An Ode to Living Abroad...and Coming Home.
November 3, 2015 9:12 AM Subscribe
While I too can identify with this piece to an extent, there's something bugging me that I can't quite put my finger on; I guess I'm reading a tone, a turn of phrase, a slightly sneering observation that seems to be mournfully demarking French as Other vs. American as That Which Was Lost.
I dunno, I guess for me in my little multiculti family the line of demarcation is a lot blurrier. My toddler prefers saying her colors in English and her numbers in Italian and to our chagrin has picked up mommy and daddy's habitual curse words in both. For now I still have the freedom to do or not do Holiday X, as our little family's traditions slowly take form over the years, percolating into our own unique cultural melange. The Italy I arrived in has morphed into another form, as has the US I left. Especially in this day and age of Internet, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything and I feel a twinge of pity that the author apparently does.
posted by romakimmy at 10:49 AM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I dunno, I guess for me in my little multiculti family the line of demarcation is a lot blurrier. My toddler prefers saying her colors in English and her numbers in Italian and to our chagrin has picked up mommy and daddy's habitual curse words in both. For now I still have the freedom to do or not do Holiday X, as our little family's traditions slowly take form over the years, percolating into our own unique cultural melange. The Italy I arrived in has morphed into another form, as has the US I left. Especially in this day and age of Internet, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything and I feel a twinge of pity that the author apparently does.
posted by romakimmy at 10:49 AM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I don't read a sneer here. I read an observation that our homes change while we are gone from them. France is Other only to the extent that no matter how long he lives there, he is not OF there and yet is far from where he is from (time not just place)
posted by C.A.S. at 11:01 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by C.A.S. at 11:01 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
As I stood a hundred feet up on a four inch ledge I was taken back to July 4, 1988: seventeen years old and watching a similar show at the Washington Monument. We all cheered as the bombs burst in air, listening to John Mellencamp’s Pink Houses.
“Ain’t that America”, he sang. “Something to see.” The future was wide open.
Most patriotic day of the year and they play Pink Houses. Next up, New Jersey adopts Born to Run as their state anthem!
posted by Talez at 11:05 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
“Ain’t that America”, he sang. “Something to see.” The future was wide open.
Most patriotic day of the year and they play Pink Houses. Next up, New Jersey adopts Born to Run as their state anthem!
posted by Talez at 11:05 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Most patriotic day of the year and they play Pink Houses. Next up, New Jersey adopts Born to Run as their state anthem!
As a Canadian who has been living in America for several years now, Americans don't do irony well.
You're mostly decent people, but really, were it not for immigration you might lose irony completely.
posted by GuyZero at 11:13 AM on November 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
As a Canadian who has been living in America for several years now, Americans don't do irony well.
You're mostly decent people, but really, were it not for immigration you might lose irony completely.
posted by GuyZero at 11:13 AM on November 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
What resonated with me about this essay is that feeling of living slightly askew from your family back home. Even in Canada, we have different holidays, share some of the same, but you are removed from those traditions because of time zones (sometimes) and distance. I mean, it will never stop being weird to my Southern family that the second Monday of October is Thanksgiving, and it will never stop making me sad that I am no longer part of our holiday traditions when they happen because I am likely at work and of course, don't have that day off. Yes, the Internet has made much a sameness of so much, but there is always a sense of apartness when you live for an extended period of time in a country you aren't from. Places still retain a cultural distinctness you fall in love with and take forgranted over time until a small thing reminds you, wait, this is x is different from y back home. Whoa.
posted by Kitteh at 11:23 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 11:23 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
As a Canadian who has been living in America for several years now, Americans don't do irony well.
It's like rain on our wedding day.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:41 AM on November 3, 2015 [11 favorites]
It's like rain on our wedding day.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:41 AM on November 3, 2015 [11 favorites]
Laugh it up fuzzball, but Lorne Michaels got put in charge of 75% of all American comedy for a reason.
posted by GuyZero at 11:46 AM on November 3, 2015
posted by GuyZero at 11:46 AM on November 3, 2015
I don't read a sneer here.
I do, but it's because I know this type of expat and am familiar with the sneer-dogwhistles. Complaining about how they celebrate Halloween (they don't, it's an American holiday, not French) and "If I had a dollar for every holiday taken by the French..." are big ones.
Still though, yes, plus ça change. Kind of tired of it only being white men living in the South of France who dream of being CEOs of Uber who get wide recognition for this type of piece though (they're the only ones with enough privilege to be able to sneer and reminisce at the same time).
posted by fraula at 12:00 PM on November 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
I do, but it's because I know this type of expat and am familiar with the sneer-dogwhistles. Complaining about how they celebrate Halloween (they don't, it's an American holiday, not French) and "If I had a dollar for every holiday taken by the French..." are big ones.
Still though, yes, plus ça change. Kind of tired of it only being white men living in the South of France who dream of being CEOs of Uber who get wide recognition for this type of piece though (they're the only ones with enough privilege to be able to sneer and reminisce at the same time).
posted by fraula at 12:00 PM on November 3, 2015 [9 favorites]
I read the line about all the French holidays not as a sneer but as a counterpoint to the big deal that is US Thanksgiving and the juxtaposition that in a country with so many holidays none seem to line up on top of Thanksgiving.
posted by GuyZero at 12:04 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by GuyZero at 12:04 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
There are 11 national holidays annually in France, versus 10 in the US. Where the French have it over the US is in personal vacation days (the thing that is killing France according to the writer).
His attitude isn't so much sneering, as just a general right-wing (or should I say neo-liberal) attitude. It's lazy, and in this essay it is mixed with nostalgia and nationalism for a toxic brew. Reading it, I pictured Josh Brolin as W being the writer.
posted by Steakfrites at 12:34 PM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
His attitude isn't so much sneering, as just a general right-wing (or should I say neo-liberal) attitude. It's lazy, and in this essay it is mixed with nostalgia and nationalism for a toxic brew. Reading it, I pictured Josh Brolin as W being the writer.
posted by Steakfrites at 12:34 PM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
There are 11 national holidays annually in France, versus 10 in the US.
There are no official national holidays in the U.S. There are 8 federal holidays that coincide with state holidays in all 50 states (Columbus Day is only a holiday in 46 states; Presidents Day, 41 states), and not all of those holidays are observed across the board (my kids have school this year on Columbus Day and Veterans Day, despite them being state holidays).
posted by Etrigan at 12:59 PM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
There are no official national holidays in the U.S. There are 8 federal holidays that coincide with state holidays in all 50 states (Columbus Day is only a holiday in 46 states; Presidents Day, 41 states), and not all of those holidays are observed across the board (my kids have school this year on Columbus Day and Veterans Day, despite them being state holidays).
posted by Etrigan at 12:59 PM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Count me among the readers who can relate. FWIW, I don't read some of the sneers as sneers, but as longing covered with not-great-humor and bravado.
I've only been 'away' for a year, and will only be away for 3 years, but for me the sadness over leaving started before I even left. Underneath feeling excited to moved abroad and feeling proud of the accomplishments (that had all come to me later than they do most people, making the sense of accomplishment extra pronounced) that had me moving around the world, I felt a real sadness. I knew that leaving would have new anxieties and sadnesses attached to it, and that it would cost me things that mattered to me, but I didn't know any particulars. I didn't know I would end up missing things like Thanksgiving.
I can't say that I love being where I am, although I can say that I love that I am here. But I miss 'home' every second. I miss my mom, even though we hadn't lived in the same city for years when I left. Ditto my sister, even though it had been decades. I miss restaurants that I've never even liked. This article made me miss baseball, and I've hated baseball for 25 years. I miss the relationship with someone I love that didn't withstand the distance. I miss the holidays, yeah, like thanksgiving, that always filled me with dread and anxiety before.
And all of that sucks, but it also affirms of the validity of those missing pieces for me. What I find much more difficult is the loss of anything that feels more abstractly like 'home'. When I am in my life abroad, it is all too uncanny valley and solitary to be 'home', and so I pine for the city I grew up in, where my mom lives, or the city my previous partner lives in where I spent lots of happy time before moving. But then when I visit those places, I have to face the fact that they've not just been frozen while I've been away, and the contours are all different and wrong, so they aren't 'home' either. And I don't know where I will end up next, because that's the shit nature of academia, and so I can't start to plan for 'home'. And so the net result is feeling semi-permanently detached from everything and everyplace, and then before I know it 'home' really just becomes the transit points between all of the unfulfilling places.
A saving grace: by my measure, Sunday roast in England is basically Thanksgiving dinner. And there's a nice place nearby that does a nice looking weekly roast.
posted by still bill at 2:08 PM on November 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
I've only been 'away' for a year, and will only be away for 3 years, but for me the sadness over leaving started before I even left. Underneath feeling excited to moved abroad and feeling proud of the accomplishments (that had all come to me later than they do most people, making the sense of accomplishment extra pronounced) that had me moving around the world, I felt a real sadness. I knew that leaving would have new anxieties and sadnesses attached to it, and that it would cost me things that mattered to me, but I didn't know any particulars. I didn't know I would end up missing things like Thanksgiving.
I can't say that I love being where I am, although I can say that I love that I am here. But I miss 'home' every second. I miss my mom, even though we hadn't lived in the same city for years when I left. Ditto my sister, even though it had been decades. I miss restaurants that I've never even liked. This article made me miss baseball, and I've hated baseball for 25 years. I miss the relationship with someone I love that didn't withstand the distance. I miss the holidays, yeah, like thanksgiving, that always filled me with dread and anxiety before.
And all of that sucks, but it also affirms of the validity of those missing pieces for me. What I find much more difficult is the loss of anything that feels more abstractly like 'home'. When I am in my life abroad, it is all too uncanny valley and solitary to be 'home', and so I pine for the city I grew up in, where my mom lives, or the city my previous partner lives in where I spent lots of happy time before moving. But then when I visit those places, I have to face the fact that they've not just been frozen while I've been away, and the contours are all different and wrong, so they aren't 'home' either. And I don't know where I will end up next, because that's the shit nature of academia, and so I can't start to plan for 'home'. And so the net result is feeling semi-permanently detached from everything and everyplace, and then before I know it 'home' really just becomes the transit points between all of the unfulfilling places.
A saving grace: by my measure, Sunday roast in England is basically Thanksgiving dinner. And there's a nice place nearby that does a nice looking weekly roast.
posted by still bill at 2:08 PM on November 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I really didn't like the narrative voice in this piece. I get his point-- next year I will have been abroad for 20 years. But I found it uncomfortably sentimental and was put off by the way he describes France. (vacation days! employment policy! amIright?).
Maybe it's just as fraula says, I know this kind of expat well from my years abroad. I usually dislike the term 'dog whistle', but I really got what it meant while reading this.
(Or maybe I'm just feeling cranky and old. Also possible.)
posted by frumiousb at 2:46 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe it's just as fraula says, I know this kind of expat well from my years abroad. I usually dislike the term 'dog whistle', but I really got what it meant while reading this.
(Or maybe I'm just feeling cranky and old. Also possible.)
posted by frumiousb at 2:46 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
still bill, YES. I want the places I left behind to be frozen in amber the way I remember them when I left, even though that is impossible. I don't miss living in the US, I think what I miss is the life as I had it at that exact moment before I moved, maybe? (I don't miss constantly drunk me, though.) To get cheesy, the only true home for me these days is wherever my partner and I are together. Right now it's his home country, but one day it may be another country (something we want to explore in about five years), but as long as it's us, it's home.
posted by Kitteh at 3:11 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 3:11 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I don't miss living in the US, I think what I miss is the life as I had it at that exact moment before I moved, maybe?
That is something I've been trying to articulate since about 2 months after I moved away! But of course it's easy (for me, anyway) to forget about the bad parts and only remember what was great about it.
posted by junco at 3:21 PM on November 3, 2015
That is something I've been trying to articulate since about 2 months after I moved away! But of course it's easy (for me, anyway) to forget about the bad parts and only remember what was great about it.
posted by junco at 3:21 PM on November 3, 2015
There are no official national holidays in the U.S. There are 8 federal holidays...
What is the distinction you are trying to draw between "federal holidays" and "official national holidays"? The U.S. has "legal public holidays" designated by statute, and there are 10 of them (regardless of how they may overlap with state holidays). In what sense are these not "official"?
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:22 PM on November 3, 2015
What is the distinction you are trying to draw between "federal holidays" and "official national holidays"? The U.S. has "legal public holidays" designated by statute, and there are 10 of them (regardless of how they may overlap with state holidays). In what sense are these not "official"?
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:22 PM on November 3, 2015
I know this kind of expat well from my years abroad.
Totally agree, I know this expat too. The kind who is always saying, "Yeah, well, in America..." Talking about going to the doctor? Yeah, well, in America that biopsy would have cost you, like, $10,000. Going to spend all of August at the beach? Yeah, well, in America nobody gets more than two weeks vacation. Through no fault or virture of my own I am now the only American I know, and one of the few expats in my extended friends-group. And it is so... refreshing. I have mostly stopped thinking about America, The Country, which I never thought was possible.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 3:25 PM on November 3, 2015
Totally agree, I know this expat too. The kind who is always saying, "Yeah, well, in America..." Talking about going to the doctor? Yeah, well, in America that biopsy would have cost you, like, $10,000. Going to spend all of August at the beach? Yeah, well, in America nobody gets more than two weeks vacation. Through no fault or virture of my own I am now the only American I know, and one of the few expats in my extended friends-group. And it is so... refreshing. I have mostly stopped thinking about America, The Country, which I never thought was possible.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 3:25 PM on November 3, 2015
My family is horrified that I do not want to move back to the States. Ever.
posted by Kitteh at 3:34 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 3:34 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Everyone has the "oh my gosh, my perspective has changed!" experience living overseas. To pooh-pooh this is to pooh-pooh the reason we encourage people to try living overseas. Of course anyone who acts as though they are the first people to discover this changed perspective (with tired stereotypes thrown in) invites criticism, but I am always interested to read other peoples' reflections.
Cumulatively, I've lived and worked/studied outside the US for a little over four years in three different countries, with the last three and a half years continuously overseas. My husband -- who is a national of the country we currently live in -- asked me recently if I still felt like a foreigner. I absolutely do. I am a happy US East Coast socialist liberal but I never feel so American as when I'm overseas. Even as I get used to how things are done here, I still inevitably run into some silly little thing that's just slightly different from what I expect and it infuriates me for no good reason. It's the frustration that even when the country is trying to do something like Halloween, they do it slightly "wrong" (why is all the individually-wrapped candy only chocolate? Why are carving pumpkins out in stores 3 weeks before Halloween when everyone knows perfectly well we live in a place where produce goes bad within a week, but if you wait till closer to Halloween you can't find a single place to buy a pumpkin?). It's constantly not quite knowing the etiquette for ordering at a food service place I have gone to - do I wait to be seated? Seat myself and order from table service? Seat myself and order from the bar? Ask for the bill to be brought to the table, or go up to the counter to pay whenever I'm ready? It's thinking you're finally assimilating and fitting in and then you realize the Baby Rhyme Time you take your binational baby to has a bunch of nursery rhymes you don't know but everyone else does and even if you learned them all properly, half of them don't even actually rhyme in your rhotic accent so do you fake it (badly!) or just let it sound a bit off? There's always something that gets you, something to remind you that you don't belong, and something to bring up nostalgia for the way you used to be able to do things even if you never actually cared about it when you lived in the US. I think that is what drives the most longing for "home" for me -- for the most part, I don't care that much about whether or not we ever live in the US again, but there is a part of me that just wants to stop feeling like I'm constantly mis-stepping.
A friend of mine moved back to the US after years in the UK, and when someone asked him what the biggest change was, he said "Every conversation with someone new no longer starts with the fact that I'm American." Even if you don't want to be That American Who Constantly Brings Up How You're American, other people pretty frequently do it for you.
posted by olinerd at 3:39 PM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Cumulatively, I've lived and worked/studied outside the US for a little over four years in three different countries, with the last three and a half years continuously overseas. My husband -- who is a national of the country we currently live in -- asked me recently if I still felt like a foreigner. I absolutely do. I am a happy US East Coast socialist liberal but I never feel so American as when I'm overseas. Even as I get used to how things are done here, I still inevitably run into some silly little thing that's just slightly different from what I expect and it infuriates me for no good reason. It's the frustration that even when the country is trying to do something like Halloween, they do it slightly "wrong" (why is all the individually-wrapped candy only chocolate? Why are carving pumpkins out in stores 3 weeks before Halloween when everyone knows perfectly well we live in a place where produce goes bad within a week, but if you wait till closer to Halloween you can't find a single place to buy a pumpkin?). It's constantly not quite knowing the etiquette for ordering at a food service place I have gone to - do I wait to be seated? Seat myself and order from table service? Seat myself and order from the bar? Ask for the bill to be brought to the table, or go up to the counter to pay whenever I'm ready? It's thinking you're finally assimilating and fitting in and then you realize the Baby Rhyme Time you take your binational baby to has a bunch of nursery rhymes you don't know but everyone else does and even if you learned them all properly, half of them don't even actually rhyme in your rhotic accent so do you fake it (badly!) or just let it sound a bit off? There's always something that gets you, something to remind you that you don't belong, and something to bring up nostalgia for the way you used to be able to do things even if you never actually cared about it when you lived in the US. I think that is what drives the most longing for "home" for me -- for the most part, I don't care that much about whether or not we ever live in the US again, but there is a part of me that just wants to stop feeling like I'm constantly mis-stepping.
A friend of mine moved back to the US after years in the UK, and when someone asked him what the biggest change was, he said "Every conversation with someone new no longer starts with the fact that I'm American." Even if you don't want to be That American Who Constantly Brings Up How You're American, other people pretty frequently do it for you.
posted by olinerd at 3:39 PM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
The U.S. has "legal public holidays" designated by statute, and there are 10 of them (regardless of how they may overlap with state holidays). In what sense are these not "official"?
They are not obligatory paid days off work for non-federal employees, unlike legal holidays basically everywhere else.
posted by junco at 3:40 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
They are not obligatory paid days off work for non-federal employees, unlike legal holidays basically everywhere else.
posted by junco at 3:40 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
What is the distinction you are trying to draw between "federal holidays" and "official national holidays"?
Federal holidays apply to the federal government only. There are eight de facto national holidays because all 50 states agree with the federal government that people should have those particular days off.
On preview, plus what junco said.
posted by Etrigan at 3:45 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Federal holidays apply to the federal government only. There are eight de facto national holidays because all 50 states agree with the federal government that people should have those particular days off.
On preview, plus what junco said.
posted by Etrigan at 3:45 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
(PS -- as obnoxious as I found the article for the same reasons as many of the rest of you did, I'm glad Kitteh posted it! It's nice to read the discussion. Particularly at this time of year and as I'm forlornly pricing out expensive airfare I should have bought much earlier to a place I'm not even particularly sure I want to go!)
posted by junco at 3:48 PM on November 3, 2015
posted by junco at 3:48 PM on November 3, 2015
Totally agree, I know this expat too. The kind who is always saying, "Yeah, well, in America..."
Agreed, although its not just Americans. I have seen the same behavior in America from European and Japanese expats, for example (and have seen it overseas from other Americans, yeah). I think it's fairly common/normal behavior, even if it can be obnoxious at times.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:27 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Agreed, although its not just Americans. I have seen the same behavior in America from European and Japanese expats, for example (and have seen it overseas from other Americans, yeah). I think it's fairly common/normal behavior, even if it can be obnoxious at times.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:27 PM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
What really hit for me was the last time I went back for a visit. I'd been away for 3 years with a couple short trips to see family or friends. But this time when I went it dawned on me that I was a tourist in my home town and I was a foreigner in my own house. There wasn't anywhere I could truly call "home". A place where I felt I really belonged and fit in entirely. I was too disconnected from the daily lives of my family and friends and I couldn't keep up on the local news in my city to hold a conversation on anything relevant. But at the same time, people here in São Paulo will always see me as gringo. And they love gringos, so its not a bad thing! But I'll never be Brazilian either.
posted by Glibpaxman at 4:41 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Glibpaxman at 4:41 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I found this really annoying too. If being in a place where things are done differently annoys you so much, don't move to a different country. It's because of people like this guy that the stereotype for an American abroad is brash, entitled and irritating.
posted by Ned G at 5:05 AM on November 4, 2015
posted by Ned G at 5:05 AM on November 4, 2015
It's because of people like this guy that the stereotype for an American abroad is brash, entitled and irritating.
I have a friend from the UK that I really like, but he moved to Miami--with a pit stop in suburban Atlanta--with his American wife and daughter and every day is a constant barrage of how weird America is, how things in Britain are superior (and this guy is def not a Tory so that makes it double weird), how Americans don't do food properly (oh, the UK biscuit/Southern biscuit tirade!). I am not a patriotic person but I just want to go, "Seriously, then why did you fucking move there??"
posted by Kitteh at 5:32 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have a friend from the UK that I really like, but he moved to Miami--with a pit stop in suburban Atlanta--with his American wife and daughter and every day is a constant barrage of how weird America is, how things in Britain are superior (and this guy is def not a Tory so that makes it double weird), how Americans don't do food properly (oh, the UK biscuit/Southern biscuit tirade!). I am not a patriotic person but I just want to go, "Seriously, then why did you fucking move there??"
posted by Kitteh at 5:32 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think people are quick to judgement about this guy, I think its written a bit more wryly than you are giving it credit for.
I wouldn't even assume he is as annoying in actual life as you think as he's showing you some of what happens in his head. I'm not even sure he isn't slightly mocking those thoughts even as he as them, and I see no evidence in his text that he is galumphing around, parading his "priviledge" and actually seriously critical of his French surroundings. He's showing how one can have contrary thoughts and lingering longings about these things at the same time
The assumption of the worst intentions and overstating how "annoyed" he is by expat life is part of a simplistic reading that is bringing more onto this guy than the text justifies.
posted by C.A.S. at 5:49 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I wouldn't even assume he is as annoying in actual life as you think as he's showing you some of what happens in his head. I'm not even sure he isn't slightly mocking those thoughts even as he as them, and I see no evidence in his text that he is galumphing around, parading his "priviledge" and actually seriously critical of his French surroundings. He's showing how one can have contrary thoughts and lingering longings about these things at the same time
The assumption of the worst intentions and overstating how "annoyed" he is by expat life is part of a simplistic reading that is bringing more onto this guy than the text justifies.
posted by C.A.S. at 5:49 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think most immigrants have a tendency to compare things to where they came from. That's not a problem. But there is a related tendency, which does seem more common with some nationalities, including Americans: A lack of appreciation of the fact that "unfamiliar" is not a quality of a place itself, but a quality of a person's relationship to a place. It is the difference between "your culture is so strange" which is rude, and "your culture is so strange to me" which is an admission of ignorance. It is the lack of understanding that your ignorance might not actually be interesting to anyone but you.
Perhaps the author does not fall into this category of thinking. I'm not going to try to judge his worldview based on one short article. But his tone certainly brings to mind those that do.
posted by Nothing at 6:17 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
Perhaps the author does not fall into this category of thinking. I'm not going to try to judge his worldview based on one short article. But his tone certainly brings to mind those that do.
posted by Nothing at 6:17 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]
olinerd: Even if you don't want to be That American Who Constantly Brings Up How You're American, other people pretty frequently do it for you. (Which thefoxgod also mentions.)
In college I took a semester abroad in England, and had traveled across Europe before. There was a warning to the effect of "don't keep comparing things to how they are in the U.S. or what you are used to at home" because it marks you as an alien, and keeps you from becoming immersed in the local culture.
Oddly now, I can't remember whether I heard it before I left or after I got back! And yet, if the locals insist on reminding you all the time, it's hard to avoid it yourself.
(And yes, I found myself doing it a lot. My English friends were very patient with us!)
posted by wenestvedt at 6:38 AM on November 4, 2015
In college I took a semester abroad in England, and had traveled across Europe before. There was a warning to the effect of "don't keep comparing things to how they are in the U.S. or what you are used to at home" because it marks you as an alien, and keeps you from becoming immersed in the local culture.
Oddly now, I can't remember whether I heard it before I left or after I got back! And yet, if the locals insist on reminding you all the time, it's hard to avoid it yourself.
(And yes, I found myself doing it a lot. My English friends were very patient with us!)
posted by wenestvedt at 6:38 AM on November 4, 2015
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I wondered if my falling in love with baseball a second time through my sons' eyes was somehow about this quality. The most American thing about my youth suddenly mattering again, as they grow as players of what was my street game, but here is a minority niche sport. The way soccer was for me in the 70s.
We are all stuck with the case that the grass is always greener, and changing while not under foot.
posted by C.A.S. at 9:24 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]