random story

I don't have time to turn this into a big post, but yesterday something funny happened and i thought i would post it.  I went into the school bookstore and found out it was closed, a lady had checked it at the same time as me and we got talking.  Turns out she has a daughter in school who wants to study abroad to the US (Illinois) She was talking about how worried she was about her daughter going.  I realized though that she was worried about her daughters safety, not just that she was going abroad.  I asked her why she was worried and she said that she has seen law and order and csi and realizes how much crime we have in the US.  I thought she was joking at first but she was totally serious.  She also mentioned that we have a ton of serial killers in the US and that worried her a lot too.  I managed to (without laughing) explain that csi and law and order are fictional and just because they have deaths in those shows every week does not mean that people are actually dying every week.  I also explained that although summed together it is true that we have "a lot" of serial killers and deaths relative to other countries, that is because our country is so big, and per capital it is an extremely safe place.  I told her that in my cities (spokane, seattle,vancouver) i am not afraid to walk alone at night and she was pretty skeptical.  She wanted to know if everyone felt that way, and if my cities were just exceptions to the rule.  I told her that there are exceptions, there are parts of any big city you don't want to walk through but on the whole cities at night are safe.

When we parted ways i don't think i had allayed all of her fears but i had done my best.  It was a really interesting experience in how people relate to other countries.  I can't get over the fact that law and order and csi had worried her!  I also realized that the US does have more serial killers than almost any other country and if someone never bothered to make the numbers per capita it could be pretty scary.