[PRCo] THAT UGLY AMERICAN

[Fred Schneider]

Perhaps I should not be the one to speak ... I don't have a whole lot of
experience because I only go outside the United States on average of one
trip each year ... some years none ... last year three times.

I have come to the conclusion that Americans feel very isolated and very
powerful, and also very insensitive to the feelings of people in other
countries.  It is a personal opinion, but a very strong one.  It is also
shared by Marie, my wife.

I listen to our people complaining about how rude the French are ...
essentially because they won't speak to us in English in their
country.   And perhaps also because we don't understand their body
English.  I never had that problem, if I stumbled a bit in French
first.  Most young people in Europe and I suspect even many educated
kids in Japan can blunder through English or American or Canadian.
Essentially the Americans are finding fault with the French for being
like ourselves.  We, as a nation, have no desire to learn French but we
fault them for not wanting to deal with us in English.   I've had a
number of fabulous vacations in France and I've yet to have an
insurmountable problem.  .

I've observed how U. S.  news and weather broadcasts cut off everything
at the border.  Hey, guys, how many of our storms come down through
Canada but we can't show it on the maps?  Canada doesn't exist?  My
evening newspaper has only about 6 to 10 inches of international news
each night because it doesn't sell.

I've been embarrased by an London Underground guard who had the desire,
willingness and ability to discuss our civil war (the one in 1861-1865).

I've had two great vacations in East Germany before unification.  They
were supposed to be our enemy.  How can you regard someone as an enemy
when he tells you to drive back to Naumberg tomorrow and he'll pull the
museum cars out of the carbarn?

How can an Austrian be your enemy when you are welcomed into their
family and treated like one.

Or the English lady you write back and forth to.  Our your buddies at
the National Tramway Museum in Crich who have dinner with you in the pub
when you are there.  Or the clergyman in the Anglican parish church
Crich who recognized me the second time I appeared.

Or the German whose wife fed you.   Or the other German family in whose
home you stayed for five days.

Maybe we should ask a more important question.  We would like German and
French and English and Swiss and Austrian tourist to visit Disney World,
Paul Revere's home, the Empire State Building, and our nation's
Capitol.  On the other coast the hotel and restaurant owners love to
have the Japanese in Hawaii.  Disney happily accepts their money at
Anaheim.  Most of those who come here already fluent in English tell me
they have a wonderful time.  They come back.  But can someone come here
who doesn't speak English?  You tell me, how many of our kids are
willing to learn German or French or Italian or Japanese to accommodate
these people?  How many schools will even upset parents by demanding
foreign languages. Until we do, then maybe we are the Ugly Americans.
If you wish to be a desk clerk in anything above a two start hotel in
Europe, you'll speak a minimum of three or four languages.  Most of our
schools have eliminated Geography and World History.  I read yesterday
that the top 50 colleges and universities in the U. S. don't even
require American history any more, let alone world history.  So, how
many of us know names like Charles de Gaule, Otto von Bismarck,
Charlemagne, Tony Blair or Hirohito.  I gather very few.  But most
Europeans can tell you about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
Alexander Graham Bell, and I even had one on this last trip to expressed
disdain for Woodrow Wilson.

It's easy to be ashamed of many people from the U. S. on tour (notice
I'm trying not to use the A word).  The tour groups sitting at the long
table in a hotel, having dinner, and drowning out everyone else in the
room instead.  The high school kids enmasse who storm up a stairway to
Montmartre in Paris, forcing everyone else to the side.  The American
who isn't getting anywhere in English so he shouts to someone who can't
understand the language.  The lady from Nebraska whom I overheard
saying, in dripping sarcasm, to a native in Iceland, "Oh.......  You
have automobiles up here."   The person who turns down cheese dish in
Switzerland or goulash in Hungary or red cabbage in Germany because it
doesn't look like they might like it.  And those who insult some other
nations government.  And then we wonder why we look bad.

As a post script, there are ugly people everywhere.  We don't have a
monopoly ... just more than our share.  Last March a person pushed ahead
of an entire line to get on a train from Paris to London.  Why the
hurry?  Every seat including his was reserved.  A very lovely French
lady (lady meaning refined)) standing next to me felt so disturbed by
the incident that she sized up where I came from (clothes are very
different) and apologized for the other Frenchman's behavior.  She said
she didn't want me to believe that all French people were like him.