Non-U.S. Dopers: What Are Typical "American" Traits?

In My Humble Opinion
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In a roundabout way, the following account of a recent experience of mine sheds a little light on one European’s slight miscalculation of American traits:

A month or so ago, the wife, two young daughters and myself drove the few miles down A1A to one of our favorite seafood shacks on Anastasia Island, St. Augustine. Although, perhaps a little closer to biker bar than hoity toity eating establishment, this bar and grill’s atmosphere is generally relaxed and low key. So, we were a little taken aback when we were met at the door by a pair of waitresses (who each had, ironically, a nice pair) who said, “you may not want to bring your family in here tonight, there’s more than a few rowdy drunks upstairs.” Being advised to take our money elsewhere is something not ordinarily encountered at for-profit businesses, such as restaurants, so it took me a few moments to formulate a response. Getting a thumbs up from my famished family, I replied, *“I think I can protect my wife and oldest daughter from any belligerent drunk who tries to mess with us…as for the 5 year-old, she can take care of herself—in fact give her a cue stick and she’ll be your bouncer for the night *(the kid’s tough, in a feminine Dirty Harry kind of way). We’ll take a beachside table, upstairs, thank you.”

The four of us were seated at a table for six and ordered a feast fit for eight. A few minutes after the food and drinks arrived, I noticed a man ambling toward our table from the bar. He was a very blond, beefy fellow in his mid to late thirties—good looking, in a scruffy Nordic way. Even though the restaurant’s dress code could be considered relaxed Florida Casual, this bloke took it a step even less formal, wearing what looked like baggy speedos, flip flops, a shit-eating grin and nothing more. Before I could arm myself with my butter knife and lobster crackers, he pulled out the open chair next to me, sat down between my wife and I (beefy gut spilling over the rim of his pseudo-speedos), leaned back, entwined his hands behind his head and continued with his shit-eating grin as he looked us over one by one. A few moments of silence ensued, punctuated when our youngest said—quite loudly*—“daddy, why is that man wearing underpants.”*

It was surreal, really. At this point I wasn’t exactly fearful of his being a menace to my family. Despite acting and dressing in a manner not inconsistent with someone exhibiting schizoid tendencies, I had a strong sense that he was harmless. And, after looking deep into his eyes (which is all that I could muster, being temporarily dumbfounded by this bizarre situation), I saw a fully cognizant, only minimally beer-addled, consciousness peering back. He looked like our friendly, wacky friend or neighbor of many years duration, who just plopped down beside us, no words necessary, just a grin of recognition and acceptance. Nothing unusual to an outside observer. Nothing unusual…except, he was no such thing…he was a complete stranger, posing as our best friend. How odd. Odd, but, strangely not objectionable, nor particularly unwelcome. A new social paradigm where strangers are your best friends.

Finally, he spoke, *“hallo, how are you guy’s tonight.” *I was correct, Nordic he was—quite a thick accent, in fact. Remarkably, that’s all it took to break the ice. From that point on, it’s as though he really was my wacky best friend, my kid’s crazy uncle, my wife’s cuckolding bull (no, wait a minute, scratch that last one:o). We talked and laughed and had a great time. He was born and raised in Denmark and this was his first holiday to America.

Being American, I’m guilty of living up to the stereotype of lumping all non-Americans into broad categories. To me, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians are all the same. Points of reference: I’ve known only one Dane, our former Au Pare, a very sweet, innocent young lady, with an abundantly reserved disposition. I also recalled that 60-Minutes (a weekly docu-news TV show, for you non-Americans) piece about the reserved nature of Swedes (or was it Norwegians?): they were shown being very quiet and reserved in public, almost to the point of mimicking emotionless automatons…EXCEPT, when they go dancing. And, not just any dance—Polka Dancing…they love Polka Dancing. The only time Swedes (or Norwegians) display any sign of affection or emotion is when they Polka Dance. It’s their Dirty Dancing. It’s there Lambada—the forbidden dance. According to 60-minutes, Polka dancing is how Nordic people mate (if I’m remembering it correctly).

Anyway, our new Danish friend’s temperament did not jibe with that exhibited by our Au Pare, or that portrayed by 60-Minutes. This fellow was gregarious, bold and a barrel of laughs. I can only imagine what would have transpired if Polka music began to blare from the loudspeakers—he would have exploded!

We invited him to partake of our fishy feast—which he did without hesitation, digging in like a starving Viking—and put a number of his beers on our tab. It was well worth an evenings worth of entertainment. We learned a lot about this bloke. He is a very successful businessman back home and is well connected with his fellow countrymen (IOW, not an oddball forced to emigrate). We invited him to our home on his next visit to the States—which he hopes will be soon. He doesn’t mind a 7-year old bouncing on his knee, nor a 5-year old poking him in the belly. One reason he left the bar was to get away from his cousin’s boyfriend, who was one of the few obnoxious Americans he encountered since arriving in our country. We concurred with his assessment when the boyfriend later tried to merge into our party and play with our kids—our 5-year old made him reconsider with a crab claw up his nose *(I know what you’re thinking. Did she eat six claws or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is an Alaska King Crab claw, the most powerful claw in the world, and would pinch your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk? - Dirty Chloe) *

I can’t picture our new friend ambling up to his board meetings in Denmark wearing baggy speedos and flip flops. In fact, I can’t imagine him wearing that outfit anywhere outside of Florida (and it really shouldn’t be legal, even here). I don’t imagine that he looks or acts anything like he does here, back home. So, what triggered this metamorphosis?

My theory: he made it a point to tell me that he could not believe how friendly and open we Americans have been to him. What he thought was going to be a tedious trip amongst a country full of obnoxious beings, to visit his cousin in Florida, turned out to be a dream vacation for him. He had preconceived ideas about America and Americans, and they were not good. He liked the gregarious, open way that we treated him. He liked it so much that I surmise that he wanted to return the favor and emulate what he thought to be typical American behavior. But, he overshot the mark. Ironically, in his attempt to fit in, he became more American than the typical American. He extrapolated our friendliness to mean it’s OK to walk up to a stranger’s table, sit down and be your best friend and your kid’s favorite uncle, and your wife’s…:eek:. So my all American family learned a new level of hyper-Americanism, taught to us by a wacky Dane—not a bad lesson at all.

142

That’s a good story. :slight_smile:

143

I noticed that too, at least in The Netherlands and in Germany. Everything seemed to be narrower when you were out in public–from sidewalks (pavements) to grocery store aisles to just about everything else. On the other hand, unlike the vast majority of America, European cities seem to have more public space. I’m not sure this isn’t a mistaken impression due to all the famous “squares” and “place”/“plaetze” scattered throughout Europe’s central cities.

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I was going to say the same thing, and when I looked at the figures provided, at least for other-language speakers, it did appear that Spanish speakers have close to catching up in numbers to English speakers (three-million something Spanish speakers compared to four-million something English speakers). Moreover, as English speakers leave the area, or die, without being replaced by birth or internal immigration, this trend will continue, and English will be replaced here as it did Welsh in what we now call England.

As I would have guessed, Spanish speakers outnumber the third group, Chinese speakers by well over ten to one; take all the East Asian countries together and you might come up with a half-million, but still, Spanish speakers outnumber them by a factor of six.

Even so, if you take all of the numbers from “Chinese” on down, in the list below, you do arrive at over 1.1 million speakers of various other languages besides Spanish or English. Also, remember that all Spanish speakers don’t all represent the same country or the same culture, although they are preponderantly from Central America and there are broad similarities across the group. So it’s unfair – not to mention crude – to label claims of L.A.'s diversity “crap” as another poster did further up. But it must be admitted it isn’t like NYC or London, where you probably enter a different ethnic neighborhood every few blocks. It’s too spread out for that. While Spanish and English are virtually everywhere, you have to look for most of the others. Notwithstanding that, I would say that a population of 44000 Russian speakers is not insignificant, or 38000 French speakers (surprised!).

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This is an example of the sort of thing that makes some of us desperate to identify with another country in some way. Currently there’s a prescription drug charity bus program, put together by a consortium of the major pharmaceuticals. The objective is to provide an opportunity for uninsured patients to get their medications. The TV public service announcements about this are all merry and upbeat, but underneath all the puffery is the fact that the clients still have to fill out forms and prove that they are fiscally incapable of purchasing their own medicine. In other words, beg for it.

Sometimes I want to throw a brick at the screen.

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Here’s an interesting article for a not-quite-exact comparison with the situation in London. Dealing with the countries of origins of workers, but not all residents, it probably does actually show the portion of the population with the greatest influence on the culture as a whole, being those most active in society. And while the following, the top ten birthplaces of foreign-born workers, reads like a summary of British military history, it’s pretty much undeniable that simply the links to Commonwealth countries gives us a huge range of influences, from the highly-developed (Australia, New Zealand), countries which have undergone or are undergoing rapid changes (South Africa, India), to those still very much in the developing world (Canada :stuck_out_tongue: )

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Is it really always an incidence of “America as default”? Some states like Alaska, Texas, and California have sufficient descriptive connotations that I would think think just about anyone knows they are part of America. If I tell someone I’m from California, is there any danger of their not understanding that I’m from America too? “California, on the west coast of the Unites States” is too long, and “America” is too vague. Even if I just say I live in Los Angeles, does anybody not know it’s in the U.S.? Or even more sharply definitive, does someone from New York City need to say what country they are from?

Different places in America not only bring to mind different images relating to contemporary life, but have histories of their own that in many cases were independent from the others, and, in a few cases, violently antagonistic. I think this may be why Canadians, though also from a country that is huge geographically, do not do this to the same extent. AFAIK the history is somewhat more homogeneous. Today the states have their own governments and laws, and those laws are the ones that regulate our lives for the most part, In addition, state legislators and governors have no official standing in the national capital. There, they are just private citizens.

Soldiers, diplomats, and consuls general are from America. The rest of us are from the states and cities we consider home.

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It’s not like we get mad at people for saying they’re from Scotland rather than the United Kingdom.

That’s an even more exaggerated example, but the underlying feeling is the same.

I’m sure there are people that ARE just being Amerocentric as well, but there are a lot of us that identify more with our states than our country too.

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When I lived abroad I always said I was from Texas if asked because it usually got a more positive and friendly reaction than saying I was from the United States, believe it or not. * This was before the current presidential administration.

  • "I’m from Texas. " “Hey, Texas! Cowboy! Bang bang!”
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Our own domestic regional prejudices are another factor. Many Northern Californians don’t want anyone to think they’re from Southern California. Texans don’t want you to think they’re from anywhere else, and Southerners don’t want you to confuse them with Northerners. It’s not necessarily an antagonistic prejudice, but may merely represent the desire that the other person will have a reasonably accurate impression. For example, for many years New York City was THE American city as represented in film and TV. It still is to an extent, but in the days when movies were the only commonly available visual mass medium, one might have gotten the idea that all urban Americans lived in high rise apartments and rode the subway to work.

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I challenge you to tell a Scottish nationalist that this is an exaggerated example :wink:

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I’ll second that. I probably know more Europeans than Americans that know the U.S. state capitals.

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I tried to be sensitive to this when I was in Ireland. (ETA: Assuming folks are asking what US state you’re from.) Had a guy ask my friend and me where we were from. Surely he doesn’t care to know I from Nebraska, does he? I mean, how many Irish even know where Nebraska is? Isn’t it kind of arrogant to assume he is familiar with all the fifty states? Hell, even Americans don’t know where the bloody fuck Nebraska is. Sure, I’m gonna say “Omaha” like he should know. How rude!

So, I told him we were from the States and he got all pissy and said, “I right well gathered that. I mean where in the States???”

:dubious:

“I’m from Omaha, Nebraska.”

Blank stare.

“It’s smack-dab in the middle. You can’t miss it.”

So, there’s at least ONE European that wants to know your state. But pick one he knows, like North Carolina or Florida.
:wink:
BTW: I wish my compatriots would stop being so over-sensitive about things Americans do that other non-Americans don’t like. These are small, minor things. They can annoy non-Americans. Get over it. Right now someone is being annoyed by someone else from somewhere else. Big whoop. I was once annoyed by a French girl who embodied perfectly the worst French stereotype. So what. The German dude was worse!! :smiley:

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I’m saying that scotland and england have even more of a historical separation. The states don’t have as long a history, but the underlying feelings behind not wanting to all be grouped together are the same.

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Indeed, you might get: “My friend Bob lives in California too! Do you know him?”

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I’ve had the exact opposite when in America (and, FWIW, Canada too). ‘From England’…‘Oh, well I know that, where abouts?’…‘Suffolk…East Anglia…there’s a clue in the name…’ Sometimes followed by a sketch of the east coast (seriously).

What this shows is that while labels such as ‘East Anglia’ or ‘Nebraska’ might have real meaning when within the boundaries of our own country and people, they mean very little elsewhere. ‘On the east coast, north-east of London’ is sometimes the sensible answer for me to give. ‘Nebraska, smack-dab in the middle’ is perhaps the equivalent immediate answer.

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Sure, sure. Agreed. But Our Saviour John (he’d just finished fixing our flat tire) lit up when my friend said she was from Charlotte, NC (er… North Carolina. How rude of me to assume you’d know the American state abbreviations!). North Carolina, he knew. Nebraska? Not so much. But don’t give me attitude when I KNOW you’re not going to know of this obscure American state. :slight_smile: If general geography is what you want, say, “Where in America are you from?”

Actually, I take that back. It makes a better story the way it went down. :cool:

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Straw man and straw man. I have repeatedly and consistently clarified my very specific position in this thread and take no responsibility for any further misreading, deliberate or not, that may result from an inability or unwillingness to read my posts for comprehension.

Why? Canada has a very different culture and society. Almost everything about their culture, AIUI, is more unified and central. For example, all but the most petty crimes over there are investigated by federal police and tried in federal court, a concept that is so absurd in America that it would be almost offensive to apply it here. In fact, many people in this country would be offended at something like that, because they believe that their state and/or county has the right to determine punishments for its own offenders. More examples abound everywhere: politicians running for national elections mostly target a handful of key states (we in California almost never see commercials for Presidential candidates–they don’t want to waste ad money on us, since they already know how we’ll vote); residents of different states argue fiercely over the superiority of their state and the cultural differences between the two states; minimum wage varies widely from state to state; individual states compete fiercely with each other for tourism money; individual states and cities maintain their own infrastructure; the “states’ rights” argument comes up in every single election regarding some controversial thing like abortion, drug law, etc.; the list goes on and on and on. Why are you making such broad, sweeping statements about something you don’t know about?

Actually, no, identifying oneself as hailing from a city or state rather than a country is indicative of the fact that one’s identity is tied much more closely to the city or state. I’d love to hear your other examples of our “US is default” thinking, though. I sincerely mean that, because I have trouble picturing what other context that kind of thinking can come up in and I want to know.

Now that I think about it, I sort of get what you’re talking about; when I went to Israel, the fact that the culture there was different in subtle ways on a national level was almost shocking to me. I was used to culture varying from state to state, with a smaller foundation of common culture underneath it, and since my country is so huge and varied I figured that same foundation could serve a million other varieties without changing a whole lot. Silly? Insular? Provincial? Yes. But we do have a huge country with a lot of stuff to see and do; and while Canada and Russia (for example) rival us in the size department, they don’t necessarily rival us in the variety department, and much (most?) of those countries are scarcely-if-at-all-populated frozen tundra. Alls I’m saying is, bias isn’t necessarily the only explanation.

That’s strange. I always thought Spanish culture was more touchy-feely with a lot less personal space. Of course, here it varies from one part of the country to another–a lot of us East Coast transplants do get very uncomfortable with the higher level of physical intimacy between mere acquaintances here in Southern California. Some women hug and squeeze everyone they meet every time they see them, and it can be a bit much. Male friends seem to require physical affirmation of some kind (some sort of hand slap or handshake or fist thing, depending) any time you see them or leave their company.

I bet that’s a border thing. I’ve yet to meet a Canadian down here who first says “I’m from Ontario” or “I’m from Alberta” rather than “I’m from Canada” or “I’m Canadian”. I usually have to be almost pushy to get them to tell me where they’re from specifically. I think they assume most Californians know nothing about Canada and don’t care where they’re from specifically. Little do they know I spent some of my formative years as a hockey fan!

OTOH, ignorance of Mexican states runs high in this area too, and most Mexican people I know would describe themselves as Mexican before describing themselves as “from Sonora” or whatever. Granted, the vast majority of our Mexican population is from Tijuana since it’s practically a twin city, but that might be different as you go further north.

Exactly! That’s what I’m saying. When somebody asks me where I’m from or where I live in an international context, my default answer is always going to be San Diego or Southern California, because the idea of saying “America” isn’t really going to figure into my thought process. (Probably just “California” if I were actually in another country.) I don’t want to be mistaken for a Lower Midwestern redneck and have people think I like country music and George Bush. I identify much less with American culture as a whole than I do with California culture, and would be ecstatic if I woke up tomorrow morning to find that my state had 100% physically and politically separated from our host country. (Can anyone say “trade surplus”? No? How about “legal weed”?)

Again, I direct you to my repeated and consistant explanations of my original meaning and the very specific thing that I take offense at and, frankly, belittle. If I were out to “belittle others’ cultural heritage” in a general sense, why would I say something like the following?

Also, please refer to this and this, where I made my very specific complaint quite clear. I have neither the time nor the inclination to further repeat myself every time someone intentionally misreads my posts to fulfill their own sense of umbrage envy, so this is my final word on the subject.

Ah, the classic “it’s not what I said, it’s what I meant” argument. I would advise you to try that on the next East Asian person you call a “chink” and see how well it goes over.

If you think he’s kidding, get my cousin’s Scottish husband drunk and try to convince him that anything of value in this world wasn’t originally a Scotsman’s idea.

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No, No, No, this is all wrong…
In the interests of international relations, I must clarify. Dancing in European culture is foreplay, the inoculation that enables them to actually mate is Alcohol… massive amounts of very strong white liquor (sometimes flavored like licorice), along with beer, and wine. (This statement is universal to all Europeans, not just Scandanavians).

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I reckon that this is because they regularly come up as pub quiz questions.