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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【美国美国】. Hi, James.
Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.
What are we going to talk about today？
I have a question for you. It's actually more of an observation that I've noticed while living here. While living in China, one thing I noticed is that people are always like remodeling or fixing up their homes, right？I've never seen anyone paint their own homes. They always hire people to do it.
Why is that?
You mean paint their walls？
Yes.
Is that not normal？You're confusing me because in my understanding it’s just like you have to paint your wall or have your wall painted, then you hire a guy, you hire a contractor, hire someone who professionally...Does that, is that not the same in America？
We do have professional painters and you can hire someone to do it. What you're more likely to come across in America is the Americans doing that themselves.
I guess that's what we're gonna talk about today, the whole do it yourself, DIY.
Because in America, DIY is a pretty big thing. And we'll talk about several reasons why that is.
I mean that's kind of built in your DNA so to speak.
That's a good way to put it. I mean Americans do kind of like to go their own way or create their own stuff. So the idea of doing it yourself is really ingrained in us.
But come on. So when we were talking about why Americans like DIY does it not have anything to do with money？
No, that almost certainly has everything to do with money. It's money because hiring people to do things for you is expensive.
People are basically saying, obviously I don't really have the exact number. But is it true that contractors or let's say like plumbers, electricians, these people they actually make very good money.
Yes. If I was an electrician in America, I would be making more money than I am currently as a teacher.
Wow. But then I can imagine hiring someone to do painting to fix your pipes will be very expensive.
Yeah, although when you're using like the term like an electrician or a plumber, those would be a couple of exceptions and most Americans would hire someone to do those things because making a mistake with wiring or pipes can lead to disaster.
水电还是要找人做的, but painting your house, what mistakes can you make？
Couple of hand prints here or there, you might have painted over something you weren't supposed to, but it's pretty easy to fix. But the other thing, the reason why we like to do it is Americans really like to pride themselves on what they've accomplished themselves.
So one way we kind of really express ourselves and like if you ever get a chance to go to an American’s home, they will talk your ear off about all the things that they have done to improve their home.