Americans Abroad

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Americans, because our fine country exports such wonderful entertainment for TV and the big screen that often values money over education, get a lot of grief over a large percentage of the US population being idiots. Jay Leno has a regular segment on The Tonight Show, Jaywalking, where it's considered high comedy to ask random people on the street questions like, "Who is the current president of the US?", and laugh when they are unable to answer correctly. What's so funny about being an idiot?

When we were in Riga, I picked up a local magazine, City Paper, that had a feature that many American expats could write about their own experiences with visiting fellow Americans, with only minor changes in location. For example, the Finnish FAQ. I enjoyed the article because the author doesn't come off as some smug academic, but a regular guy who sees the culture of ignorance for what it is, ignorant. Americans often like to rebuke those who point out this particular feature of American culture as a gross generalization or a few bad apples spoiling the lot, giving examples of American ingenuity and brilliance to prove that Americans are, by and large, a smart bunch. It's a noble, and perhaps futile, thing to try and defend one's country in the face of such evidence as Paris Hilton or any number of reality TV shows that indicate the decline of average intelligence. Outside of their element, a lot of the Americans who travel abroad do seem completely oblivious and uninterested in the places that they're visiting, not just the country that they call home.

We all have disturbing stories like this one and, while I don't suppose it will inflict shame upon those who need it the most, I remain hopeful that Americans will one day value education and worldliness that is currently so unfashionable.

A Domesticated Imperialist

How the world sees the USA. How the USA earns the reputation

by Scott Diel

"Now Riga, that's where?" The two Americans who had landed at Tallinn's Ülemiste airport had seen nothing of Estonia and were already asking about further adventures. "Latvia? Is that a different country? Does it have its own money?" I confirmed that Latvia indeed had its own money. Estonia, too, I said. "You mean they don't take dollars here?" they asked incredulously. "they take dollars in Mexico."

The Americans had a hard time understanding they weren't in Mexico. Dondé está...they tried with Tallinners but were met with blank looks. they had a hard time understanding they weren't in Russia, too. "You mean Tallinn isn't part of Russia?" one guest's friend in the USA asked through the speakerphone in my living room. "No," my guest shouted back into the microphone, "but I had thought so, too."

Proper nouns were impossibly difficult for them. Janika became Jana. Monika was shortened to Mona. Roose turned to Rosa. And they never got Mare right. It was always Mora. City names were too much, too. Stockholm was Stockton, perhaps because of California. Ahvenamaa, where they planned to visit via ferry, was known-without a trace of irony-as Antennamaa.

I showed them Tallinn's medieval Old Town, but they were unimpressed. it was impossible for them to enjoy, because everything was a competition: "Our streets are wider than yours. Our cars are bigger than yours. American women have bigger breasts." The only thing which impressed them was Lasnamäe, Tallinn's concrete, Soviet block-house neighborhood. They stood next to my car, mouths agape. It was the only time during the trip they weren't talking. After a few minutes of wonderful silence, one remarked, "They must have a real problem with gangs here, but I don't see any graffiti." I tried to explain that the apartments were inhabited by nice, normal people, most of whom didn't rape and murder for a living. But the Americans weren't listening. They hovered close to the car and snapped photos.

They took a lot of photos during the trip, ninety-five percent of them from the car window. One of the guests was grossly overweight, and he was unaccustomed to walking any distance greater than from his sofa (electric-powered recliner model remote control) to the refrigerator (five temperature zones plus icemaker). Both had trouble getting in and out of my jeep, and the larger guest talked repeatedly about the diesel two-ton pickup he owned, "It's like a Cadillac inside."

What struck me most wasn't their ignorance-ask me questions about a small far-off land, say Burkina Faso, and I can't answer them-but their complete lack of interest in learning. When I wasn't around to serve as a personal guide, they sat in front of the television. "Now, what language is this one?" they asked my wife. "Finnish? That's a language? Where do they speak that? Why can't you get CNN?"

The average American views the world through a single lens. We assume the world is Christian and white and that everyone speaks English (okay, we acknowledge a few speak "Mexican"). Except for loving God, Americans love freedom above all. And if other cultures don't love freedom, it doesn't matter, because God loves freedom, and if God loves freedom you will, by God, eventually love it too.

An Estonian friend of mine, one who routinely beats me in squash, refers to me as the Domesticated Imperialist. I'm still an American, he knows, but he believes living in Europe has smoothed some of my rough edges. I've attempted to abandon my American habit of demanding to know everyone's name and what each does for a living. I no longer ask how much everything costs. And I am trying to learn to listen. It isn't easy, of course. There's something in the genetic code of Americans which requires us to talk. To share our knowledge. To help others. To help you.

And who doesn't want to be helped?