One of the things people in the US like to do is to take some thing that's being negatively talked about and spin that into a thing that only people in the US do, whereas this aspect exists in many cultures, such as in India (speaking from experience) or China (from my understanding of their culture, and some Youtubers producing content around the social dynamics of this).

Not surprised because most people in the world only have time to work/commute/sleep. Stuff like hobbies, sabbaticals, vacations, etc are quite rare. I've only seen the contrary when I met Europeans.

Domestic tourism is massive even in countries with terrible work culture like China, so your claim is not particularly strong. Either way, hobbies and holidays are certainly not unique to NA and Europe.

1. There are far worse places to work than China :)

2. I was comparing everyone against EU. NA included.

I don't think your initial claim is well supported considering the size of domestic travel and entertainment sectors in most of the world (although I'll admit that the way people allocate non-work activities in many places may not lead to a relaxed life in the way, say, a Swiss person on a sabbatical has). Points 1 and 2 in this recent comment are different ones again, though and not ones I disagree with.

Not so sure about hobbies being a European thing. Take Japan, for example. Japan has a work culture/pressure which is considered pretty extreme (Korea is maybe worse, from what I read). I know people with work hours from early morning to 11pm, and a neighbor who drives out at 5:30am and is back way after dark): There are many more people with active hobbies than in my native Europe. With work taking so much time, people seem to learn to manage their time much better than many (much more than I can, definitely) and they squeeze in various hobbies in a very efficient way. That's one of the reasons I like living there, there's much more to do together with other people.

Nah,

All around the world, even people in the lower income brakets take vacation. Sometimes they travel if they can, sometimes they don't.

Working until you wear off is mostly a US thing.

I have noticed the same thing, but I still think it's an interesting question. It would be strange for me to have a close friend and never have any kind of curiosity about how they spend nearly half of their waking hours. We don't live in severance-world: understanding someone's vocation feels like part of understanding them as a person.

I guess if you live in a community where most people do sort of menial interchangeable jobs then it's probably different, maybe everyone has a job as an unfortunate necessity but would rather think and talk about it as little as possible.

> But it's not like that at all elsewhere in the world. It varies a lot. I myself never ask that question, unless it's for a very specific reason. And _never_ as part of an introduction.

Can you share some area(s) it's not like that, and what kinds of introductions/opening conversations you do have? I'd like to replicate that into my own social life (in North America) if only to bend the arc ever so slightly.

It's very rare to be asked that question ("what do you do") as part of an introduction in basically all of Europe, or at least it's so rare that I can't recall being asked that. Maybe it has happened, but it's not that common. "Where are you from?" is an obvious one on the other hand, if I'm in a different country. I'm sometimes asked that question in Japan, but never as part of an introduction. That's something which people may ask about at a later stage. If that's related to me being a foreigner or not I'm not sure - I haven't noticed that question in between native Japanese people, but then again my Japanese is not very good.

But I'm not actually that good at getting small talk going (not do I particularly enjoy small talk), so I'm not the best person to ask about introductions. So it basically boils down to exchanging names, and, for me, sometimes about nationality, and then about whatever happens at the place we're meeting up (say, an event of some kind). And from then on we kind of figure out the other person's interests. Starting to talk about the job would be.. very dry. Negative. As if there's nothing to talk about, at all.

This is highly regional within the US. You’ll see a lot more of it amongst NYC professionals than anywhere in the Midwest.

Yeah and I think it reflects the sorts of jobs people have. A lot of my buddies have these jobs they themselves think are pretty stupid but hey, they were hiring. They aren't going to identify as some salesperson of payroll software though. Probably literally no one in that industry does. It isn't rocket surgery. It just pays the bills.