"Ugly" Americans abroad....

[marmar]

As I was waiting in line to check-in for my flight home from London on Sunday, a guy from Oklahoma who was on my flight to Detroit started a conversation with me. He was quite friendly, but then he started talking politics. :scared:

His first point was about the stringent security at Gatwick Airport, saying we in America "are spoiled" because we're accustomed to tolerating each other's differences, implying that tight security at Gatwick indicated intolerance (Even though everyone was put through the same rigors at Gatwick, unlike the blatant profiling I've seen at a lot of U.S. airports). I gave him a puzzled look and responded, "Actually, I think London is one of the most tolerant, accepting, multicultural cities on the planet." He then moved on to.....

"I would hate to live in this country. There's no space for your house, the taxes are too high, they pretty much force you to use the trains and subway and you don't have any choice in your health care."
I responded that I loved the vitality of European center cities, and the practicality of having populations concentrated rather than sprawled out in land-wasting suburbs. I also said I love that people use public transit, and decried the American obsession with the automobile and the attendant waste of energy, and I told him Universal single-payer health care made lots of sense to me, and pointed out that our health statistics were the worst in the Western world. Then he moved on to the coup de grace:

"People here are very critical of our president and they undermine (Blair) for doing the right thing in Iraq, and he got tired of hearing it.":crazy: As you can imagine, my eyes rolled, and I said I admire the British citizens' and press' ability to take on bad leaders for bad decisions in a bad war. At that point, he got the point, and ended the conversation.

Why do these people leave the country?:shrug:

[Jon8503]

1. Good article, it typifies the ignorance of so many in this country. These are

the same people that want others to do all of their sacrificing. I bet if you had seen what vehicle he got in when he got back to his airport, it would have been a gas guzzler as well.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

2. Gatwick's security is not really any different

than any major US aiport. I fly in and out of there quite regularly (DL11 and DL12) and have never had a problem nor any reason to think their measures any different than our own...what the heck could he have been complaining about? London, aside from the congestion, is great!

sP

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. And I bet he's the type of traveler who tried to duplicate American

living conditions wherever he goes and then complains that it isn't EXACTLY like home.

I had students like that in the group I took on a three-week study tour to Japan. They complained, and I'm not making this up, about the lack of good Mexican food in Tokyo.

I felt like immediately putting them on a plane to North Korea so that they could see what real deprivation is like.

[marmar]

4. "They complained, and I'm not making this up, about the lack of good Mexican food in Tokyo."

I'm not surprised. I once saw American college kids at a bistro in Paris ordering hamburgers and fries, and then complaining because there was no Heinz ketchup. It's quite sad, actually.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. And in Mexico itself...

One of the professors of Spanish took a group of students to Mexico for January Term, and when he had them write up their impressions, one student wrote, "The Mexican people are not physically fit. In three weeks, I never saw anyone out running, and I didn't see any sports clubs either."

:eyes:

Another group of students came back from Eastern Europe, and in their required presentation to the campus community, all they could talk about was that the Eastern Europeans didn't own cars and houses. They had each experienced homestays in Hungary, and they went on and on about how none of the host families had VCRs (this was the early 1990s), none of them had cars, and most of them lived in small apartments. Their whole tone was, "I'm glad I'm an American with Stuff."

Finally, one of the professors who had lived in Europe on various occasions over the years asked them if there was ANYTHING they envied the Hungarians for.

Most of the students looked at him as if he was crazy, but finally one young man spoke up and said, "I envied their family life. Both my parents have been divorced three times, and I don't feel as if I belong anywhere, and my Hungarian hosts said that they'd never heard of such a thing."

But on the whole, the only message the students got from spending three weeks in Hungary and Czechoslovakia was, "Americans have more Stuff."

That's why I tried to get my students to spend at least a full semester overseas. There's a point between 4 to 6 weeks after arrival in a foreign country that you go through culture shock, where everything in your new country is terrible and you can't wait to go home. But if you can come out the other side of that with a balanced view of your host country, able to accept both the good and the bad, you are never the same. You never look at your own country the same way, either. (Some people get "stuck" in culture shock and never learn to be happy in a new country, but most live through it.)

[Ravenseye]

10. Well, the Hungarians probably wanted stuff too

I was on exchange in Germany in 1990, and was in Berlin for a good stretch of time and West Berlin was PACKED with eastern europeans from Poland and Czechoslovakia there filling up their cars with crap. TV's. VCR's. Clothes. You name it. I saw a dishwasher half in and half out of a little hatchback held in by not enough twine.

Just sayin.

I agree with what you say though. It goes in reverse as well. We hosted some German's on exchange here in the States and they went on and on about what they didn't like about the U.S. and how Germany was better. One that sticks out was that we had telephone and electrical poles, where their's were all buried underground, and how they were eyesores, and looked like ship masts, etc.

I think any kid from an industrialized country is going to bitch and moan about anything different from their norm.

I agree with you though. They need a full semester, not 4-6 weeks.

[Eurobabe]

14. Yep, there's nothing that pisses me off worse than not having Heinz

ketchup at restuarants here in Germany.

Seriously. The best places have it. But I am not an ugly American, I guess now I am an ugly German. LOL. ;)

[Kali]

8. Hey Mexican food is a life necessity.

My Dad (and his Russian wife - no not that kind) found a Mexican restauraunt in Siberia. One of the BEST mexican meals I ever ate was on Okinawa. While I understand your point, I think it is a blast to see how other cultures "do" other cultures. Fun to get Chinese or Pizza around the world too.

[Ravenseye]

11. Anyone in Tokyo complaining about food....

...needs to be smacked in the head till they get on a plane and deported. Say what you will about Japanese culture, their food is awesome. If I had 3 weeks in Japan on a study tour you'd be hard pressed to get me to study anything besides restaurants. ;)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Yes, I did want to smack one student who came back from

her semester abroad and said that she had eaten every lunch at the McDonald's near the campus.

Ironically, she went back to Japan to teach English, was assigned to a provincial city, met a young man, and married into a family that runs a traditional inn. I have no doubt that she is getting plenty of purely Japanese food now.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. So they can puff themselves up and force a tirade on folks like you?

[Kali]

7. Not many of them DO travel. Huge part of the problem in my opinion.

Xenophobic assholes could use a little exposure to the rest of the world. (although I FULLY understand the embarrassment factor)

[formerrepuke]

9. What a jerk. There is a special kind of 'freedom' that I've felt travelling

in Europe.. being able to use high-quality (and usually fairly cheap) transit to get virtually anywhere. Its wonderful NOT being tethered to- and responsible for- an automobile when travelling.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

12. Americans think Stuff = Quality of Life

At least, most think this way. On the other hand, the european mentality has a completely different set of standards. Sure, the apartments are small, and people don't own cars. Hell - most of my friends do not even own a television se, let alone a VCR or Playstation or whatever Quality of life is about family and friends and social life, long evenings of conversation and good music, good food and wine, and artistic pursuits. The average European citizen is far more involved in the making and appreciation of art than the average American, and far better informed poitically.

If you ask a French citizen "What do you do?" Most likely they will NOT tell you where they work - they will tell you what instrument they play, or whether they make sculpture or paintings or such, or whether they rally for causes large and small. (My all-time favorite rally is with the "Militant Anti-Fascists League", who gather to confront skinhead gatherings WITH clubs and chains and the expressed purpose of beating their skinny heads bloody! Of course, everyone ends up getting arrested, but in this context, fascist rallys tend not to last very long.)

Quality of life compared with the USA is, frankly, off the charts.

[marmar]

13. "Quality of life compared with the USA is, frankly, off the charts."

Agreed. I'll sit in a restaurant in Paris, completely unhurried by the waiter who expects that we want the table for the evening, and completely not hurrying him for the bill, sipping an after-dinner coffee for about an hour talking to friends and watching people passing by and thinking: "This is how it ought to be. This is savoring each of life's moments."
And in Scandinavia, which consistently tops the world quality-of-life list, people pay astoundingly high taxes without complaint, believing that the benefits of universal health care, an excellent publicly-supported infrastructure, excellent mass transit and helping out their fellow citizens who aren't doing as well, outweighs any need to horde as much wealth as possible and creates an overall better quality of life..Sigh.

[zreosumgame]

15. that guy needs to see Borat LOL

But then again he does not seem bright enough to see the resemblance since Cohen turns it upside down and provides enough ambiguity that dull folks only see the surface.

[watercolors]

17. It is always the we are better than them attitude

Makes me crazy when I;m traveling to hear thses juvenile comments. I usually try to set them straight also.

[Blackhatjack]

18. If he was under age 42, he could enlist to go fight those unlike himself...

... interesting take on his negative opinion of things many here would classify as a plus.