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The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

The student news site of Guilford College

The Guilfordian

Living in London: Americans!

(corbis.com)
(corbis.com)

One of the things that I have experienced while traveling abroad is becoming much more aware of how different I am from people who live in countries that are not the United States. While we are all human beings, we all have different backgrounds, beliefs, and culture that we grew up in. That might sound like a trite and fairly obvious statement, but over the course of the last few weeks I myself have seen those differences magnified.
The past few weeks in London have been really good, maybe the best so far. Classes are going well, the group is getting along quite well, and traveling throughout Europe has been a really amazing experience for me. The only things that have really dampened those experiences for me are first-hand observations of and interactions with other Americans traveling abroad (not from the college), and seeing how class-less many of them are.
When I was traveling in Amsterdam, I met a pair of Americans in a bar and we started talking. Over the course of the conversation, two points became very clear to me:
1)These boys were drunk … really drunk.
2)They were, for lack of a better word, jerks.
It would be fair to say that both of these gentlemen (and I use that term loosely) had no idea what tact and politeness are. I was talking politics with them (my first mistake) when one of the gentlemen yelled fairly loudly that the United States had bailed England out of the Second World War. Not only was that comment historically inaccurate, but to make the situation worse, a pair of Englishmen were sitting at the booth next to us, and took umbrage at that statement. Nothing really came of the situation except my own embarrassment, not for having personally done anything wrong, but because of my association with those two gentlemen as a fellow American.
Second example of Americans needing a good thrashing: senior Doug Robertson and I went to France this past weekend to see, among other things, the Normandy beaches. We were traveling with a group, so we had to be at certain places at certain times so as to not hold up the group. So who were the only people to consistently and unapologetically arrive late? Two American college graduates who had clearly majored in Drinking Before Noon and Passing Out Before Nine at Night.
I am not trying to pigeonhole all Americans abroad and at home in the States, but in my limited experience it appears to be only Americans who screw things up for everyone else – even other Americans. I and the other students from the college are living in a housing complex with other students from America who seem to have both questionable judgment and no regard for their neighbors (us).
Why do Americans do this? Do we have some sort of warped sense of entitlement that lets us do whatever we want? Or, is it just that we are so oblivious to the needs of the people around us that we behave badly out of habit? What I find most appalling is that I did not notice this phenomenon until it started to affect me personally. I have thought to myself that I could easily fall into that trap of not even noticing the needs of the world around me.
Once again, I want to state that not all Americans are self-centered and selfish. Most are probably respectful and thoughtful people, but if one American is not, that is one American too many and is a poor reflection on all of us. We need to have zero tolerance for this sort of behavior by Americans abroad who make the rest of us look bad. I do not hate America; I love America, and Americans, and I know we are better than this. I want us to collectively join together, and do something.
It is no wonder many people in the world have so many grudges towards us. We have gone from being leaders of the free world to the jerks in the front row who talk during movies. Way to go, America!

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