What is the most obvious thing that an Indian fresh-off the plane to US notices? In my opinion, it is the fact that everyone greets and everyone is greeted with the most humble expressions - "Thank you" and " Hi, How are you doing today, Sir/Madam". It is ubiquitous - in the grocery stores at the cashier's counters, in the buses, at movie theaters - in fact at any place where there is a possibility of human encounter. Some may take it as a mere mindless activity people engage in as a matter of habit. But I feel that most of the time people ask genuinely. This is because the general sense of respecting the other person is generally high in the US than in India. In India, nobody would care to ask you "How are you doing today" out of the blue, or nobody would even care to say "Thank you" to the bus conductor/driver while boarding off the bus.
It is also this sense of respect for human beings that makes labor very expensive in US, which is why we wouldn't have maid-servants , cooks, laundry-men coming to our homes everyday. This is precisely why people learn to take care of their chores by themselves without any sulk. Most of the Indians opine that they would love to go back to India to enjoy these services. But for me, that would mean not bothering to respect the maids as human beings.
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