On America

Notes, conversations, incidences involving perspectives of America (apologies to everyone I've misquoted here, but you get the idea):


Watching the movie "Mean Girls":
American: "High school was never like that."
Helena, Swedish: "That's what we think American high school is like."


Steph, German: "Really, everyone just hates Bush!"


Me: "Yeah, I didn't realize there was AFL in the US until recently."
Guy in Melbourne bar: "That's cause Americans don't know anything about the rest of the world!"


Same guy in Melbourne bar: "You know, usually, I don't like Americans, but you're not bad for one."
Same guy: "Ah, you laugh loud! Like an American!"
Really, I'm not sure why I kept talking to him...


Australian: "Pennsylvania? Is Scranton in Pennsylvania? Isn't that where the TV show "The Office" takes place?"


Jess, American, commented on small size of McDonald's soda.
Rohan, Australian: "You drink larger sodas? How do you survive as a nation?"


Me: "Kata Kjuta is bigger than Uluru, since it's a bunch of rocks, not one. I think I liked that better..."
Angelo, Australian,: (jokingly) "You Americans! Gotta have everything big!"


On the radio, they discussed a poll which showed that 60% of Australians had a favorable opinion of the US. Those that did not said it was because of Bush and his foreign policy.


Guy at Royal Flying Doctors Service visitor center: "Where are you from?"
Helena: "Sweden, and one from the US."
Guy: "US? Oh, then I better watch what I say."


American girls on bus to Melbourne explained to some Europeans about paying for college in the US, getting loans, going into debt. (I'm pretty sure they were over exaggerating their situations.)
Europeans: jaws dropped


Jeremy, American: "I feel like Australians just like to make fun of us, but if we were anywhere else in the world, we'd actually be disliked. But it's ok: When they make fun of you, you just tell them that they remind you of the British."


Guy who threw beer over our boardgame: "You're American! Who cares!"


95% of Australians who hear my accent: "Are you Canadian?" (apparently it's better to be wrong than to accidentally insult a Canadian)


Jenna, Canadian, explaining herself during a story about yelling at an American guy at a hockey game: "Then I yelled - cause, you see, Canadians don't really like Americans - go home..."


Chasers War on Everything, which is a prank TV show which I would say is a combination of the Colbert Report and Punk'd, did a segment where they asked people who was responsible for the Iraq war: Osama, Barack Obama, or some other American name. They showed all the people who said Obama and the other name. The interviews were in Walmart parking lots. Angelo asked if there are a lot of people like that in America. I said we make fun of them too.


Hanna, Swedish, who doesn't hate America and has been there several times: "A LOT of people don't like Americans."
Me: "Why?"
Hanna: "I guess... well, they're loud."
Me: "Loud as in talk loudly or loud as in obnoxious?"
Hanna: "Both I guess."


Sally, English: "Ooh, Pop tarts! I loved when we went to America when I was little and we got to eat sweets for breakfast! Oh, and I love your big portions! When we were little we thought it was amazing."


Several non Americans: "I want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway."


Did you all hear that report that supposedly 20% of Americans can't identify the US on a world map? (Does anyone know where that came from?) Well, it was big news here.


The Miss Teen USA girl who was asked a question about that 20% and gave a horrible, nonsense answer was also the lead-in story for a radio conversation about dumb blondes.


Hanna, Swedish: "I LOVE New York. New York is my kind of city."


My psyc professor from New Zealand who did grad school in the US: "Say you were doing a study on ethics and torture. What if you had Osama and there was the option to torture him. Of course, they're Americans - they have no morals. I better shut up now..."


There was a big debate on the radio about whether Australian hip hop artists should rap in an American or Australian accent.


I was shocked to pick up the free paper on the train in Sydney and discover 2 bits of news from Pennsylvania: A Carlisle man received a drunk driving sentence 8 years after the incident because his original sentence was lost during processing. A Coke truck driver got into a fight with a Pepsi driver in a Walmart parking lot in the town of Indiana.


What I think is the biggest stereotype about Americans:
WE ALL HAVE GUNS:


Me, after security guards walked through a room of people drinking: "See, that wouldn't happen at home. They would check everyone's IDs, or at least just tell everyone to be quiet."
Security guard: "In the US it's different. Your campus security has to be tighter because you have to worry about guns."
Me, in my head: Guns? They're worried about noise violations, believe me.


Woman in Surfers Paradise: "My daughter did psychology. She went into the police force. Although I don't know if you'd want to do that in America with all the guns."


Josh, American, had a conversation with an Australian about guns. He said he was tempted to joke that he had a hard time getting them through customs.


Me: "Why do you think we all have guns!?"
Brionee, Australian: "It was that Michael Moore movie - Bowling for Columbine! After we saw how easy it was for you to buy them, we figured, Wow, all Americans must have their own guns!"


In Personality Theory, we had to do one of those tests where you look at a picture and write a story. My picture was of a collapsed woman and it looked like the object on the ground beside her was a gun. After I wrote my story, I refused to read it out loud cause I didn't want to contribute to the gun-loving-American image.