I love people watching. People watching is what leads me to various thoughts and ideas on the cultures and societies of today. Sometimes it even leads me to try to guess what that person's life story may have been, how it is now, or even, on occasion, how they would survive or behave in the past.
On one particular occasion, I noticed something and began to ponder differently.
I was sitting down at one of my favorite outdoor locales one afternoon last week in Boston's Back Bay, having myself a glass of wine and enjoying the sunshine and scenery, when I began to notice something. I looked around and noticed that there was a surprisingly large amount of people carrying several shopping bags in each hand. I mean, a good four to ten bags, or so, total per person that passed with names such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Chanel, Burberry, Ferragamo, Juicy Couture, and the list goes on. You definitely did not see your typical Filene's Basement bargain bags or the large, flimsy Marshall's white and blue plastic bags floating around.
I noticed more and more of these people as the hour went on. Then one thing dawned on me after paying closer attention. They were all not speaking American-English! They ranged from Japanese, Russians, South Americans, Australians, various Europeans, English, and Irish.
I then began to notice the people sitting outside at the place where I was sitting and noticed that there too there were only two tables with American-English speaking people present. [We won't count the staff/servers, as most of them in the Back Bay are foreign anyway ... and are not in the United States for vacation. :)]
I was, honestly, a bit shocked initially (before I put any real thought into it) to see this drastic change in my environment, but I didn't mind.
Barely any Americans were out shopping due most likely to the decline which is currently present within the United States of America. This being seen, while various foreigners were purchasing items by the boat-full. What happened to the United States? It has gone through quite a change. From being one of the most powerful and richness nations in the world to becoming merely the new spending ground. It has become the largest shopping mall to the world.
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