[tsk1979]

Note from mod: Please be civil and objective in your discussions and acknowledge everyone has their own priorities. For some it can be AQI 30, but for others it may be "bai".

The purpose of this thread is not to say "my preference is right", so please stick to the topic at hand

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by .sushilkumar

** Perhaps Offtopic for the thread**
Gender identity is not a problem per se. I am all for you it but it is for a consenting adult to decide not by a 10 years old kid & his school teachers or a random doctor in hospital.

Originally Posted by PZK

I wanted to write about the Gender Identity part in America but restrained myself. I think you don't fully appreciate the situation unless you have skin in the game.

First of all, anything to do with a culture, what to expect in a given country and the schooling system is extremely relevant for anybody considering emigration. It makes a nice and extremely relevant change on this thread where the main criteria often appear to be how much money one can make abroad. So as far as I'm concerned extremely relevant for a thread on emigration.

I think this has two different aspects (at the very minimum!).

What do you expect from a school and what are your personal beliefs and values? How much will you allow them to deviate from each other?

I expect from a school that it teaches and familiarises young kids with all aspects of life. They need to teach "hard" skills, e.g. reading, math, writing etc. But they also need to prepare kids for the broader world out there. And whether we like it, that world out there has wars, mass shootings, rapes, porn, 3000+ different religions and transgenders.

More than ever kids are exposed 24/7 to just about everything and anything happening in our world. Not just via TV, but also mobile phones these days of course. Half the American kids have a mobile phone by the age of 10!

What I also expect from a school is they teach and talk about these things bearing in mind the kids' ages. Talking about sex to a 6-year-old needs to be different from talking about sex to a 12-year-old.

But all these things need to be discussed. Kids need to learn there are different countries, but also different religions, different genders and different sexes.

There is no doubt in my mind that schools and teachers have a hugely important role to fulfil in making kids understand the world around them. Do some take it too far? Yes, I am sure sometimes that happens. Talking about gender identities in American schools is relevant news. Americans are probably the most repressed Western country in the world when it comes to sex education. But at least it is happening. With new difficult topics always comes confusion and always some big problematic mistakes. That is unfortunate, to say the least of course.

When choosing a school parents need to investigate the curriculum and how that is taught. And you need to stay involved during your kids' schoolyears because these curriculums change over the year.

Our kids have gone to different schools on different continents as they were growing up. We always choose their schools carefully. So yes, we asked questions about how they talk/teach about sex education throughout the curriculum. How they talk about religion, and which religions are covered in the curriculum. The school stand on homosexuality and so on.

Irrespective of your views and or beliefs, there is a lot of ground you can cover in choosing the school for your kids.

We have three grandchildren and I am very happy to see how educational standards have broadened to encompass more important topics. Dutch schools will cover anything, in an age-appropriate, way. When discussing the second world war and how the Nazis killed millions of Jews, is of course very different for a 4-year-old compared to say a 14-year-old. But the 4-year-old is likely to come across it and is likely to ask questions.

Of course, raising our grandchildren is the responsibility of their respective parents. But when it comes to gender identity issues, we have had our share when our kids were growing up. It is a bit odd to claim you need to have skin in the game to be familiar with a topic. All of us debate and argue about all sorts of topics all day long. Mostly without too much skin in the game.

I don't particularly favour the opinion of someone with skin in the game, over the opinion of somebody who has not. Both have their own bias. Just two different opinions, both relevant. Personally, I think, on any important topic, it is valuable to understand as many different points of view as you can. And have a feel for the bias (experience, skin in the game if you like) of the person.

Good schools should teach young kids. Give them the ability to listen and to ask lots of questions, be aware of their own bias and ultimately make their own choices in life.

Jeroen

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Give them the ability to listen and to ask lots of questions, be aware of their own bias and ultimately make their own choices in life.

Thanks for saying this, for me the buck stops here!

I feel majority in India, we put so much stress/pressure to make our kids "better educated" and in this rat race we forget to make them "better human beings" and prepare them for the world to take it head-on.

Somebody rightly said, "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid"

[.sushilkumar]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Good schools should teach young kids. Give them the ability to listen and to ask lots of questions, be aware of their own bias and ultimately make their own choices in life.Jeroen

Thanks Sir. Glad we are on same page. Rest, we all have our cultural differences and that's what enriches us all with our own individual viewpoints or biases & help us take a correct decision.

What works for others might not work for me and vice versa but making blank statements & showing others views/values as inferior is uncalled for on august forums like T-BHP.

Cheers !!!

[Chisels121]

Originally Posted by kiku007

I wish people travel more outside of India to form their opinions rather than be armchair critics based on hearsay a.k.a "YouTube played me a 100 videos on how bad the situation in the USA is. Glad I'm not there.".

Sorry sir but you are a bit inconsiderate there.

I say this because my parents had long discussions on emigrating at the dining table of which I too was a part of.

The thing is my father's very own brother is a fund manager at Fidelity and had always pressurised my father for emigration. My father never went as his field didn't have exposure in U.S but listen to this incident that is a popular one in our family:

My aunt once cooked parathas and it's smell irked her neighbours and they pasted a complaint in the notice board and the next day they cooked beef in the backyard and when it's smell irked my grandma they simply said "so are you asking us to stop eating beef for you to breathe better!" on her face. Of course the behaviour varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood but this was an upscale one of Chicago in the late 2000's. The apnapan is simply not there in the first world countries and you are always reminded of it. Today Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad are rapidly developing cities and you visit them to see how far has India progressed.

P.S: Half of my paternal family lives in Delhi so I have visited these cities quite a few times and they have been described as quite good by my 'videshi' family members and we now how defensive emigrant Indians are, don't we

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Chisels121

My aunt once cooked parathas and it's smell irked her neighbours and they pasted a complaint in the notice board and the next day they cooked beef in the backyard and when it's smell irked my grandma they simply said "so are you asking us to stop eating beef for you to breathe better!" on her face. Of course the behaviour varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood but this was an upscale one of Chicago in the late 2000's. The apnapan is simply not there in the first world countries and you are always reminded of it.

What exactly is your point here? i am unable to understand the issue. What exactly is the "apnapan" you are talking about? We are known for lynching people just on suspicion of eating/transporting beef

[Chisels121]

Originally Posted by m8002?

What exactly is your point here? i am unable to understand the issue. What exactly is the "apnapan" you are talking about? We are known for lynching people just on suspicion of eating/transporting beef

Alright, let me explain. My grandmother is vegetarian and our family is not vegetarian. Although the smell of barbecue beef was not pleasant for my grandmother, and all my uncle asked to the neighbours was that if they avoid barbecue beef for 2 days till my grandmother went back to India and I have stated their reply in the above post. Whereas my aunt was cooking parathas inside the house and then they got the smell coming out from the chimney and instantly gave a complaint. I mean how they even got the smell?

The 'apnapan' part was basically that we Indians don't find our food smell bothering unlike Americans.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Chisels121

All right let me explain,

The 'apnapan' part was basically that we Indians don't find our food smell bothering unlike Americans and

Sorry, but aren't you contradicting yourself? On one hand, you find them intolerant of Paratha smell/smoke and on the other hand, your relatives ask them to take the beef inside to prevent the smell?

On the smoke from Indian cooking, I know of atleast 2 instances when I was in the US, where the fire alarms went off when making Rotis/Parathas. In one case there was so much smoke that the Fire services landed up.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by m8002?

On the smoke from Indian cooking, I know of atleast 2 instances when I was in the US, where the fire alarms went off when making Rotis/Parathas. In one case there was so much smoke that the Fire services landed up.

Totally relate to it. I happened to waste the time of fire-men 3-times during our initial days in the US.

Once was in Boston and twice in Seattle. All the times, what impressed me was how quickly the firemen came. I think it was less than 5-mins. That time in Boston, they even had a Parantha with us before they left. Since then, whenever we make paranthas which is quite regularly, cook-top fan is on and windows are open.

From a smell perspective, I think it swings both ways. My wife gets regular compliment from all her American colleagues whenever she opens her lunch box.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by m8002?

I was in the US, where the fire alarms went off when making Rotis/Parathas. In one case there was so much smoke that the Fire services landed up.

Originally Posted by mobike008

Once was in Boston and twice in Seattle. All the times, what impressed me was how quickly the firemen came.

Guys do you mean smoke alarm or fire alarm, both are different. And I haven’t seen smoke alarms connected to DCS in residential entities. We have smoke alarms connected to DCS in offices.

Can you throw some light how the system works in case of smoke scenario? are the smoke alarms too connected to DCS, that must be too difficult to monitor for the fire teams.

The recommendation from the experienced cooks was to cover the smoke detector with a wet towel

That must be a task to dangle wet towel to the ceiling !! I can’t visualise how it was done. But I’m not surprised, we are champions to play around the safety.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Totally relate to it. I happened to waste the time of fire-men 3-times during our initial days in the US.

Just to be clear, it wasnt at my home :-). The fire service incident was in the case of a newly wed couple who moved in to our apartment complex in NJ. Guess the young bride wanted to impress her husband with some yummy Aloo Parathas . It was sometime in Feb/Mar with all the windows/doors fully shut.

The recommendation from the experienced cooks was to cover the smoke detector with a wet towel when making Parathas. Never tried though and not sure if that helps. I was content making rice in a rice cooker.

Originally Posted by NomadSK

Guys do you mean smoke alarm or fire alarm, both are different.

I guess it was the smoke alarm. Not sure. And I am using them interchangeably here.

[Chisels121]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Sorry, but aren't you contradicting yourself? On one hand, you find them intolerant of Paratha smell/smoke and on the other hand, your relatives ask them to take the beef inside to prevent the smell?

All right let me explain in detail that my grandparents went to Chicago around May 2010 and the weather is such that it's not hot but most houses there don't have ceiling fans so windows are kept open at that time(kitchen window was always closed) and my aunt had the chimney on so that the smoke of paratha goes straight into the chimney and won't stain the kitchen marble so the smell was coming out of the rooftop chimney which you can't really smell unless you are probably standing on the roof itself or something like that. OTOH, the neighbours were barbecuing the beef in their backyard out in the open and the smell came straight into my grandparents room. Also I guess the neighbours were probably Irish as they clearly were barbeque fanatics and earlier that morning my grandparents were sipping tea in our backyard and they had to come inside as the neighbours then teenage son was playing heavy metal music at full blast at 7:00 AM in the morning. Later we got to know that the son promptly crashed his Camaro into a tree and literally escaped death and the Camaro(imagine giving your son a muscle car in a city where snowfall occurs) was apparently his graduation gift. My grandmother commented she would have given his parents an earful for giving such a powerful car to their 18 year old son
P.S: I don't know anything more about the incident as I wasn't even present there at that time.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Chisels121

All right let me explain in detail that my grandparents went to Chicago around May 2010 and the weather is such that it's not hot but most houses there don't have ceiling fans so windows are kept open at that time and my aunt had the chimney on so that the smoke of paratha goes straight into the chimney and won't stain the kitchen marble so the smell was coming out of the rooftop chimney which you can't really smell unless you are probably standing on the roof itself or something like that. OTOH, the neighbours were barbecuing the beef in their backyard out in the open and the smell came straight into my grandparents room. Also I guess the neighbours were probably Irish as they clearly were barbeque fanatics and earlier that morning my grandparents were sipping tea in our backyard and they had to inside as the neighbours then teenage son was playing heavy metal music at full blast at 7:00 AM in the morning. Later we got to know that the son promptly crashed his Camaro into a tree and literally escaped death and the Camaro(imagine giving your son a muscle car in a city where snowfall occurs) was apparently his graduation gift. My grandmother commented she would have given his parents an earful for giving such a powerful car to their 18 year old son

There will be people who act mean in all parts of the world, including ours. But we shouldnt be generalizing the entire country based on the behaviour of a few unpleasant folks we have encountered.

[Chisels121]

This wasn't the only unpleasant experience they had but yeah I get what you are saying although overall these type of people are a bit too common in the U.S unfortunately.....

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by Chisels121

This wasn't the only unpleasant experience they had but yeah I get what you are saying although overall these type of people are a bit too common in the U.S unfortunately.....

Off topic: Unfortunately, the so called ‘these type’ of people are aplenty in our country as well, probably much more than US !!