Cultural Ignorance from Americans?

Question

Have you had any funny/bad experiences with Americans being a little ignorant about other countries? No offence meant here BTW just makes me laugh. Now i have a neutral british accent, no twang or extreme dialect and i had loads of americans ask if i was french, German etc after i spoke!! The amount of times people said "pardon" also was ridiculous and you could see them straining to try and understand. I thought it was just me but I realised it was cos i wasnt "curling my R's". At one point i gave my surname "Martin" and this women was like "mountain?" i said it again and she got it wrong 5 times till i spelt it and she's like "oh Marrrrrrrtin"! FFS. Just a few examples there from the last week i had there. I also got asked if i had ever had a hot dog too! And if i knew what "gum" was!!! I truly pity the american ignorance sometimes. I jokily said to one that i had forgotten my bowler hat when it was raining and she tried to give me directions to the mall to get a new one! lol

And before anyone get "offended" i know the brits are just as annoying in different ways. I was embarassed to be British there last week after seeing the idiots all parading around in "england football " shirts drunk

Answer 1

I am American and I am not ignorant about other cultures. I happen to know that Cornwall is in southwestern England. Othern than that, I think the reason of cultural ignorance among many Americans has to do with a combination of lack of education and arrogance. Children are taught geography in high school but they only get about one year of it and maybe a little bit more in elementary school. Children often grow up without knowing where certain American cities are located never mind cities in other nations. Arrogance because many American children grow up with this "big America" attitude. Cultural ignorance is sometimes admired in a comical sense(i.e. television with certain characters being ignorant about other cultures and thinking that they are some.) Some Americans are ignorant about other cultures because they think that the American culture is better than any other culture. Some Americans actually joke about not knowing another language and then complain when someone doesn't speak English. Imagine of that person when to another country and they couldn't speak that language and no one spoke English. Arrogance and lack of education are big factors.

Answer 2

I'm a Brit with a large number of American relatives, so I find this topic fascinating..... In fact it is a great source of amusement between both halves of my family. I was once asked by a 16 year -old American youth, in all seriousness, what language did we speak in England? Another wanted to know if we ever wore shorts in England. On the day following the 9/11 attacks I was on a New York subway train and got into conversation with a couple of smartly suited Brooklynites; "We should nuke the whole of the Middle East" one said. "Er, where do you think Israel is located?", I asked. Neither bloke knew... One of my relatives is now a vice president of a US bank, but some years ago when she was about to 'graduate' from High School, I asked her if she'd done much on world geography. She said that she had - so I asked her to point out France on a globe. She had no idea!
I know that some Brits are equally ignorant, but what worries me is that many well educated Americans exhibit little knowledge about the world outside their shores, hence a probable reason for the appalling cockups US foreign service advisers make when dealing with cultures outside the 'Coca Cola and Hamburger' ambit; Iraq being the latest manifestation of this lack of knowledge of other cultures and how non Americans behave. However, with only around 20 percent of Americans holding a passport, individual experiences of other countries is perforce somewhat limited in the population as a whole.
When at university many years ago, I recall coffee break conversations with a group of American exchange students about our respective histories. None of them knew about such things as the unique pattern of the original American flag (and why), or about the true Plymouth Rock story, or about the number of Europeans involved in the Battle of the Alamo, etc. - all they knew was the 'myth' side of their history. Again the point I am making is that these were not stupid people. They'd all gone through the US educational system up to first year undergraduate level. It's no wonder that American university admission staff worry that applicants seem to be getting American history from having watched Hollywood 'epics'. [ Incidentally, on that theme, I hear a rumour that Hollywood is thinking about producing a 'Battle of Britain' film in which the Americans win on our behalf. That will make an enthralling subject for discussion next time I'm over there!]

Answer 3

I was at Auschwitz a couple of years ago. We were waiting for the bus to take us from the outdoor part back to the main museum. Bear in mind, the guide had been telling us how 1000s of people were packed into these tiny sheds for years on end. Anyway, the bus didn't come and the bus stop was getting more and more crowded and I heard an American woman behind me say ' Gaard... it's going to be really uncomfortable on the bus with all these people.' Having said that, when the bus did come, two kids from Liverpool spent the whole time complaining loudly that someone had farted so I guess the English aint much better.

Answer 4

My favourite American experience was while walking in the gardens at Buckingham Palace and hearing the portly American gentleman in front of me say (and this is true!) 'I loved Windsor Castle, but why did they build it so close to Heathrow?'

I also heard, during my time there,

'Does the Queen really live here; why can't we see her quarters?'
(Well... what do YOU think...)

'Isn't Buckminster Castle cute!'
(It's never been a castle and Buckminster's in the Midlands...)

'So, when did the Castle become a museum?'
(It is still very much a working Palace!)

I love American tourists - London would be so dull without them!

Answer 5

I served as some kind of guide a few times for some Americans going to Belgium
- seeing Brugges, one of them was so much impressed he said "it's it's it's... like Disneyland"
- after having spent some time in the Lion of Waterloo visitors' centre (museum, audio-visual explanations of the great battle and so on, he asked me "but who was this Napoleon you speak of?"
- in Spain, 20 years ago: when I told one of them I was from Belgium, he didn't understand that I wasn't french: he thought Belgium was the capital of France...
- I know you won't believe me on this one, but I heard George W.Bush explaining that there were mass destruction weapons in Irak

Answer 6

I was in the States last year and was truly shocked about the lack of world knowledge from the Americans I spoke to ... Europe is just one amorphous mass to them, and they seemed to have little knowledge of world news. While I was there the Pope died and that was the only non-American piece of news on their television. I guess that the States is so large that people rarely need to travel outside of it, and it's a minotiry of Americans who hold a passport, but I think if you asked Americans to point out Italy on a map, or Portugal, or Norway, a lot of them wouldn't have a clue.

Answer 7

They are kept ignorant by their government, if they do not know anything about us foreign chaps it is much easier for them to kill us.
My daughter had very much the same experience in texas.

I was once asked in Oxford `Can I get a bus to Scotchland from here ? We wanna see Eddin Burrow ` I told him I had never heard of such a place and wished him good luck.

Answer 8

I understand very well. When I was in the USAF while traveling on a train in France had jovial fun listening to each other conversate with our version of limey and americanese talk. Have a great day Brit.

Answer 9

Okay. Try talking in a Geordie accent. Now imagine your trouble times ten. Half of Britain can't even understand me, let alone Americans.

Answer 10

I had one experience with American. When I was traveling in Bosnia and Herzegovina I met an American who was madly searching for McDonald's. Well, in Bosnia you can find plenty of meat (and very few things for vegetarian) and they have delicious food which you can't find in other parts of the world. And an American was searching for McDonald's? McDonald's is even in Africa and it is nothing special. It is junk food.