A spinoff in proper "Rhoda" style of my patented e-mail blastograms, this blog was created with the intention of keeping friends and family updated on and amused by my life.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Typical American

posted by Jeff at 1:50 AM

4 Comments:

Blogger ymc said...

The slippery slope lies of course in the word typical.

People who don't know you will categorize you to premediated definitions of their typical American [some definitions are more sophisticated than others]---you either adhere or are deemed atypical. In social groups, sometimes (often), a consensus is formed regarding the cultural, social, economic, perhaps even political aspects of typical-ness. This is a natural process that is redefined, reconceptualized and sometimes reinforced as people get to know each other through experience. The more people we get to know, the more diverse and sophisticated our preexisting definitions of "typicality" become.

Here in Taiwan, the issue I face with typical Americana is with the issue regarding one's ABC (American Born Chinese)-ness. In this tiny village and other parts of Taiwan, one can be born here, live abroad in the US, come back and be called an ABC! One will protest this assertion but it doesn't matter to the locals: if you've lived in the west for a period of time, you are somehow "atypical", Westernized and above all foreign. The best way to deny these claims is to sing the really old KTV songs over the previous generation: I'd soon here the locals saying "He's Taiwanese."

I've also seen something interesting here: The perception of locals toward foreign guest workers (from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand). Sometimes you here the locals exclaim: "S/He (the worker) is so smart!" or they seem surprised when they find that the workers share commonalities with them. All I can say to that is, "Well duh, they're humans, too." Which makes me think, does this make me an atypical (fake) Taiwanese?

Sorry, kind of drifted off there toward the end!
Great post btw!

3:40 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's hard to paint "typical" America... i think people both inside and outside the US think of the US as monolithic (like people think of China). But America is not. Despite it's "tiny" population of 300 million, it is still a large country--divided on political, religious, racial, gender, sexuality, choices of cheese views...

and to take the issue further... I consider myself an "American" and in some ways "typical"--after all, most Americans come from immigrant background right? but, as you are aware of, Chinese people refuse to believe that I am American. Even when confronted with my American Passport. How can I be "typical" American when I am not even American? Do the students have LSE (like the Chinese) have the right lens / tools or the "right" to judge who is American and who is not? let alone what's typical?

Yam Ki

10:11 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ack! You have just described EXACTLY what it was like taking Italian classes in Florence last year and being the only or maybe one of two Americans in class, having to defend all of the crazy ideas that the other international students had about the US - ok...so maybe not all of those ideas were so crazy, but you get the picture. And I cannot tell you how many times people would challenge what I had to say about how Americans think by saying "Well, you're obviously not a typical American." And usually it was the teacher bringing up this point! And when I challenged them to tell me how it was that they knew I wasn't "typical" they gave me these reasons:
-I have chosen to live in a foreign country for a period of time
-I have chosen to actually learn another language (and then they found out I knew German too, and then I was REALLY atypical)
-I am polite
-I am engaged in finding out about another culture (as supposedly evidenced by culinary school)

Now, for Florentines to say these things seems rational in the sense that Florence - the second most touristed city in the world, only behind Jerusalem - is inundated 8 months out of the year with both American tourists and study abroad students. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times I was out somewhere in the city and heard American tourists being obnoxious in one way or another - expecting everyone to speak English, not bothering to make themselves aware of Italian customs and cultural morees, demanding things that they think are authentically Italian (but really are not, and confusing the actual Italians). And don't get me started on most of the study abroad students. None of the programs in Florence require you to know Italian before you get there, so aside from many of the genuine art and art history students there to get a fabulous education in Renaissance art, the city is flooded with (unfortunate but true generalization) sorority girls on a 4 month fashion and wine filled spring break. So I see where the teachers get the idea that I am not normal as far as Americans are concerned.
What I can't get over is how so many of the other students get these ideas about typical Americans when they haven't hardly met any...or been to America themselves. A possible solution has struck me, however - I think it is just difficult for non-Americans who haven't visited the US to really wrap their minds around how big the country is and just how many different sub-cultures and traditions there are. A Japanese girl in one of my Italian classes asked me how long it took for me to fly to New York (she knew I was from the West Coast); when I told her 6-7 hours, she just about fainted she was so shocked. And I think the diversity of the US was even more apparent in the class I was in with a guy from Texas - it was a conversation class, and the teacher usually asked us questions about different traditions and customs in our countries to get the conversation going - and usually John and I had totally different things to say about "how things were done" in the US. It was like we were from different countries too.

I don't know how well any of this answers your question/plea for help...maybe it was just a way for me to vent too. But really, in looking back, as much as it frustrated me to be asked to defend my nationality, it was also really fascinating to have those conversations in the first place.

-Shannon

10:12 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Ljubljana, Slovenia, two Belgian guys proceeded to grill me about American politics and the media while we walked to the bar. It was really interesting -- casting a critical eye on my country while defending it at the same time. They insisted that 9/11 was a government conspiracy (apparently this is a really popular view in Europe), and that it was the US government that financed the 9/11 hijackers, not Osama Bin Laden. I found myself telling them "I hear what you're saying, but I can't believe it. I don't think we know all the facts about 9/11. I do think the US government isn't telling its people the whole story. However, I cannot believe that my government would fly airplanes into the sides of buildings, to rally nationalism and support. I can't believe that, because that amounts to my government betraying absolutely everything I believe it still stands for. And I can't, I won't lose my faith in my country."

What constitutes the "typical American?" Is it our ability to love and criticize our country at the same time? I've never really considered myself a typical American, either. I'm far too liberal than most of the country. Yet I have a deep love and respect for the Constitution, and the ideals and freedom for which my country (but not the Bush administration) have always stood for. Does that make me a typical American? A right-winger and I may disagree about everything politically, but we will probably share the same love of the US and its people. This is a place where we can criticize -- and after traveling through The Balkans, I now realize how precious that is.

-- Anna

8:23 PM

 

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