MetaChat - As others see us....

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01 March 2010

As others see us.... This morning I was on the train near a group of six people who were talking loudly amongst themselves. From their conversation, I gathered that they were Americans, visiting the city.→[More:] They marvelled that all the pedestrians obeyed traffic signals and how polite that was, how Canadian. Some of them had been to see the production of "Jersey Boys", and related how audience members took off during the intermission to go check out the hockey game. And one of them said that, while she was at Pearson airport a few nights before, there had been an announcement: "There are 70 people who still have not boarded Flight [number]. We are not delaying take off until the end of the period. Please board now."

post by: Orange Swan at: 08:34 | 6 comments

That is so funny!!! Too bad it wasn't a flight with wifi.

posted by typewriter 01 March | 10:18

I hate to be American in another country and watch how rude and boorish some of us can be.

But then French and German tourists are not a whole lot better.

posted by danf 01 March | 10:37

Heh...that's funny!

posted by richat 01 March | 10:37

Seconded, danf. (Even worse is when I'm with my mother. She pretty much wraps up all the ugly American stereotypes into one offensive package. Ugh. Of course, she's not much better when she's back in the US.)

posted by sperose 01 March | 14:23

David Sedaris said it best re: American tourists, "Never visit a country dressed like you are there to mow their lawn."

As a Washingtonian, I adore our neighbors to the north. They can't drive worth crap (wink wink), but they are so dang nice and polite you gotta let it go.

I went to the Grand Canyon the summer of 2001. I was standing in line at the gift shop with tourists from all over the world, and was deeply amused when the Japanese tourists behind me kept "crowding my Big Fat American Personal Space Bubble", pushing me forward like we were boarding a Tokyo subway into the Germans in line ahead of me who were arguing with the clerk about the actual cost of the post cards they wanted to buy. I looked around and realized there were literally dozens of people from dozens of countries performing a veritable "Where's Waldo" tableau of cliche tourist behavior (Israeli guy yelling in Hebrew on his cell phone, people from who-knows-where who needed to get to know soap a little better, bratty American children demanding toys, grouchy old people bitching about EVERYTHING, etc). It made me like the world a little better in a weird way.

posted by evilcupcakes 01 March | 22:08

I didn't think these people were being oafish. They were just being rather too loud. There wasn't anything really offensive in what they said.

posted by Orange Swan 02 March | 08:40

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