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Hello, everyone. Welcome back to America Under the Microscope advanced episode. Hi, Lulu.

Hi, James.

So we’re going to dig a little bit more into this party culture and partying in America. And we’re going to start off with kind of the social pressure and the social norms related to partying in America.

But can I, first of all, ask you a question?

Yeah.

Because sometimes I get asked by students based on all these movies and TV shows that they have watched and they keep saying that oh, you know, does America really have a big party culture sounds like everyone is busy parting, they always have lots of different parties to go to. What would you say to that?

Emmmmm. I don’t know what part of America that’s from. Yeah, we do have parties, we don’t really go to parties that often and people don’t host parties that often because it’s work.

Yeah.

People are busy. People at my age have families and we don’t got time for that.

Yeah, I think social gatherings are very common.

Right.

But not like full-blown parties.

So most Americans, what they would do is so would you have a meal with your friends? Yes. Or would you like see your family and do something as family? Yes, this is common. But like having a big full-blown party. No, those aren’t that common because again they are troublesome and lots of work.

Yeah, and also I think lots of work and also lots of money. It just sounds like people who are really… like hosting, especially, a lot of parties even hiring, catering for parties, these are people definitely who got though to spend because it’s very difficult to really imagine people who have not really a lot of funds would do that.

Yeah, it is. It is not a cheap adventure.

But you also mentioned social pressure.

Uh-huh.

Are there any parties that the society sort of expect you host or to have?

Yeah, I mean there’s still a big pressure on like you should have a wedding party or you should have you know holiday parties. This is really common in like you should go to your company parties, work parties and things like this, so that pressure does exist.

Uh-huh.

Especially for the company ones, you don’t want to be that workers like he never participates, he’s never part of the team because…

So that’s a thing in America as well.

Very much is.

What about like community.Earlier on, you mentioned when we were talking about housing, you talked about this whole homeowners, association and stuff.

Right.

So how so if your neighbors…

Yeah, so if you’re a part of community, you are kind of pressure like taking part in like the community activities if they have any, it’s like you need to participate; or you know someone is doing this barbecue for some reason, it’s like you should take part. There is pressure to do that because they want you to be part of their group. And then on top of that, there’s a lot of pressure about following the rules that people set up for their parties.

It’s not even just general rules that the general culture sets, it’s more specific party hosts that will set these rules.

Some party hosts will be really rigid. Yeah, it’s got to be this way, it’s got to do this,y ou got to wear this ...

Sounds like a “fun” party.

It sounds like mandatory fun, whereas some people get come or don’t, more laid back, but there is some people who really take this kind of like you gotta do it my way, if you do it, everything is ruined, everything’s bad.

You are having fun wrong.

Yes.

But is it culturally appropriate to turn down a party invitation if people invite me to their parties? Can I just say you know for whatever reason? I’m sorry, I cannot go.

You have got to have plight of proving right excuse, but they’re going to try to push. It’s like so you’d say it’s like I’d love to go, but unfortunately I have to work that day and they’re like, can’t you switch shifts?

In terms of language, you would say I would love to go.

Yeah, I’d love to go, but…

So I would love to go. Would you say that “that” is always followed with a “but”?

Not always because it depends on your intonation, but in general, I’d love to go. But…

I can’t.

I can’t.

What about drinking? Because in Chinese parties sometimes you are forced to drink, we have that sort of competitive drinking culture especially in some parts of China. What about…

This one is a little bit different. Now, luckily Americans usually what college they pretty pushy, college students are, young and dumb. But adults usually they’re not going to push you to drink if you don’t want to drink. But what might happen is you get questions like what? You don’t drink? Why not? Which is a little bit weird. Because it’s like, why would I need to tell you why I don’t drink.

Exactly. Exactly. One thing I have noticed is sometimes you see, especially if I’m thinking about some of the TV shows you watch, you do see people putting an excessive amount of money and efforts into some of the parties. When you look at their decorations or preparations and you think they must have spent a fortune on it. Is that somewhat realistic?

I wouldn’t say for the vast majority. Most parties I have been to, whether it’s a family one or… it’s tend to be fairly simply decorated. They don’t waste time. Most people just focus on like let’s clean our house. Make sure everything looks nice.

Some people do go a little bit nuts on their preparations for the party. This can include decorations, so people are like: we’ve got to have the balloons. We gotta have the streamers, we gotta have the Peppa pig paw patrol you know plates and all that kind of stuff. That’s obviously talking about the children’s party.

Yeah.

The food is like we have to make sure we have that food. We have like, what if this person is vegetarian? What if this person’s gluten intolerant and we have to make sure we have gluten intolerant food, and so on and so on, and so on.

For me, I absolutely hate. I know this might sound offensive might be to some people out there, but I really don’t like if I invite people to my party, it’s my duty as a host to ask, do they have any preferences? You can give me preferences, but don’t give me orders. Don’t say I can’t absolutely cannot eat this. You must cook me that, it’s like I’m not your servant.

Yeah, I was raised that you eat what you’re offered and if you can’t eat it, you don’t say anything.

Exactly, because it’s… you’re invited to someone’s party, right?

Yeah.

The declarations and people overdo declarations, overdo food. In some weird situations that we’ve seen that people just try to outdo others in some… for example, gender reveal seems to be pretty big in the past?

Apparently. Like I said, we’re going to have a big party to tell everyone what’s the gender of our baby. We’ll do this with fireworks or ballonoons or… it seems really ridiculous, but it’s not just this kind of parties like this. It’s even like the big one in America would be like children’s parties. As insanely overdone children’s parties like this kid did this big party, I’m going to have to do another big party for my child.

Ah, I think that you can see traces of it in China as well. Parents can be super competitive. But speaking of children’s parties, I know this is Jewish thing but like Bar Mitzvah. That seems to be a party that the Jewish community they would spend a lot of money on.

I suppose, unfortunately I don’t know much about the Bar Mitzvah for but it is a big party. But that’s going to be more than just your regular party because that actually has religious significance to them. And it’s not just with your friends, it’s…

Coming of age…

Coming of age party with whole family and things. So it’s it’s kind of a big deal.

Yeah, okay, I guess that’s enough about parties. James and I, I don’t think we’re big party people anyways.

Our kinds of parties like hey, let’s all get together, have a nice meal, have a few drinks and go to bed at a normal hour.

Very boring.

It’s not boring, it’s adult.

Oh, it’s adult. Okay. Okay. However you want to put it. Anyhow we’re going to wrap up here.

So we would like to hear from all of you and we don’t know if you’ve any experience, any of these like over the top or really excessive parties that you’ve ever experienced and where you meet things like that’s a little bit too much or things like that.

Oh, they must have spent a fortune.

Yeah.

So if you have ever been to some of these over the top parties, or if you’ve been to any interesting parties that you would like to share with us, leave us a comment in a comment section. We would love to read about it.

Yes.

See you next time.

Bye bye everyone.

Bye.