What happened to this American in 7 years in Indian family

I think they also thought that Americans don't care about their family members at all you know because their family is so important their biggest conception was you know how could you want to move away from your parents like don't you love them me Tyler an American who moved to Mumbai from a small us town and has been in India for 10 years he shared how he ended up living with an Indian family why Indians never say no and how is American values shifted after living in Mumbai I'm Mar an entrepreneur and YouTuber from Singapore let's go do you remember your first impressions when you first come to Mumbai I remember thinking where did I get myself into because it was completely different from where I am from from a small town in the states around 1,200 people and I remember the first thing thinking was that the amount of people I saw on the streets right away was the amount of people that live in my town I was scared I remember in fact buying a book that was uh it was called culture shock and reading it and I think that that actually scared me more than once I got here and and I realized that actually it's a very manageable country manageable City it opened my eyes to a lot of different things what was the most shocking part probably the traffic getting from point A to point B because I'm sure as you've seen that walking here is quite the challenge because they're sidewalks but they're not very used that often and you have to really be careful where you're going because you could have vehicles coming at you you have kids playing Cricket on the streets you have barers set up you have vegetable markets and then all of that can happen and then traffic stopped because a cow can walk by so there's a lot happening so you're constantly on gear was the traffic worse or better 10 years ago I say it's about the same I think right now it's particularly bad cuz there's a lot of construction happening in the city so that's delaying a lot of things but uh for me I think that the traffic's been the same since I've arrived I guess there's a big difference in mentality of Americans from the place where you from and Indians what's the like biggest difference how people think I would say a small one but I noticed a lot is when you go around here sometimes people are afraid to say what they actually mean and so that can slow things down so if you go somewhere and if you go to a restaurant or if you go to a store and if they can't provide a service with you sometimes rather than being a little bit more direct they're going to maybe say they can do something and actually they can't so they're trying a way to get away or to circum locate the issue if I say yes how how we say yes yes okay this yes how it's like I'm not sure I'm not sure so that with the face same gesture same gesture but with the eye with with a little bit with the face no no would be no like like that yeah like a normal no they're not going to say no straight up even sometimes you'll go to a restaurant and you'll get a menu and you'll order something and they'll say oh I'm so sorry sir that's actually not here today then you go to the next menu or I mean the next item and say oh we don't have that either so then rather than just you know going through and saying what they don't have they'll wait for you to go through the entire list before they say actually this is what we only have it's just a bit of being indirect why people are not very direct I think it's because they don't want you to feel bad and they don't want to make you feel uncomfortable I think that's what it is part of the reason and they feel that they should be providing a service or they should be you know if you're expecting something from them that they want to be able to accomplish that so when they can't they feel bad about it different thing I would say is the perception of family I find that uh compared to where I'm from you know family is so important here people put family amongst or first above everything I think that look you can see that when you look at the households and it's like very much a joint family so You' have different Generations living together and it's an expectation that you stay at the home whereas in the states by the time you reach 18 it's expected that you're out you're independent you're doing your own thing whereas here you want to be dependent of your family members and you want to stick together and help each other out so that's a big difference I've seen as well which one you prefer personally now I prefer the Indian style and I like being dependent on others I like that feeling of a whole family together helping each other out I know at first when I came you know it was my first time getting a job as my first time living by myself I thought that was going to be a great experience but then I found out you know after about a year or so that it's not easy to live by yourself I have quite a unique story because I met a really good friend and he could see that maybe I wasn't meant to be staying by myself so he actually invited me to come live with his family so I lived with the Indian family for about 7 years and really formed a super close relationship and to this day they consider me their family I finally felt that okay I think I'm ready to get my own place so I found my own apartment but it's right below the families so I still have dinner with them every night I celebrate with them we travel together it's really impacted how I view and how I see India wow that's so unique yeah when you stayed with the family how many people were there I think at one point we were five of us living in a two-bedroom apartment so we were very close-knit together one of the family members got married so she moved away so there's less of us but yeah quite a big big family what was the attitude towards you as an American from this Indian family in the beginning in the beginning I would think at first they were a bit skeptical as to what I was doing here because they had these big ideas of what it meant to be from the states and they just couldn't wrap their head around that I was choosing to live here because if they were given an opportunity they would do the opposite but then they realized how much I love the country how much I liked it here how much I meant to be here so that started to change one thing that changed was we started to understand how each other think cuz at first even though language wasn't an issue uh we' speak to each other in English sometimes we didn't understand what each other meant just because of some of the culture differences or um the way we viewed things was so different so that we that we got to learn from each other very quickly any example of this like miscommunication for example celebrating her birthday here as a custom that when you cut the cake whoever's birthday it is goes around and feeds everyone you know a little bit piece of cake but I didn't have that growing up so the it would be you would cut the cake and then you'd serve it you know on a plate but here you actually take it in your hand and serve in everyone's mouth yeah and they directly serve you and then they take that seam piece and then they feed the person next to them so at first I didn't know what was going on I like okay what's happening here but it was just part of the birthday celebration did they have any like misconception about America or Americans I think that they thought that you know we that that was a dream for most people is to go to the states and why would you want to leave when in reality that's not the truth I think they also thought that Americans don't care about their family members at all you know because here like I said earlier here family is so important their biggest conception was you know how could you want to move away from your parents like don't you love them by you leaving doesn't that show that you don't care for them because now they have to look after themselves especially as they're growing older and so I constantly have to remind them that I still love my parents and me moving away has nothing to say of our relationship but it's just a different family Dynamic so you grew up in this small town in Iowa what's the biggest differences of Lifestyle there and here I would say first off the noise here there you constantly have noise coming at you from every angle whether it be from the streets or music from a wedding that's playing across yard and that's something I noticed when I go back is how much noise there is here because I'll be sitting down with my family back in the States and it's quiet I think that my it's too quiet I need to put some type of noise on in the background here you fortunately and you can get a lot of things taken care of for you because there's such cheap labor and things are so much more economical that uh you can have everything delivered to your door I mean just with the app you can have someone come and they can you know repair something in your house they can give you a massage they can give you a haircut so everything is so much more accessible whereas in the states or at least in my town you have to to do everything yourself is there any anything that us can learn from India I think a lot I think India does an amazing job of being really resourceful I think that's something that I learned is I felt in the states and I think back back now I was so wasteful of what I had a lot of stuff that I got was us and throw and I didn't think about it and it would just go in the bin whereas I find here if you have something you're going to make sure that you use it until you can't use it anymore and then you're going to make sure okay if you can't use it anymore you're going to take it to some get it fixed so you can use it that's something I really respect and I really try to do more of like even if I have you know old clothes I have some rips in it rather than saying okay that's done I'm going to try to take it to a tailor or get it sewn or something like that or same with my household appliances whereas in the states I think okay it's done going to cost more just to get it repaired than to buy a new one whereas here you are going to find someone to repair it and make sure you have it as long as you possibly can how Mumbai cars are different from let's say people from Delhi I don't have that much experience in Delhi but uh the times that I've been there you have to be a little bit more on guard because when people see you there they see you more as a tourist and they kind of I found that sometimes I've been taken advantage of more often in Delhi than I have here whereas I think that here you know the people when they see me they assume that I'm working living here and so they don't try to I've never been feel like I've been cheated that often in Mumbai and they've really geared me and when I've been lost they've taken me and gone out of their way to show me where I need to go and so I've always felt you know very safe and secure here whereas in Delhi maybe it's just it's a new surrounding wasn't that same Hospitality feel I would say it's strange but I feel quite safe here yeah yeah because I don't know I'm a big guy but I was like walking around at night yesterday and day before trying to feel the place I don't see the aggression on the street yeah no there's no aggression and if there is it's you know shortlived you you have two cars who have a little bit of road rage they're going to be yelling at each other but then 2 minutes later they're going to be fine you know nothing big happens I've never had touchwood I've never had anything bad happen to me here because it is a very safe place traveling alone late at night and I've had a lot of really good experiences where actually you can see the kindness in people so sometimes you know when you're riding a Rick Shaw you might forget something like one time I remember I left my wallet in the Rick Shaw you know anywhere else like in the states that would be gone right you might not get your wallet back but but actually this Rick shy driver he remembered where I stayed came back gave it to the Watchmen and the next day I had my wallet that's something I'll never forget any crazy stories some memorable stories that you can recall my first year we were my friend and I were eating at a restaurant and I we didn't know Hindi at that time so we were just communicating to the Cook about how much we like the bread and he got so excited stared you know it felt like he was yelling at us in hindy and he pulled us out of our chairs brought us back to the kitchen so I thought okay fine he just wants to show us how they're making the bread and actually he started to force us to make it with the cooks so that was like you know so unexpected and it was a great experience and something different what's your favorite Indian food I love Biryani Biryani and I would say shami kebabs are some of my favorites and rajma Masala in Mumbai anything special that everyone should try so I think the most typical is wow which is this um fried potato it's kind of like they call The Bombay Burger because it's like a fried potato between two buns that's a must and I think Pon pori you you can't miss Pon pori it's an experience tell me about like Bollywood movies and like Bollywood dance I know you practice Yeah I love Bollywood dance yeah okay uh tell me how you found this love of Bollywood dance probably within my first year my friends they wanted to take me to a Bollywood movie I never seen one before and even though it was completely in Hindi they said you know with all the dancing and we'll help you figure it out so I went for my first Bollywood movie and immediately I was attracted to the music I was like I need to listen more of this I quickly asked my friends for all of their recommended songs and fell in love with their music and one thing that's kind of different is I really fell in love with Old Bollywood music uh like music from the 70s or ' 80s and there was one dancer in particular her name is Helen and she has some amazing dance moves so I would just put that on YouTube and try to Coffee her moves and that's I think where my love happened for Bollywood was through Helen and my friend is giving me all of their playlists one thing I love about bin music is if you notice if you go out with your friends and there's some B music happening everyone knows the moves and they're always the same moves so after 2 three years of being here you quickly learn okay this song's on what's going to be the hit move and everyone does it together why people are so into Bollywood in general I think it's just it's part of the life here I mean if you look at the major actors you know there's like I would say compared to to the states there are less big actors there are less big ones but they are featured in everything you know you're going to have shauk Khan and he's going to come out with two three movies in a year where in the States you might have one actor and that one actor is going to come out with a movie every other year for example everyone wants to go see the latest movie it becomes quite the events and I would say watching movies in the theater is more popular than at home I know that you speak Hindi you would say your Hindi level is Advanced or like I say intermediate yeah any I can get by I can defend myself when I'm on the streets what I heard is you can survive without Hindi living here because you can survive with just English in Mumbai yes in Mumbai yeah in Mumbai yes because if you go around people know enough they might not able to speak Hindi but they can or English but they can understand it they might reply back to you in Hindi but they understand what you're saying and somehow you can communicate with each other even if it's just small gestures you know you might be familiar with the head wavel and that helps you figure out what they're trying to say I would say enough people speak English here that that's never been an issue hand gestures often I see the taxi drivers they do like when someone El not give you away they like yeah this kind of thing yeah there's a another unique thing I learned here was how to go to the bathroom uh is go like this and that signals you have to go to the L and then little different things is uh you know counting here so when you count like if you were to count how would you count I would count like so here it's one two three four five six seven eight nine which is actually way more practical because you can count more that way using one hand one W yeah okay anything else it's like come on come on bro what are you doing how your personality shaped because living for 10 years in in India my perception of personal space has changed because here there there so many people here this personal space is much less and they're willing to share things a lot more frequently so I remember the first time I went to a restaurant and I didn't know you know the social norms or whatever so I went and sat down I was having dinner by myself and then all of a sudden a stranger came and sat down right in front of me and started eating and so for me that was weird because in the States you would never do that right like if this is a table this is for you whereas in this restaurant here it was very much a communal Fe and it was that you know this table has space for three so we're going to have all three people sit there and eat together for me that was a different thing and I like that uh even if you go to friends house or whatever you know they're going to welcome you if you're going to stay the night okay just stay on my bed you're going to put someone everywhere there's not this concept of oh I don't have space to put people you will make space to find people uh to put people and that I really enjoy about living here what would be your advice to someone who is thinking maybe to move to try to live in Mumbai in India what would be your your advice I would say you have to learn to be patient things here take time whether it be when you're first stuck in traffic because traffic is such a big part of your life here if you're going to go different places you're going to have to be prepared okay there's going to be traffic so you can't let that get to you and then if you're going to be living here and you have a lot of paperwork that you need to do there's a whole bunch of bureaucracy that you have to go through so you have to go to person a to receive this paper then go to person B to get it filled out then go to person C to make a payment just to go back to person a so in your head you think couldn't we have just all done that at one spot if you really on these small things it's going to get to you so you just have to be patient and I think this is for a lot of places you have to be open-minded and willing to see things from a different perspective because you know sometimes we take for granted here people do speak English so we think that because they speak English that we have the same mindsets but then sometimes you realize that no actually there are those cultural barriers and so you have to take the time to see where the other person's coming from uh to to yeah see it from a different lens but overall I would think you just need to be ready to tackle the city to tackle you know the heat the food the culture all that let me show you some magic if you click on this video I will disappear and reappear again let's try it three two 1

Channel: Max Chernov

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Keywords: max chernov, india foreigners, india foreigners reaction, india foreigners vlog, india life, india life vlog, indian lifestyle, india travel, india travel guide, foreigners in india, foreigners in indian food, mumbai vlog, mumbai food, mumbai, things to do in mumbai, foreigners in mumbai, expat life in india, india vlog, foreigner in india, foreigner, expat life, living abroad, american in india, foreigner in mumbai, mumbai reaction, भारत में विदेशी।, भारतीय परिवार

Id: 1ept0yzIjIw

Length: 17min 18sec (1038 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023