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- Every single year of my sex education,
we had to sign an abstinence vow in our books,
we actually had a teacher get written up because she taught
the girls sex ed class, how to put on the condom.
(country music)
- My name is Jerimey.
What I love about being in the country is,
being in that bubble of people that you know
and you care about.
- One of the misconception is people in the city think
that people in the country are like less educated.
- When I hear city teens, I think of party people.
(down-tempo music)
- My name's Mandy.
I am from LA
and I love it because of the character.
One second, you're seeing someone;
a model walking down the sidewalk,
the next to a homeless man is peeing on the ground.
- When I hear a country teen,
I just assume they're kind of just don't have a lot of
experience with people from different walks of life.
- In the city I've always felt included.
I've always had a friend group and people to relate to.
- [Producer] Step forward if you agree.
City teens are bitchier than country teens.
(feet stomping)
- Well, of course city teens are more bitchier than,
sorry mom and dad,
of course city teens are more bitchier than uhm,
country teens
because you guys have so much more to deal with.
- It's just kind of a rule out of safety,
where you don't even make eye contact with anyone,
because then you're putting yourself at risk
because there's unfortunately, a lot more bad people
that are willing to do bad things in the city.
- [Producer] Can the disagreers step forward?
(feet stomping)
- I want to say I'm a selfless person.
I'm a nice person.
However, you know, I have that bitchy side,
me coming out as like a bitch,
is now just me making sure you know who I am
and how I am going to run my things.
- In the city even just driving,
everyone else is so selfish and self-important,
where they're getting where they wanna be,
even if they're putting other people in danger.
- I almost had a heart attack this morning,
when so many cars like especially like in the city,
they'll just cut you off.
The drivers, they don't care at all
so I'm like okay, so that's normal.
- [Producer] People learn more practical life skills
in the country?
- I grew up in a huge family of eight siblings
and we've always lived on a farm
and I've had a lot of like life skills.
Now I know about plumbing and like water tanks
and different things that I can now use in my adulthood,
now that I'm not living at home.
- My hometown specifically,
the upstate South Carolina is considered like industrial,
so we have a lot of factories,
so they teach you a lot of very practical hands-on skills;
woodwork, auto-parts, auto-body, in my opinion,
AAA's not gonna to help you in the country.
You have to learn how to...
I had to learn how to change my tire multiple times
before I actually fully understood it.
- I don't know how to change my tire,
I've never done it once in my life.
- My dad makes sure we...
I keep a jack in my car just in case of that.
- Would you say it's more encouraged for you
to do more of that trade stuff that you learn
or do they encourage you to say, hey,
feel free to go out into the city and learn the technology?
- They give you the option,
but going into the workforce was always a good option
for people who maybe couldn't have afforded XYZ
and stuff like that.
- Yeah personally,
I've decided not to go to college at this moment,
even though I graduated this past year
and I feel I have enough skills to the point where
I could get jobs that don't require a four-year degree.
(feet stomping)
- A big part of practical life skill is human interaction.
And I think in the city, you have a lot of opportunities to
meet a lot of diverse people,
uhm, different kinds of people.
You have uhm, the ability to network.
- What would be considered that,
social skills or practical skills?
- I think social skills are definitely our practical skill.
- But I feel in the city you learn some skills
that are also equally useful to living in the state,
they're just not the same ones, right?
Like one thing I think about a lot is Uber.
Everyone in the city knows that if,
if something doesn't work out, something goes wrong.
there's always an Uber - assuming you have money.
There's always like an option. Someone you can contact.
Whereas if you're in the middle of nowhere,
there's not gonna be an Uber, period.
- Moving to Charlotte was definitely a culture shock for me.
I didn't know how to use a parking meter.
I charged myself four times on a parking meter,
cause I didn't know how to use it.
- Would you consider that a practical skill?
That's the question, right?
Because what is a practical skill?
In now society is it knowing how to use a parking meter?
Like that's odd to think about right?
- Exactly. When I moved there, I just didn't know,
and that's why I refuse to even go towards the city limits.
(laughing)
- [Producer] I had sex education in school.
(feet stomping)
- Every single year of my sex education,
we had to sign an abstinence vow in our books,
we actually had a teacher get written up
because she taught the girls
in sex ed class how to put on a condom.
- I think the importance that schools plays on sex education
is extremely lacking.
Why aren't we worried about uhm,
how good of people we are gonna be?
Because sex education also includes uhm, you know,
sexual assault, rape.
Like once we uhm put our mindset into,
we need to educate on things not just science, math,
reading, uhm that's how you create better students.
That's how you create better people.
- My parents wanted to like,
have me learn it from them
because my family is like very Christian
that everyone has a different view
of how they think about sex.
So I think sometimes it's important to have like,
parents teach that to kids.
I don't know if it should solely be on schools.
- Which I don't think it should,
but the problem is a lot of parents won't.
As a woman, we're not taught a lot about our anatomy
and our health as much as we should uhm.
I was diagnosed with PCOS,
polycystic ovarian syndrome.
With periods and that kind of stuff,
we're not taught like what's normal,
what's not normal.
We're just taught you have one.
I got hospitalized because of my condition
because I didn't know about it.
I wasn't taught about it.
And I feel like there's more to sex education
than just intercourse.
- [Producer] People in the city
have access to better education.
(feet stomping)
- Where I'm from it was very underdeveloped,
30 minutes away there was private schools.
There's always a private school with the better education,
better funding.
And we were having to have teachers travel just
because of how horrible our conditions were at my school,
and these kids will go to Ivy league colleges
where I'm going to community.
- I think there's a lot more of a requirement
to be educated in the city.
If you don't get like a certain quality of education,
like your, your options are just not gonna be good enough,
to afford a lot of the lifestyles
that people live in the city.
- Where I'm from it's the workforce, blue collars,
we're the people who provide for the rest of America.
So if we can find a job without our education,
that's more important. Cause that's,
what's putting food on the table.
Why are we gonna break our bank? If we're just,
if we can find a job without one.
(feet stomping)
- The school that I went to basically like,
there was a lot less people there
and there was more help for people that needed it
and like one-on-one time with teachers.
So I would say like,
that's the reason I've seen a lot of like country schools
having higher like test scores
and all that stuff.
- The high school that I go to is heavily funded.
There was one time I did go to an inner city school
and I was like, whoa,
like this is different.
They don't have what we have.
Like, I hate to bring this up but like, you know,
sometimes when you go to those inner city schools,
who do you see the most in those schools?
And that's when it comes into the race factor.
It's been seen in history that more Black
and Hispanic schools,
they often are less funded than these PWI.
- Do you think that's because of their race,
or because of just where those people tend to live?
- We can start a whole entire conversation about red lining
and how they're all pack there,
and somehow they always end up to have
the least funded schools,
but that's a whole entire other conversation.
- [Producer] I have a diverse group of friends.
(feet stomping)
- I have a lot of people who don't view the world that I do,
who are not Christian who are atheist,
stuff like that.
So I think it's important to have those friends
because like, as a Christian,
you're called not to just like be in a bubble
and not just be friends with people that agree with you
because that's just an echo chamber
that doesn't do any good.
- I would say,
it's like always a great opportunity
to be able to learn new things from new people
and uhm really expand yourself.
I would say my main group though is mostly Asian American
because that's where I find common ground with people.
Uhm it's about what you have in common,
sometimes what you don't have in common.
(feet stomping)
- I think friends are a luxury.
I've never had a set group of friends growing up.
I've always been the weird homo in the background.
Uhm, I was that token friend.
I was the token gay
and it was never, I wanted to hang out,
I just wanted you as my arm candy at school,
always the white girls just never,
never want to hang out with me in public
and always want to hang out
with me in front of their friends.
My like my friends are just the people I see at work
or the people I just kind of,
I'm kind of around because I know my boyfriend
has has a big friend group and I'm just around them.
I know I'm never gonna feel like I fit in,
it's just that one insecurity that I know.
I'm never gonna find that friend group
that is going to stick with me forever.
- [Producer] I feel safe where I live.
(feet stomping)
- I'm a tall white dude.
At least that's what, that's what people see,
and like, that's a huge security in the city.
And I know I have friends who are not tall, not white,
not dudes,
like changing all those three factors
determines kind of where you feel safe,
and it has a lot more to do with like me
rather than just like my area or the city itself.
- Yeah. Personally, like growing up on a farm
and predominantly in this area in the country.
There's not very many like dangers,
like you can just be home alone at like age 10,
no one's really gonna like bother you.
A lot of people have guns,
so people are not scared of other people.
It's more like, natural disasters or like animals
or different things like that.
I was talking with some of my family members
and they were like, oh,
now that you live like by yourself in the country,
maybe you should get something like bear spray
because that's more of a threat
than someone like coming to the house
and like trying to rob us.
(feet stomping)
- Yeah uh,
I carry around a personal alarm with me wherever I go.
I keep it in my bag
because I want to be able to pop it open
and alert everyone around me to be like, hey,
I'm small and I might go missing.
Like, I feel the need to have those things, unfortunately,
and it sucks that I do.
I know if someone brought up guns uhm in the countryside,
for me in the city, guns are scary,
not protection because if someone has a gun in the city,
they're not protecting you,
they're likely gonna shoot you.
I had a school shooting by my neighborhood.
Uhm, so it's definitely something where,
you know, it's hard to feel safe,
even going to school.
- You know, in the country,
rarely ever hear things happen like that.
Like, I guess it's just a luxury
that we have in the country.
You can just walk around,
maybe go on a late night jog or whatever, you know,
things that you can't really do in the city.
- [Producer] I want to switch lives with the other side.
(feet stomping)
- Uhm, I've seen what it's like to be in the city,
and I feel like, especially in the city,
there's like way more opportunities.
Uhm, I really want to get into, you know,
acting and stuff like that.
Like in Texas, you don't really see that much of that.
- There's always something going on in the city,
which is great but it also means,
there's always all kinds of different people,
but it'd be nice to like,
spend some time just being in the country
and figuring like stuff out for myself.
- I feel like I'm literally the opposite of you.
I, I want to change the pace.
I want mine to be faster, you want yours to be slower.
(feet stomping)
- When I was a kid I've always wanted to like,
live in New York City
and do that whole thing and do like fashion,
but obviously like everyone's opinions change
and what they want to do changes.
So I know personally, I want to end up in the country
and just like live on land
or live somewhere that's very peaceful
and like not super busy.
- I personally love city life.
Like, I love city life so much that I went from LA
to New York City, whiWch is even more a city than LA.
I did live in Georgia for a little under half of my life,
but just from personal experience uhm,
as like a minority,
uhm, we tend to be less accepted where there's less of us,
and what. When I lived in Georgia,
there weren't a lot of Asian people.
Uhm when I was a kid,
like I would overhear people making fun of my mom's accent,
my dad's accent about how they spoke,
to compare to where I live now,
and those things don't happen as often.
- I love my quiet life.
I love living on the outskirts.
I love just not having to worry about much,
but my bills.
To me, success and happiness,
don't go together.
If that's me living just where I am,
what I'm doing right at this moment.
That's okay.
- It was interesting to me with you guys,
both being minorities in the countryside,
just seeing how you experienced being in the country,
because I think it's a stereotype that,
you know,
there's a lot of people that are ignorant
and bigoted in the country
rather than the city - it's more accepting.
- I feel like we,
all of us are more on the same wavelength.
Than I think our parents had with,
you know,
people in different walks of life.
Like if we were to meet again,
the word country wouldn't come to my mind at all.
At any point it would just be like,
you know,
peers.
(indistinct chatter)
- I would handshake, but you know.
(upbeat music)