<p>Back to the issue of diversity in the Midwest. Lumping the conservative with the progressive, the plains with the upper Great Lakes, the huge cities with the small to medium ones… The Northeast has just as much diversity. It is not all New York or Boston. It is rural Pennsylvania as well as Philadelphia… It is one thing to talk of a lack of diversity in Iowa, but lifestyles are radically different in Chicago and the rest of Illinois, Wisconsin and southern Indiana… Too many people lump too many places together. New York state is lucky it has much more than just the city of the same name or it would be sorely lacking in lifestyle and landscape potential. My impression is that people in Buffalo are more similar to the stereotypical midwesterner than the population of the coastal city. The west coast is much more than California.</p>
<p>The midwest is just as diverse as the other parts of the country when you consider the area given the designation. There is also diversity in the Native American populations living in the region- plains to woodlands et al. Or don’t they count in contributing to ethnic diversity?</p>
<p>I am not really a pizza aficionado (the screen name has to do with something else) but deep dish Chicago style pizza … Blech, I never eat that. And don’t get me started on cutting pizzas in a checkerboard fashion instead of a pie fashion. Wrong, I tell you.</p>
<p>Great point, wis75. Too many people in this thread have jumped from “Midwest” to “small town in the middle of nowhere.” Small towns in the middle of nowhere in PA! Upstate NY and New England, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>Someone brought up gay friendly places, interesting, 2 of the top 10 are in the Midwest, one on the east coast…</p>
<p>Pizza–people have jumped to small town in the middle of nowhere because that is the exact impression people have of the Midwest—we are simply trying to correct that impression but too many people just don’t get it.</p>
<p>As a North Carolinian, I am quite relieved to see that this thread isn’t about the South. We are the region that probably gets the worst stereotyping of any. So now I’m feeling a little solidarity with the Midwest!</p>
<p>I agree that this thread is more about someone who’s restless in his/her hometown and wants to go somewhere, anywhere different. There are students all over the country who want to do this. I think it’s unfortunate that the OP chose to label a whole state, maybe region, as “boring,” but I think that’s not uncommon for teenagers to do.</p>
<p>I’ve traveled all over the United States. My home will always be the South. I can’t imagine loving anywhere else more. However, I’ve found things to appreciate in every area of the country that I’ve visited: Northeast, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and Mid-Atlantic. The one area that I have barely been to is the Midwest. The next two places on my list are Iowa and Ohio! I am looking forward to going to those states and have found many things that I want to see in both.</p>
<p>My advice to the OP would be, if you are that eager to go somewhere else, then do. It never hurts to go other places and do other things. Just remember, however, that your hometown and state nurtured you and provided you with the very opportunities that allow you to leave. By leaving, you may come to appreciate what you had while you were there.</p>
<p>It doesn’t necessarily have to be a connoisseur of Chinese food. Just someone who wants their Chinese food as authentic to native as possible. It’s very important to immigrants and even many first generation folks like myself and the friend in Alaska or later. To imply that it’s just about enjoying our childhood Chinese restaurant joint grossly oversimplifies the matter…especially considering some of us Chinese-Americans have actually had Chinese food in both of the Chinas and Americanized Chinese food tailored for the mainstream American palate of the 1950’s-80’s. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s very different from Mexican immigrants/Mexican Americans or even many Westerners/Southwesters who lament the lack of authentic Mexican/Tex-Mex food here in the Northeast. Heck, I know a few New Englanders who missed good Mexican/Tex-Mex they had when they lived out in the Southwest/West Coast before moving back/retiring in their hometowns.</p>
<p>cobrat, really, even in small towns in the midwest, you can find authentically-Chinese immigrants running restaurants. Honest. Unless you’re suggesting that these folks somehow aren’t “authentic”?</p>
<p>I am sure the Chinese family that runs the restaurant where we get our Chinese food will be interested to hear that their food isn’t authentic. They are first generation Chinese too. Also, for anyone that has spent any time in China, the Chinese food in the US is much better–vegetables are fresher, meat is better, etc. :D. Authentic Chinese really isn’t what you think it is—especially since no one here serves their food with fish heads as a garnish :D.</p>
<p>I do miss a good ol’ fashioned midwest supper club at times. Last one I went to, included the ‘appetizer plate’ with pickles, carrot and celery sticks with dip, etc. and the Naugahyde booths. Omaha was famous for their Italian supper club steak houses…fried raviolis and a side of spaghetti with your steak.</p>
<p>It isn’t that they’re aren’t authentic. It’s more they have to cater to the tastes of the majority of their customers or go out of business…especially if the local Chinese population is so tiny as to be unable to sustain the restaurant(s) in question by themselves. </p>
<p>If most of their customers/residents in their area happen to be Americans whose palates aren’t very adventurous beyond what they’re used to from mainstream American cuisine, the local Chinese restaurants either adapt to the palates of the majority of their potential/actual customers or go out of business. </p>
<p>Fortunately, this has become less of an issue as many Americans today have much more adventurous palates than those from 30+ years ago due to travel and greater Chinese immigration/migration into larger population areas of the Midwest and South. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, some rural areas progress more slowly than others as attested to by relatives in rural Mississippi, Florida, or acquaintances in rural Michigan.</p>
<p>Your friend in Alaska will still find plenty of great food depending on where they reside. If it is Anchorage, there is plenty of amazing pan-pacific delights. Several good Japanese places and amazing seafood and hearty meat dishes abound. </p>
<p>When I moved back to the Midwest from the Bay Area, I mourned my local Thai and Japanese places that I could walk to. But I had forgotten that the average steak I get at my local grocery store tastes as good or better than the higher priced meat I could find at a specialty market. I rediscovered Polish and Slovak cuisine, something that was lacking in the Bay Area. I was able to eat sweet corn picked minutes before I cooked it. What I miss in performance art in the Bay Area is more than compensated by the best improv comedy anywhere (though I will concede stand up to NY). I have embraced the fact that EVERYONE is a little sport crazed here. Rather than complain about what isn’t here, I have been trying to appreciate what is here, and there is a lot to love even if I stick to my new hometown. I even authentic Chinese, amazing fried fish and a hot dog that comes with tomatoes and a pickle.</p>
<p>At least I don’t knock Mexican immigrants/Mexican-Americans and West Coast/Southwesterners for complaining there’s no good authentic Mexican/Tex-Mex here in the NE.</p>
<p>I’m not knocking anybody, cobrat. (Does that count as “ridicule” that you’re always complaining about when someone expresses a different point of view?)</p>
<p>Marsian, I was thinking the same thing regarding the South. I can only imagine this thread if we were discussing states below the Mason-Dixon line…and I say this as someone who has lived in the south (and liked it) and has a son in college there (and loves it).</p>
Hmm … I from NE but have traveled a lot down south … and would have to agree with that complaint … although it’s gotten A LOT better over the last 10 years or so.</p>
<p>Iowa has been a leader in allowing same-sex marriage, which clearly proves that its inhabitants are all a bunch of hayseeds straight out of American Gothic.</p>
<p>As someone who has lived both places, I would say that just as east coast people think it’s all farms out here and have no clue of the existence of urbanization and how much the upper midwest really is similar to the east coast in terms of social mores, the big thing I note about midwesterners is that they don’t think the east coast is “as friendly” and some still hold onto misperceptions that NYC is some kind of hellhole from the era of the taking of Pelham 1-2-3. I think that what midwesterners call “friendly” is sometimes just pointless chit-chat and I’d rather be more efficient and just get my errands or whatever done without pretending that the grocery clerk (etc) really cares about me and how my day is going.</p>