Looking up the Big Mac index, you're right.

Likely, it is because Vietnam is a resource poor country trying to develop economically the same way China is but without the efficiencies of scale.

He was an improvement on Yeltsin and he was popular. However, his grasp on power beyond term limits have been a net negative on the country.

For parts of the world with data going back to boomers and earlier, there is a quantitative slide.

But it was a blind taste test by experts which showed that the best Californian wines could beat the best French ones, not marketing.

if your goal is to experience the culture

I think people also get touchy on what is "authentic". Italian cuisine in Italy changed in a similar manner to Italian-American cuisine in the USA. So, you can have "authentic" Italian-American cuisine that comes from Italian roots, but Italians from Italy don't want that cuisine to be seen as authentic.

Until the current generation, happiness was generally a u-shaped curve, with happiness going down around their early 20's and coming back up around the 60's.

Gen Alpha doesn't seem to have a happy childhood.

Not likely. Chinese migrants in the USA went everywhere to start various small businesses. It is the reason why there is that Chinese family running two grocery stores in Sinners. Chinese families would be rare, but they would be everywhere.

Your best bet is the rural Mountain West or Appalachia, but even then you're likely going to find some Chinese people living there.

To add on what you said since it was the most complete answer, the first credit cards didn't start with a magnetic chip but had raised numbering that cashiers would emboss the numbering onto a carbon copy slip. The shop would keep two copies of the receipt and the customer would keep the third.

The switch to magnetic swipe on North America took a while because it required a phone connection to verify the card number. Europe switched to chips earlier than North America in part because a lot is stores didn't have the required phone/data connections for continuous use, so the chip was developed to be used in cases where there wasn't any connectivity with the card reader.

Australia and New Zealand have a points based immigration system that you can check online. That would be the first place I'd look.

One modern issue is that sites like OnlyFans has caused is a unique type of spam as various models spam in a lot of places in order to build their audience.

Looking at the list of government expenditures, I don't see space exploration as problematic as other things we are spending money on.

For me, it depends if I'm getting a refund or not. If I'm getting a refund, usually by mid February after all my paperwork gets in. If I owe money, I'm waiting until April.