Born in the USA

My dad took me to a little vintage diner for breakfast this morning. While there, I was thinking that I should take my German visitor there in August when he comes to visit, since it's a part of America that foreign tourists usually don't see.

Americans tend to be rather ignorant of other countries and they generally acknowledge their ignorance.

Despite what they may think, Europeans (OK, my experience is primarily with Germans, so my generalizations will be colored by that) tend to be ignorant of the United States too, however, they don't acknowledge it, not even to themselves. It's been my experience that many Europeans come here (or sometimes they stay home) and are sure that they know everything about America before they even get here. What makes them think this? Well, they've seen all the American movies, and everyone knows that if it's on TV, it must be real! I talked to one guy, who was studying in Mad.ison, WI, and he said that before coming to America, he had decided that he was going to carry a can of mace, because everyone knows that America is so dangerous (with shootouts happening every minute and muggings on every corner - this part is a bit of explanatory embellishment from me). Of course, he realized that it wasn't an issue in a town like Madison. Another person I talked to is a woman who came to the USA from Austria as a student and is now an American citizen. Whenever she goes home, people there tell her all about America, based on what they've read and seen on the news. When she tries to explain the reality to them, they say that she has been corrupted too much by the American system and just can't recognize the truth.

There are also a lot of stereotypes that just kinda annoy me, because similar behavior exists on both sides of the ocean, but is judged differently if it happens here or there. For example, I had some German students over for supper and they insisted that Americans always eat fast food. I, for one, hardly ever eat at a McDonalds or Burger King, although I have both within a block of where I live, and they're all over campus. However, these German students lived on campus, so they were surrounded by students, a group of people much more likely to eat burgers and pizza than just about any other. Of course, I had to mention to the Germans that McDonalds and Burger King and Pizza Hut wouldn't have franchises in Germany if no one ate there. Also, I know a married couple (American woman, German man), in which the woman now goes for fast food more often than she did ever before, because her GERMAN husband wants fast food. The Germans of course commented that not that many Germans eat fast food. Then I asked them about their Döner (like a Gyro), pizza, and bratwurst consumption, to which one immediately responded, "but that's tradition!" Yeah. Germans, especially students, eat junk food too. Don't let them pull that Americans and their fast food line on you.

I live in the middle of dairy country, and I actually had a German student, who had been here, staying with my family for three months tell me that I ‘didn’t even know where milk came from, and thought it came from a bottle’. There’s just this idea that Americans have no connections with nature or non-processed reality. (We didn’t get it straight from the cow at her place in Germany either; they sell it in tetra paks so that you can keep it on the shelf.)

Germans also get uppity about the average American driving everywhere. When I was in Germany, I used a lot of public transit. Things were also very close together (think medieval foot traffic), so getting on a bus or a train usually gets you somewhere in a reasonable amount of time. In America, things are built so far apart that it can take forever to get across town. Also, in Germany, the shops are small and close together, so you can easily walk from one shop to the other. In America, you practically need a taxi (just a bit of exaggeration) to get from Home Depot at one end of the shopping center, past Office Depot, Rainbow Foods, PetSmart, and The Party Supply Store to Target. The individual stores themselves here tend to be built as big as many German town squares. Sorry…you just can’t walk or bike everywhere here. The cities are built around the freeways and everything is designed for cars, so even if you choose to be environmentally friendly and to walk, ride bike, or take a bus, it just isn’t always possible, unless you have all day to get where you’re going and back (assuming you’re in a large enough city to have a bus system). You can walk for hours and never get out of the industrial park. On the other hand, there are also some really nice parks and stuff for recreation. So, yes it's a societal flaw that we allow our cities to be built in such a manner, but there's not much that the individual can do about it.

So, all I am saying is that people who aren't from here should avoid making their generalizations of America based on movies (that generally don't represent reality, which is way too boring) and limited experience in just one town. America is so big that you have to travel extensively to really have a good idea of how things are “in America” and not just “in New York” or “in Miami” or “in Chicago” or “in Los Angeles” (because America doesn’t have anywhere else worth visiting, if anyone is keeping track).