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Why is it so hard for Americans (should be usa:ians to no confuse it with the continent... :p) to realize they sometimes are foreigners? Like in this game. GGG themself said "foreign currency" when reffering to the us dollar, since, well, it's a foreign currency in new zealand (and the rest of the world). Some comments in that thread made me laugh... usa is a foreign minority and that is a fact, why is that so hard to accept? Education? Not trolling here, just saying what's on my mind... In english (not american :p).
Went D1 -> D2 -> D3 -> PoE. Natural progression...
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Posted byxpanterxon Oct 11, 2013, 6:44:52 PM
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Maybe connected with cultural identity.
I for one do not care.
Also I am German and love me some Bier and Bratwurst. Prost!
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Posted byNightmare90on Oct 11, 2013, 6:52:09 PM
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your doing that thing were you take the actions of a few people and apply them to the whole.
Stop it.
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Posted byderbefrieron Oct 11, 2013, 6:56:56 PM
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Did you get an overdose of Freedom and Liberty OP?
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Posted byZepidelon Oct 11, 2013, 7:59:08 PM
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"
Why is it so hard for Americans (should be usa:ians to no confuse it with the continent... :p) to realize they sometimes are foreigners? Like in this game. GGG themself said "foreign currency" when reffering to the us dollar, since, well, it's a foreign currency in new zealand (and the rest of the world). Some comments in that thread made me laugh... usa is a foreign minority and that is a fact, why is that so hard to accept? Education? Not trolling here, just saying what's on my mind... In english (not american :p).
I found it funny, because it's something that we don't hear often. This isn't like SA, EU, Asia, or Africa. Americans tend not to see much else besides the random Canadian nickel that made its way into a cash register.
So while some countries frequently see "foreign currency", we simply don't. We don't handle it, most don't know conversion rates, or anything like that.
This isn't an issue of education. It's simply a matter of lack of exposure to foreign currency on a regular basis.
Last edited by SL4Y3R on Oct 11, 2013, 8:35:19 PM
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Posted bySL4Y3Ron Oct 11, 2013, 8:34:50 PMBanned
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Did you get an overdose of Freedom and Liberty OP?
I couldn't hear you over the internal Spying going on :D
You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world,
and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.
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Posted byVelocireptileon Oct 11, 2013, 8:57:21 PM
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While this is a stereotype and thus must not be applied to any given individual, there is definitely a ignorance of the global prevalent in the US. Most definitely.
For a start, a lot of US citizens don't even have passports. When they travel, they travel within the US, rather than overseas. I've met more Americans who've never been to another country than any other nationality. If you don't have a passport in Australia, you're fucking crippled.
This is an interesting starting point for what is seen by many other countries as that characteristic belief that Americans see the US as THE 'domestic' and all other countries 'the foreign'.
If you've never been to other countries, not even one, then obviously your exposure to any culture but your own is going to be fairly low, and your idea of 'normal' and 'abnormal' is going to be skewed. My future mother in law, who's never been outside the US, was extremely indignant and disbelieving when I told her I don't put parmesan on my spaghetti. Her response was a shocked, 'well, what DO you put on your spaghetti then?!' as if I'd somehow defied a law of nature and didn't already have sauce, meat and salt on my spaghetti.
The moment I talk about things around the world, she responds with something from her own experience, which is invariably within the US.
This is how she, and a lot of Americans I've met, deal with the alien and the foreign. By comparing it to the familiar, usually quite competitively.
By contrast, my future father in law has traveled the world a bit, both for work and pleasure, and when I talk about my experiences and life in Australia he's a lot more open-minded and can discuss things as though his world isn't just America. He has been to countries where few people understood him, and has had to try unusual foods. He has seen that the world is so much bigger than just the US.
I don't BLAME Americans who haven't seen the world for any of this. Traveling is expensive and there are lots of cool things to see within the US. I do blame them when they are shown that the world is out there, when someone comes with tales from afar, and all they do is compare what is 'foreign' to what is 'domestic', as if they feel the need to remind everyone present that, sure, there are foreign things, but there are domestic/normal things and they're JUST AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER.
To be honest, every time I get that reaction I think it's just them being defensive about not having had the chance to see the world, to visit other countries. Almost like my talking about things from other countries is an accusation that they, too, should know these things from traveling. Which is a ridiculous reaction but I suppose if you've never left your country, someone from afar with experiences beyond your own can across as a bit condescending.
But that doesn't mean it's not true.
Basically, it's hard to believe you're a foreigner when you've never experienced it.
Thats really not how it works in America at all. America is HUGE. I don't think either Russia or China are as big as US if you included and Alsaka, Hawaii. I have looked at data to prove that asumption. Compare that to europe where all of the countries in EU combined is like the size of US. Its no wonder why most Americans dont traval or have passports. Just traveling inside the US is a lot.
"obviously your exposure to any culture but your own is going to be fairly low"
Thats also not really how it works in US. US is a multi-cultral nation. There are more asians, Indians, arabs, mexicans, ets in my neiborhood where i live in US than there are WHite people. All i gotta do is walk outside in America and everywhere you look is other races and cultures.
But to the rest of what you said there is a lot of ignorant people out there. They are perfectly happy with being ignorant and have no desire to learn. Either becasue they are not well educated, or becasue or have low IQs.
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Posted byWarlordClawon Oct 11, 2013, 9:04:54 PM
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Charan - I can definitely see where you're coming from there. The amount of exposure to 'foreign' cultures, be it by travel or by immigrant friends/colleagues, is fantastically variable in America, particularly as you get out of the cities; but I wonder if it's most people, not just Americans, who are decidedly... parochial in their sensibilities.
Americans just happen to be the largest group of English-speaking shut-ins. If this were, say, a Chinese-speaking forum, I'd expect most of the "wait, we're foreigners?" culture shock to be from people who lived all their lives in China.
I have wandered through insanity;
I have walked the spiral out.
Heard its twisted dreamed inanity
In a whisper, in a shout.
In the babbling cacophony
The refrains are all the same:
"[permutations of humanity]
are unworthy of the name!"
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Posted bySkivveruson Oct 11, 2013, 9:05:52 PMAlpha Member
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While this is a stereotype and thus must not be applied to any given individual, there is definitely a ignorance of the global prevalent in the US. Most definitely.
For a start, a lot of US citizens don't even have passports. When they travel, they travel within the US, rather than overseas. I've met more Americans who've never been to another country than any other nationality. If you don't have a passport in Australia, you're fucking crippled.
This is an interesting starting point for what is seen by many other countries as that characteristic belief that Americans see the US as THE 'domestic' and all other countries 'the foreign'.
If you've never been to other countries, not even one, then obviously your exposure to any culture but your own is going to be fairly low, and your idea of 'normal' and 'abnormal' is going to be skewed. My future mother in law, who's never been outside the US, was extremely indignant and disbelieving when I told her I don't put parmesan on my spaghetti. Her response was a shocked, 'well, what DO you put on your spaghetti then?!' as if I'd somehow defied a law of nature and didn't already have sauce, meat and salt on my spaghetti.
The moment I talk about things around the world, she responds with something from her own experience, which is invariably within the US.
This is how she, and a lot of Americans I've met, deal with the alien and the foreign. By comparing it to the familiar, usually quite competitively.
By contrast, my future father in law has traveled the world a bit, both for work and pleasure, and when I talk about my experiences and life in Australia he's a lot more open-minded and can discuss things as though his world isn't just America. He has been to countries where few people understood him, and has had to try unusual foods. He has seen that the world is so much bigger than just the US.
I don't BLAME Americans who haven't seen the world for any of this. Traveling is expensive and there are lots of cool things to see within the US. I do blame them when they are shown that the world is out there, when someone comes with tales from afar, and all they do is compare what is 'foreign' to what is 'domestic', as if they feel the need to remind everyone present that, sure, there are foreign things, but there are domestic/normal things and they're JUST AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER.
To be honest, every time I get that reaction I think it's just them being defensive about not having had the chance to see the world, to visit other countries. Almost like my talking about things from other countries is an accusation that they, too, should know these things from traveling. Which is a ridiculous reaction but I suppose if you've never left your country, someone from afar with experiences beyond your own can across as a bit condescending.
But that doesn't mean it's not true.
Basically, it's hard to believe you're a foreigner when you've never experienced it.
It seems to me, Charan, that using personal experience to relate to someone else's experience is a perfectly normal thing to do and a basic part of human nature. The mind wrestles to reconcile the unknown by relating it to the known. To someone who has never been exposed to any cultures beyond their own, anything else is foreign, whether that person be from the US, Australia, or wherever.
Granted, there are those in the world (perhaps more so in the US, I really couldn't say) who view the word foreign as a pejorative, but that's far from a hard and fast truth for Americans, nor is it exclusive to us. Ignorance knows no nationality.
The one time I've been out of the US was when I was in the army and did a 30 day training exercise in Japan. Every moment of the experience was foreign to me as I'd simply never seen it before. I didn't look down on it, far from it in fact. Most of what I observed of Japanese (what little bit that ws, under the circumstances) culture I actually found preferable to what I was accustomed to. The only thing I found "shocking" was that Japanese soldiers needed even less of a reason to get hammered than the average US infantryman. I didn't realize that was possible ;)
All that said, my point isn't to try and get any kind of adversarial back and forth going with you on this. I really replied just to say what I did in the first couple of sentences. The rest is just rambling.
Last edited by Thaelyn on Oct 11, 2013, 9:11:52 PM
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Posted byThaelynon Oct 11, 2013, 9:11:25 PM
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As someone that was born in Europe but has lived in the United States for the past 30 years, I kind of have to agree with Charan. I have observed some of the behavior that he described and still get odd looks when people find out I am not an American.
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Posted bySpoonmannon Oct 11, 2013, 9:18:00 PM
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