- I was into Bad Girls Club, the TV show,
so I thought like all the, especially the girls
gonna be like super aggressive.
(pleasant music)
- My grandparents, right,
they're like in their 70s right now.
When I told them that I was moving out here,
like my grandma almost had a heart attack.
She was like, no, don't go, this is a huge mistake.
- I'll tell you how my mom summarized the United States.
(laughs)
My mom says, your guys dress horrible.
Your guys eat terrible.
- Like, Singaporeans do think
that Americans are also pretty loud.
- You have this mentality and this way of being
of being very loud and out there
and thinking you're the best.
- People really value their opinions.
Not to say that in Kenya we don't value opinions,
but perhaps it comes from the mindset where
I traveled to the US as an individual.
Maybe because I'm a minority here,
I feel like I'm representing Kenya in this case.
So I am opinionated, but I'm also very aware
that when I say certain things,
it can reflect on my culture.
- Before coming to the US, my expectations were
this was gonna be the land of opportunity
and I was gonna get a job right away.
- The movies and TV shows, you know,
that we watch in Singapore paints
like a super nice picture of America.
- Personally, growing up, I always thought
that America was like this dream land.
I was like, watching all these movies,
and I was like, oh, Americans are like, way too cool.
Like, I don't know if I can go there.
- Americans are deemed as cool
because they come from a country
which has all the resources they need.
- When I live here, I do love it, I just feel relaxed.
Even my brother, he's a student in China,
when he visited me, he just said, I just feel relaxed.
- When I came here, I didn't know English.
But like, people are like so nice,
and everyone like, tried to understand
what I'm trying to say, and a lot of people helped me, too.
- My mom was like, she really supported me,
the idea of me moving out here
and just studying, everything.
But then my dad was like, a little bit like,
mm, I don't know, like I'm not against it,
but I feel like Americans are much more materialistic.
But then he came out here to visit me,
he was like, okay, I actually kinda like it here.
Like, the people here are super nice and welcoming.
- Americans are very friendly.
Generally, Singaporeans actually
do think Americans are friendly.
- In my country, like, LGBT people still like,
cannot be open, like, they cannot.
But here is, everyone is open.
Like, everyone can be different.
And then LGBT, that's beautiful.
And I love that.
- You know, just like, you free.
I will always say, in United States,
one thing you just can't buy is the freedom.
The freedom in you wanna speak,
the freedom wanna you do things.
You wanna sleep on the couch 24 hours and nobody cares.
No social service will knocking on door,
say you should get up to go to work.
Oh, you can work 24 hour, nobody stop you, too.
So that's the freedom, the choice,
I think that's the big difference.
- I feel like a lot of people my age,
they realize more that it's this tension
between our countries, Russia and America,
is largely because of the media and the government.
Younger people are like, oh, like we get it.
It's cool, like, we're cool with Russia
and like, other countries.
It's just the government, it's not the people.
- Sometimes when we watch the news
and we see specific incidents that occur in the country
that are perhaps negative to different types of people,
that's when we kind of see, and you say,
oh wait a minute, like every country has its issues,
because all we ever see is the good side of everything.
And I think that's when it kind of gets to a point
where we see we're kind of all together in the same boat.
Despite being a first world country
and having a developing country, we're all dealing
with different issues in our countries, you know?
(pleasant music)