A Texas culture guide for Californians

A short guide to Texas culture for the Californian from someone who has been there.
There is a big cultural difference between California and Texas. Texas tourism commercials have advertised Texas as "Its a whole nother country", and they mean it.

Many parts of the state are refined, modern, culture rich, and you can find every cosmopolitan convenience you could think of, but there is another side to Texas-the older side, the side that abides despite the advances of technology and the push of the general world. Cowboy boots, Stetsons and Wranglers are still the attire de rigure, and more huge pickups, with actual work dirt on them are seen on the roadways. Right alongside the lawyers and doctors are the ranchers, and they mix quite well. The attitude is more casual, slower paced, with an emphasis on enjoyment of the moment than keeping up with the Joneses.

Texas is a study in contrasts. On one hand, there is a thriving tech industry, particularly in Austin, home of the University of Texas Longhorns, and many large corporations have their headquarters in Texas. Dallas, for example, is a slickly polished, skyscraper dotted landscape, surrounded by graceful neighborhood streets lined with million dollar homes to rival the best in Beverly Hills. The people there are busy, on the run, and very, very cosmopolitan, and as relentless in their pursuit of eternal youth, beauty and excess as anyone in Los Angeles. On the other hand, the South is alive and well in the Lone Star State. Chivalry is not dead here. Bar-B-Q and rodeos abound. If you scratch at the shiny, tech happy, money chasing veneer, what you find underneath is a code and way of living that harkens back to earlier times, before youth was king and there was no opposite sex.

Men open doors for women in Texas. They also wait for women to precede them onto and off of elevators, call you ma’am, and mean it sincerely. Those little, chivalrous courtesies are things you might not even miss, until a man you have never met holds the door open for you to enter a gas station. Some of the old South abides here even today, and creates a charming mix of modern and old fashioned that is pleasing, rather than irritating.

Overall, it is quite obvious that the pace is slower in Texas. Everything gets done—it just gets done at a bit more leisurely pace. Even the traffic moves in a slow motion parody of California traffic. People often drive the speed limit in Texas, not 20 miles per hour over it. And they wave courteously in their rear-view mirrors if you let them into your lane of traffic. And you’ll find yourself waving back, after awhile. At first, driving on Texas freeways can be incredibly frustrating, because you are used to getting from point A to point B as fast as humanly possible. Once you slow down, however, and you will, it does not seem to matter quite so much anymore.

Generally, people in Texas are warm, open and friendly. It is more difficult to "become" a Texan, but the curt rudeness and clipped speech we take for normal in California is for the most part absent here.

Texas seeps into your consciousness, slowly but inexorably, until one day someone mentions your Texas accent—and you have no idea how it got there.

If relocating to Texas from California, keep this in mind. Texans in general are not overjoyed at the influx of Californians into their state, but inevitably, you can get them to laugh about it if you assure them that although you were not born here, you got to Texas as fast as you could.