massive Cars

29/9/2017

The cars here are massive. Tons (pun!) of 4WDs, the biggest pickup trucks (Australians: utes) I have ever seen, and also unlike Europe but just like West Australia, very wide lanes.

I refused to drive in Britain despite them also driving on the left because the lanes were so narrow. I would often be terrified as a passenger that the driver would lose a mirror or scrape cars. It took TWO YEARS years for the feeling to subside enough for driving to not be horribly nerve-racking.

Walking around downtown on my first full day in Seattle, the sheer size of the vehicles parked in parking complexes really stuck out. It was my first true impression of America. Recently I met a fellow Aussie who used to live in Texas and told me that there, instead of perhaps 20% of locals owning tank-sized vehicles, it's more like 80%.

Personally, I'm one of those people who thinks an unnecessarily big vehicle or 4WD that never goes off-road is for many people, either a manifestation of an attitude "I can do what I want," "keeping up with the Joneses" or a way to make yourself feel safer, both at the expense of other drivers around you and an increased chance you roll your vehicle. Unless you, dear reader, have a 4WD or pickup truck, in which case I am not judging you. (ಠ_ಠ)

About this blog

Musings, frustrations and wonderment from an Australian who moved to the US having never visited the country before.

This is the fifth country I have lived in in five years, and if I've learned one thing, it's that every place has its pros and cons.
Published Fridays.

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