Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Americanophiles

So everyone reading this should be smart enough to know that there are all kinds of people in the world.  There's an ass for every seat, as they say.  But recently I've discovered a new kind of person that I wasn't aware existed.  Before leaving for Spain, I thought that people would not take kindly to my being American.  People haven't really been super rude and prejudiced, although they probably have some expectations due to the stereotypes.  Expectations which have influenced how they behave.  However, a wildcard has been introduced to this game: the Americanophiles.

Picture this: a night club in London.  I'm out with a friend from home and two of her American friends.  A guy comes up to us and somehow starts talking.  I normally don't like conversation in clubs: I'm there with my friends, the music is loud, it's not really a great setting to talk about anything.  Anyways, this guy ends up telling me how much he adores everything about America and Americans.  Weird.  I love America too, but its my home.  As the conversation progresses quickly (he was a fan of the overshare), we find out that he is 18, and has a 2-year-old daughter who lives there with her American mom.  He promptly pulled out his phone and showed me a picture. 

Okay. lets begin.

I get that you love America, but isn't that a little extreme?  Instead of going to a club and trying unsuccessfully to pick up Americans due to your americanophelia, shouldn't you be taking care of the American's you already have?  Some people love americans to the extreme; thus, the americanophile was born.  I get it, the USA rocks, but London isn't too shabby either.  Spain's pretty nice.  American's are friendly, but I think Parisians dress better, Spaniards are edgier, Italians have better food, and Scotland has cool accents, lots of red hair and freckles.

We had to do a reading for class that was written by a Spaniard traveling in America.  The essay basically criticized everything unjustly and called Americans ignorant, vacant, and friendly to a fault.  Shortly after, I had to sit through a rather uncomfortable presentation of a Spanish girl presenting on a guy who criticized USA.  The presentation consisted of Spaniards turning around every 45 seconds or so to see how we were reacting to someone calling America an "anorexic society with no history or culture."  To the people who want to know our reaction, its this: everyone who criticizes is probably jealous.  Is the USA perfect? no.  But its definitely better than wherever people learned to make judgements like that.

1 comment:

  1. hi doll! I tagged you in an award called the game of elevens! hope you do it!

    ReplyDelete