Oh man oh man, I'm American, and nothing can compare to a restaurant in China....70 db, 80 db? Yep. Kid playing with their iPad on full volume at the table next to you? Not a problem. Cell phone ringers are set to max volume because...everywhere is just so loud. And there seems to be no problem with jack hammer/dump truck construction outside my window at 2AM in the morning.

First vs. third world problems, I guess.

Ummm... China is not a third world country. It was a second world country. In fact the whole point of the definition of first/second/third world revolves around China, the USSR, and their allies being the second world.

What you mean to say is China is a developing country. Please leave the old out dated and irrelevant cold war propaganda terminology in the past where it belongs. Remember, Switzerland and Sweden are both canonical examples of third world countries: they were allied with neither the UK/US block or the China/USSR block. Likewise, just because a country is a first world country doesn't mean it's rich -- some of the poorest countries in the world are first world countries, like Namibia.

I know what you are saying, and I get "China is still a developing country" clobbered into my skull almost everyday. Third world just sounds better in contrast to first world, especially when prefixed by "problems"; there are no subreddits for developed and developing world problems, but they exist for first and third world problems (https://www.reddit.com/r/thirdworldproblems and https://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems). It seems that third-world has evolved past its old cold war meaning to just mean "developing world"; here is what Google says on its title card for a search on "third world" (https://www.google.com/search?q=third+world+problems&oq=thir...):

    Third World
    noun
    the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

(I think Google gets this from Oxford, first world problems comes from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=First%20World...). If one wants to explore the old meaning, we have to go to wiki, and even wiki says:

> Over the last few decades since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the term Third World has been used interchangeably with the least developed countries, the Global South, and developing countries to describe poorer countries that have struggled to attain steady economic development, a term that often includes "Second World" countries like Laos. This usage, however, has become less preferred in recent years.[1]

Remember that words can change meaning over the years, even if they do not remain true to their old meanings. This is just another way our language evolves. An attachment to the old meaning of a term is usually not going to sway people's opinion of the word's definition.

Technically Switzerland and Finland are third world countries by the original definition. That's not very useful in modern conversation though, just as describing happy people as gay is not useful.

China is a third world country?

Yes, speaking in regards to the economic concept, more than half of China is still a third world country.

They have about 900 million people living on $7 or less per day. Half a billion people there are living on $3-$4 or less per day. Of the poorest two billion people on earth, more than 1/3 are in China. Their income numbers for the bottom 50% compare with the poorest nations on earth.

Granted, the problem with China is it possesses the most inequality of any major nation between the top 50% and the bottom 50%, due to the vast rural vs east coast gap in incomes. The nation with the second most billionaires, that has half a billion people living as subsistence farmers.

First/second/third world is not an economic concept. Both Namibia and the Philippines are first world countries. Both Switzerland and Sweden (and Austria too) are third world countries. China -- by the very definition of the first/second/third world -- is a second world country.

Please use the proper terms: developed and developing.

Please accept that definitions change over time, and it doesn't help if you're complaining about your definition being stuck in the past. The global narrative moves on regardless.

I know that it's an old stereotype, but in my experience it's true - Americans talk very loudly. I'd really like to know why.

In sociolinguistics there is a concept called complementary schismogenesis that describes a mechanism that can result in exaggerated differences in conversational style. There is tendency for people with different conversational styles to attempt to pull the conversation towards their style, and when multiple participants do this, the differences become increasingly exaggerated.

For instance, if an American who talks slightly louder than average converses with a European, he may start talking even louder to try to get the European to speak up a bit. The European will then talk even quieter to prompt the American to follow. Then the American will get louder, and the cycle will continue.

This is can explain how a minor difference in average actual volume can lead to a major perceived difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schismogenesis#Sociolinguistic...

I'm American, and I sometimes ask myself that too: I catch myself talking loudly and I have no earthly idea why. Probably because that's what everyone else is doing!

Kind of like an arms race then. I sometimes wonder if this is the reason that American vehicles are so much bigger than elsewhere - once a few people have trucks and suv's, it puts pressure on others to buy bigger vehicles (maybe for safety reasons - not because they would otherwise want to).

As an immigrant who lived in south(NC), midwest(Colorado) & west(CA), each of the regions are very unique. In south most people greet you & nod at strangers while walking on streets. I got used to this habit & in midwest/west when i nod, many times it will be met with blank stares. Some of my friends who nodded out of practice in India got into hilarious situations where people became suspicious. Overall my impression is Americans of all ages/sex are very outgoing (except for young women who probably are afraid of getting unwanted attention) when compared to people in Europe/India/China.