Something I realised about America this Holiday

[Griffolion]

tl;dr at the start - This is unequivocally NOT an America bashing thread. Do read my post to the end.

So I spent my Christmas and New Year away from home (to the tune of a few thousand miles) over with friends in New York State, America. Having never spent any significant amount of time in the US (save for a few days last summer during my holiday predominantly in Canada), all I really had to go off American culture was what I see on the media and more "real" outlets like YouTube (by "real" I mean, less gloss and acting in a professional show, more actual people talking about stuff).

I must confess to doing what many people do and jump on the bandwagon of bashing the US because of it's seeming "world police" reputation, "Christian" fanatic influenced polity making and it's apparent "herp derp I only know stuff about America" population. I guess I was more prone to this than most being a Brit, as we tend to have this completely unjustified and mis-informed "well we conquered everyone in the past and thus have a right to say what we want on anything and have it taken as God's Word" attitude. Trust me, I've seen it, and you have too.

So anyway, my time in America led me to a very weird conclusion based on what I saw, who I met and what I generally did over there.

1. Most of the people I met (just average citizens) hate the fact that their country is seen (and hated for because of) as the "world police". They disliked what their leaders are doing/have done in the past, and literally just want to live in a fair society.

2. I met a lot of Christian people over there. Not the "go to church once a month and i'm good" types (despite the fact that they are prevalent over there), actual Christian people who turned out to be probably the loveliest people I've met in my life. I always thought all Christians over there were the stereotypical judgmental, 2.4 kids, conservative republican, "modern society is waging a war on us" "Christian" types. Instead the people I met with were actually very normal. I'm not saying those I described previously don't exist, it's just an observation based on what I saw.

3. American people are (much like I said in point 2, but this time in general) probably the friendliest and most welcoming people ever. Every family and household I met with my friends I was staying with welcomed me and treat me as if I was one of their own. I'm usually uncomfortable when meeting new people, but this was a different experience altogether. Not only this, but they are all incredibly intelligent on world affairs (again, based on who I met).

So anyway, my conclusion was that, for all it's caveats, I would much sooner live in America than I would in Britain, if not solely due to it's far stronger community sense than you typically get in Britain. Also, the food over there is fantastic, I mean the world needs to take a leaf out of America's book as far as dining out is concerned, especially Britain who are the kings of over charging for stingy portions.

Please don't flame me, it's just my opinions based on what I saw over there. I can safely say I came back with a very different view on US society than I went there with and if I felt it would matter in any way I'd write a letter of apology to the nation for being so ignorant about you all.

Discussion value: Have you ever been to another country where the reality of it was so far removed from the stereotype that it took you aback a little? (I know that almost all stereotypes fall into that bracket, my point is made on the basis of how much the stereotype is untrue).

Thanks for reading!

 

[Jedoro]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

 

[Griffolion]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

Haha, what would you call butter then? Spread or something? And which part of the country were you visiting? Must have been one of those heathen parts that don't stop for afternoon tea, damn godless creatures...

 

[Jedoro]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

Haha, what would you call butter then? Spread or something? And which part of the country were you visiting? Must have been one of those heathen parts that don't stop for afternoon tea, damn godless creatures...

No, we call it butter, too, but I couldn't understand the way she was saying it. It sounded like "bu'a" to me, and I couldn't figure out what she meant. I went to Manchester for Escapism UK, so look at the Brits on here if you're looking for them godless creatures.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

Out of curiosity, what part of the US did you visit? I'm from Missouri and I know most of the Christians in my area (including myself ) are pretty much the way you described. We've got a few bigots here and there, but they are outnumbered by the more chill ones and significantly quieter than the VERY southern Baptists.

Anyway, I'm glad you came here and liked it :3 I also hate that we're thought of as the "world police," but I can certainly see where people get that idea, and it's up to us to take the steps to abandon that label. The funny thing is, when America was first founded, the people were extremely isolationist. They didn't want any colonies (as they had been colonies themselves not long ago), and they wanted to leave Europe alone. Then when we ran out of room in the west to expand to, people got a bit bored and wanted a few colonies. So we got a few of the Caribbean isles and the Philippines, and I imagine things would have eventually gotten downright imperialistic if WWI and WWII hadn't hit to show us how much the world can bite back.

Personally, I still think we're still a bit too involved in some places, but pulling out of Afganistan and Iraq was a good start. I think even the leadership is finally starting to notice we can't solve everybody's problems. I mean we do need national security and all, but we don't need to have an active warzone down there to achieve that. At this point, I feel our deficit is a more immediate threat to the country than terrorists.

 

[Jedoro]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

Haha, what would you call butter then? Spread or something? And which part of the country were you visiting? Must have been one of those heathen parts that don't stop for afternoon tea, damn godless creatures...

No, we call it butter, too, but I couldn't understand the way she was saying it. It sounded like "bu'a" to me, and I couldn't figure out what she meant. I went to Manchester for Escapism UK, so look at the Brits on here if you're looking for them godless creatures.

Ah the wonderful cockney accent.

Guv'na.

Wonderful. Definitely the word to describe it to someone who'd never heard it before. She had to hold the bowl up before I knew what she meant, I felt like a dumbass.

 

[Lilani]

Went to Florida once, everyone is nice.

the guys who opened the gate at Disneyland told me to 'have a magical day now'

eugh, what's with that.

Ha, I worked at Disney for a while, and yes that's a thing. Only a Disney thing, though. Sort of a "keeping with the theme" thing. We're supposed to greet people according to the theme of the area, to keep with the show. The general greeting for unthemed areas is have a magical day, but someplace like Haunted Mansion is really fun. They make great little puns, "We'll be DYING to see you again," "All bodies please move to the DEAD center of the room," that sort of thing. Even the little cars for the ride are called doom buggies. And they never smile, ever.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Discussion value: Have you ever been to another country where the reality of it was so far removed from the stereotype that it took you aback a little? (I know that almost all stereotypes fall into that bracket, my point is made on the basis of how much the stereotype is untrue).

I travel a little and i was surprised almost everywhere. It seems that medias portray most of countries and people in wrong way. Or rather i should say "media chose only one part of truth and are trying to make us believe that there's nothing else".

I know one thing : there isn't "x".
No country (with the exception of maybe some small, island based societies like Maledives or something similar) is exactly the same everywhere. Different people live in the northern part, different in southern. People from villages are different from those populating metropolis-size cities. And pretty much everyone thinks that people from their capital are at least weird.

So, "Americans", "French", "Russians", "Germans" - that's nothing more than generalization that serves as simplification, approximation. It's far from truth. Always.

It's no great discovery, but it seems that people forget about it all the time and perceive whole nation through the deeds of a few...

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

Out of curiosity, what part of the US did you visit? I'm from Missouri and I know most of the Christians in my area (including myself ) are pretty much the way you described. We've got a few bigots here and there, but they are outnumbered by the more chill ones and significantly quieter than the VERY southern Baptists.

Specifically I stayed in a little town called Warsaw in New York State. It's about 1.5 hours out of Buffalo and Rochester (equidistant). Pretty small place, quite sleepy overall.

 

[manaman]

While it's nice to see someone for once having a different take on this, you are still judging an entire country of 310 million (your country for example has 60 million, Canada 33 million) people on those few you have met.

It's exactly the same as what you where doing before, except now the vocal people you are basing the opinion off are not loud obnoxious shown for the ratings bunch, but probably mostly average people in the small part of the country you visited.

A step up to be sure, but I hope you still recognize this as the same thing, if only so you are better equipped in the future to tell what exactly is influencing your opinions.

 

[Bvenged]

Interesting thread, while you caught yourself by saying "from the people I've met" as to prevent your views from appearing stereotypical, you fell right into it when talking about Britain! Any bad community in Britain, dude, America's got too (as well as teh good communities). It's massive and you've only seen a tiny portion of it. I though the USA was good, too - and that our country can be a right piece of crap at times; but the douche bags on the internet who are american, there are a lot of them, aii? Well, they're local to somewhere.
Yes there are nice parts, but there are bad parts and bad communities just the same as over here. As for their cuisine? Very little is their own, so to speak. It is a take on most foods found around the world (see: mexican, english, sushi, italian, french, swiss, german...). It is a great place to live if you can live securely, I'll admit - buuuuut:

with SOPA kicking around you'd be best off in the UK for now.

 

[Thyunda]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

Haha, what would you call butter then? Spread or something? And which part of the country were you visiting? Must have been one of those heathen parts that don't stop for afternoon tea, damn godless creatures...

No, we call it butter, too, but I couldn't understand the way she was saying it. It sounded like "bu'a" to me, and I couldn't figure out what she meant. I went to Manchester for Escapism UK, so look at the Brits on here if you're looking for them godless creatures.

The second I saw you didn't understand 'butter' I automatically guessed that she missed out the T's. Bloody Manchester, that is.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Well, it might have been a nice experience because you're a Brit, which isn't what we usually see over here. But I have known that adults are generally really pleasant about letting guests in their houses.

And you will be hard pressed finding people that like what our government is doing, the trick is finding people who have any idea what exactly it is that our government is doing. Same old "Person is smart, people are stupid" kinda thing. But yeah, lots of nice people here. Teenagers are the ones you gotta be cautious around.

OT: I went to Italy and Greece, but I was unaware about what to expect other than Pickpockets. One stole my iPod at the time. In Rome, you gotta be careful about religion around most people, and I had my fair share of great moments and equally bad moments.

When me and a few buddies were grabbing pizza, the guy forced us to get up and leave his shop once we sat down. We thought, "whatever, let's just go eat in the front". We sat down in the tables in front of his restaurant and he came out again, forcing us to leave. I thought it was just a grumpy guy, didn't realize till after the trip was over that he probably just hated Americans. They that could be paranoia, but there were definitely other people eating in his shop.

But in that same market area we found a bunch of teens who were smoking, and we ended up spending about 20 minutes asking them what the smoking age was there. Very fun, and they tried to offer us tons of cigarettes because they had no idea what we were saying. Nice kids.

Oh, and in Greece the McDonald's over there serves shrimp burgers. Not sure if that has anything to do with this thread, but it still blew my mind.

 

[Marik2]

snip

Yup you just realized that every country has their idiots and intellects.

It really all depends where you actually go in a country, because some small places will fit the exact stereotypes that people think applies to the majority.

 

[Zeckt]

I think your just basing your judgement on your short experience in a small part of North America and forgeting how the majority of the country does not care what their corporations do in the rest of the world at all. Of course they fell in the "pull our boys out" craze, but the inhumane american sweat shops are still there.

Try to drive through some place like Alabama making it visibly apparent your gay or even worse a transexual and see if you can get through without getting beaten to death.

 

[Something Amyss]

You went to New York, where the stereotype from other Americans is that they're "out of touch" with American values, and are surprised they don't meet the stereotypes of Americans?

Huh. Go figure.

I'd rather live in New York than most of America, so that doesn't necessarily reflect on America in general. Though honestly, I'm quite satisfied with Vermont.

Try the Flyover states, the Bible Belt, etc. if you want to see why the stereotype exists.

 

[vrbtny]

I went to Britain this past summer, and I don't recall the whole country stopping for any kind of tea time in the afternoon.

But never have I felt so stupid for not being able to understand someone who was speaking the same damn language as me. I felt so bad and kept apologizing, but I could not understand that a woman making me a sandwich in a shop was asking if I wanted "butter" on it.

Haha, what would you call butter then? Spread or something? And which part of the country were you visiting? Must have been one of those heathen parts that don't stop for afternoon tea, damn godless creatures...

No, we call it butter, too, but I couldn't understand the way she was saying it. It sounded like "bu'a" to me, and I couldn't figure out what she meant. I went to Manchester for Escapism UK, so look at the Brits on here if you're looking for them godless creatures.

Ah the wonderful cockney accent.

Guv'na.

I don't really think Mancunians(people who come from manchester) speak with a cockney accent. Cockney's come from London, or more specifically the East end of London. I've been to Manchester a bunch of times, they don't speak with a cockney accent. It's more of a northern accent, which ain't cockney.