You're so American!

[LaosLover]

Pretending to be convincingly Canadian is not easy.

 

I know/care virtually nothing about Canada. A single question about dog sleds, hockey, gravy on French fries, or what ever else they have up there and you're caught out.

 

 There's a geography problem too. Can any American reliably tell the difference between Winnipeg and Saskatoon? No.

 

That's why I could only rouse myself to pretend that I had a Canadian flag on my backpack. That's about the level of effort I'd be willing to put in for my Canadian deception.

 

Or I could just end every sentence with "Eh" -which they may or may not actually do.

Edited January 15, 2023 by LaosLover

[KhunLA]

Reading these replies ...

... there really is no need to ask why I'm Anti-social toward expats and avoid them regularly.  The level of arrogance, ignorance & prejudice is simply mind boggling.

[yang123]

9 hours ago, scorecard said:

Like loudly asking 'where is the line for American citizens' at Hong Kong (and other) airports.

Or .... storming out of Immigration at Chiang Mai and screaming "But I'm an American" at the top of your voice ...

[wwest5829]

22 hours ago, Phoenix Rising said:

A dead give-away for me are guys wearing baseball caps, inside and outside, day and night. In the gym I attend there are Thais and foreigners from all over and the only ones wearing any headgear at all are the Americans.

Sorry about that. My motivation is vanity … covers the increasingly balding head. I have thought about adopting a yarmulka or a zucchetto.

[wwest5829]

23 hours ago, Skallywag said:

Aluminum, instead of Aluminium  555

 

I figure I am bilingual as I can read both labor and labour and know the difference between a lorrie and a truck … lift/elevator, etc.

[wwest5829]

21 hours ago, Jingthing said:

To wit.

 

 

Thank you. Really enjoyed. Perhaps being American (USAn?) with some German DNA.

[Andrew Dwyer]

10 hours ago, scorecard said:

Like loudly asking 'where is the line for American citizens' at Hong Kong (and other) airports.

I remember when the US started using biometrics to enter ( early 2000’s ? ) so fingerprints and a snapshot became the norm.

Brazilian immigration took this personally, although other nationalities had to conform also, and started separate immigration lines for US citizens only. Indignation was high among visiting Americans as the lines entering São Paulo were of Suvarnabhumi levels at times and Americans were quite clearly being victimised.

Imagine the level of reclamation in this situation, a lot of chest beating and chants of USA USA , it was quite fun to watch.

 The segregation only lasted a few weeks but the highlight was the American Airlines pilot who gave the immigration camera “ the bird “, he got his 15 minutes of fame and a $13k fine.

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3961395

Edited January 15, 2023 by Andrew Dwyer

[Hanaguma]

1 hour ago, LaosLover said:

Pretending to be convincingly Canadian is not easy.

 

I know/care virtually nothing about Canada. A single question about dog sleds, hockey, gravy on French fries, or what ever else they have up there and you're caught out.

 

 There's a geography problem too. Can any American reliably tell the difference between Winnipeg and Saskatoon? No.

 

That's why I could only rouse myself to pretend that I had a Canadian flag on my backpack. That's about the level of effort I'd be willing to put in for my Canadian deception.

 

Or I could just end every sentence with "Eh" -which they may or may not actually do.

Putting a Canadian flag on your backpack is VERY American!

 

We from the Great White North have more subtle signals- we choose packs/gear from MEC for example, or have a water bottle from Tim's or Second Cup.

[wwest5829]

4 hours ago, BananaStrong said:

My dad fought in WW2 and he would roll in his grave if I ever did this.   He loved America, and would be sad if I was embarrassed to be from a country that gave me the ability to be who I am.   My friends would laugh at me if I did this, wondering how I lost my backbone, identity, courage......why?  to please strangers I will lie to them???  OH, I'd never do that.  Oh, I'm soo worried about what they think.... I know, I'll lie about my entire life!!!!!!!  great idea!!!!

 

My family tree would crumble.    Everything would then be fake.  Why not make up everything?    Why not get a Canadian tattoo all over your body!!!!  

 

America has taught me to be confident, intelligent, rich, in-shape, everything..

 

Thailand teaches me about Pattaya!!!!

 

and I literally won't waste one second on what other "countries" think .     Wait your turn for the master of the universe to give advice.   USA.  

OK … except the rich thingy. You see I taught in the U.S. for 41 years and thus needed to join millions of other retired working middle class folk retired to a lower cost country. Understand the family tree comment … being interested in history my USA roots go back before the country was established.

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, pgrahmm said:

On the your & you're issue.... Predictive text/spell check is doing a very good job of applying these words incorrectly.....

In proofing, (attempting to), anything I input I have found this word incorrectly changed and applied about half the time.....

Sure and I've tried to totally TURN OFF predictive text, but never succeeded. HELP...

[richard_smith237]

50 minutes ago, wwest5829 said:

I figure I am bilingual as I can read both labor and labour and know the difference between a lorrie and a truck … lift/elevator, etc.

That gives you the perfect opportunity to join in with the pedants who pathetically argue the insignificant vocabulary differences when the posters meaning is quite obvious.... 

[richard_smith237]

2 hours ago, LaosLover said:

Can any American reliably tell the difference between Winnipeg and Saskatoon? No.

Of course they can...  nearly every American from Canada can... 

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, yang123 said:

Or .... storming out of Immigration at Chiang Mai and screaming "But I'm an American" at the top of your voice ...

Watched an incident in the bigger than massive arrivals/passport hall at Shanghai International airport some years back. Hundreds of arrivals joining the arrival lines every minute. Lines look long but 99% of arrivals through immigration within 5 to 10 minutes.

 

I joined a line, instantly rudely/abruptly confronted by a loud American mid aged woman asking me and others "Where's the line for American citizens and are the passport officers for this line american Citizens?, And she continued loudly "I refuse to allow non-americans to touch my passport". Loud but ignored. (In fact there is no special line for American Citizens.)

 

An old Chinese Immigration officer is walking along the line, speaks perfect english, asking to see passports and documents and explaining that he's checking people have the correct documents and fully completed etc., 10 seconds or less each passenger.

 

He gets to the loud US woman and she yells at him "don't touch me, and I don't have to put up with this I'm an American citizen". Old Chinese officer just keeps moving, but American woman reached out and grabs his arm and twists him around and he almost falls over. Again she yells at the old officer.

 

Officer says a few words into his microphone on his uniform and within a few seconds 2 young quite tall strong soldiers appear (no guns at all). They know the drill, they quickly stand either side of the woman and put their arms under the womns armpits, lift her up and feet dangling carry her to the end of the line and gently put her down and they disappear. Old officer has carried her cabin bag to her new spot on the line and he quickly goes back to where he was working and continues.

Hundreds of arriving passengers now looking at the Aerican woman and clapping. She freezes for a few seconds then runs back to the room before the arrivals hall.

 

By this stage hundreds of people are through passport stamping and collecting their luggage. 

[Lee65]

So African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, all Hyphenated-Americans, are subject here to being painted with the same brush??  Reckon that boat sailed long ago.  Now, if we just had a separate thread for each group ... 

 

Now, if we had different threads for each group ... 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by Lee65

[kiteman9]

       

                  Is it fair to stereotype all Americans as So American?

 

            America is often called a melting pot because its people come from many different backgrounds and cultures, and there are such a wide variety of beliefs, values, and traditions. Stereotyping an American as SO American in 2023?

     Our stereotypes and prejudices are learned through many different processes. This multiplicity of causes is unfortunate because it makes stereotypes and prejudices even more likely to form and harder to change. For one, we learn our stereotypes through our communications with parents and peers and the behaviors we see portrayed in the media. Even five-year-old children have learned cultural norms about the appropriate activities and behaviors for boys and girls and also have developed stereotypes about age, race, and physical attractiveness, and there is often good agreement about the stereotypes of social categories among the individuals within a given culture. In one study assessing stereotypes, A teacher and her colleagues presented U.S. college students with a list of 84 trait terms. They asked them to indicate for which groups each trait seemed appropriate. The participants tended to agree about the traits of which groups, which was true even for groups of which the respondents were likely never to have met a single member. Even today, there is good agreement about the stereotypes of members of many social groups, including men and women and various ethnic groups.

Americans	Blacks	Italians	Germans	Jews	Chinese
Materialistic 53.6%	Musical 27.6%	Loyal to family ties 62.7%	Intelligent 45.8%	Very religious 52.5%	Intelligent 60.3%
Lazy 30.4%	Pleasure loving 26%	Tradition loving 47.5%	Industrious 37.3%	Intelligent 49.2%	Loyal to family ties 41.4%
Individualistic 28.6%	Loud 20.7%	Passionate 39%	Nationalistic 30.5%	Tradition loving 32.2%	Reserved 36.2%
Pleasure loving 28%	Aggressive 15.5%	Religious 37.3%	Scientifically minded 27.1%	Shrewd 30.5%	Industrious 32.8%
Industrious 23.2%	Artistic 13.8%	Quick tempered 35.6%	Methodical 20.3%	Loyal to family ties 28.8%	Tradition loving 31%

    Once they become established, stereotypes (like any other cognitive representation) tend to persevere. We begin to respond to members of stereotyped categories as if we already knew what they were like. They found that individuals addressed fewer questions to members of categories about which they had strong stereotypes (as if they already knew what these people were like) and that the questions they did ask were likely to confirm the stereotypes they already had.

In other cases, stereotypes are maintained because the information that confirms our stereotypes is better remembered than information that disconfirms them. When we see members of social groups perform behaviors, we tend to remember better information that confirms our stereotypes than information that disconfirms our stereotypes. If we believe that women are bad drivers and we see a woman driving poorly, then we tend to remember it, but when we see a woman who drives particularly well, we tend to forget it. This illusory correlation is another example of the general principle of assimilation—we tend to perceive the world in ways that make it fit our existing beliefs more quickly than we change our beliefs to fit the reality around us.

And stereotypes become difficult to change because they are so important to us—they become an integral and important part of our everyday lives in our culture. Stereotypes are frequently expressed on TV, in movies, and in social media, and we learn many of our beliefs from these sources. Our friends also tend to hold beliefs similar to ours, and we talk about these beliefs when we get together with them. In short, stereotypes and prejudice are powerful primarily because they are important social norms that are part of our culture.

    Because they are so highly cognitively accessible and seem so “right,” our stereotypes easily influence our judgments of and responses to those we have categorized. The social psychologist John Bargh once described stereotypes as “cognitive monsters” because their activation was so powerful and because the activated beliefs had such insidious influences on social judgment. Making things even more difficult, stereotypes are strongest for the people who are in most need of change—the most prejudiced people.

Because stereotypes and prejudice often operate out of our awareness and because people are frequently unwilling to admit that they hold them, social psychologists have developed methods for assessing them indirectly.

[orchis]

I find them, and I am generalising, friendly, outgoing, gregarious and somewhat superficial.

[SuperSilverHaze]

4 hours ago, samuttodd said:

 

Here is why we put the country after berlin, london and paris.

 

It's absolutely asinine.

 

The listener or reader will understand the context. If it is anticipated they might not - then the additional verbiage might be necessary.

 

 

I heard you went to Paris, how exciting!

 

Yes, the rodeo was fantastic and the highlight of the trip.

 

Maybe not. Mistaking great cities for insignificant namesakes is just a big lol

[Phoenix Rising]

1 hour ago, wwest5829 said:

Sorry about that. My motivation is vanity … covers the increasingly balding head. I have thought about adopting a yarmulka or a zucchetto.

No apology needed. It was just an observation, no criticism implied.

[Hummin]

Being american means you are born with more  privileges than any other on this planet for good and bad!

 

At a athlete meeting in Malaysia year 2000, and we where asked if we had any questions, one american raised up his arm and ask where is MC Donalds?

 

Edit note we where invited by Malaysian government and had everything covered included all meals as well planned trips to different local restaurants.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Hummin

[CharlieH]

The ones that stand out for me are....

 

Carmelised instead of Caramelised

Erbs instead of Herbs .

 

[JimGant]

22 hours ago, Phoenix Rising said:

Slow day, football doesn't start until 1930 hrs tonite. Go City!!!!

Actually football started at 1630 between San Francisco and Seattle. Could care less about any silly soccer games.

[ozimoron]

8 hours ago, Walker88 said:

Yes. Not sometimes. Every day.

 

We have become a nation that embraces ignorance, has decided truth is what one needs or wants it to be, and if one has sufficient 'wasta', he or she is above the law.

 

We now have a recently elected Congressman whose entire resume---on which he ran for office---is a fraud. He claimed attendance at a prestigious HS he never attended, a university he never attended, work for two firms (Goldman Sachs and Citibank) where he never worked, that he is Jewish when he is not, and when confronted with that lie actually said Jew-ish, claiming an ancestral ethnicity (untrue). He claimed his mother died on 9-11, and later said she died in 2013. He claimed to be a star on a college volleyball team in a school he never attended and in a sport he never played. He declared a small income in 2020 when he first ran, but between $3.5 and $5 million when he ran in 2022, despite having no proof of income nor a tax return. He claimed to be the founder of a large Animal Welfare foundation that doesn't exist.

 

He typifies the current repub Party in the US...grifters, liars, clowns and traitors.

 

It is embarrassing. It is also dangerous, as those clowns who still fawn over 45 no longer believe in democracy, but prefer fascism.

Australians look at American politics with horror and hope it's not catching. Unfortunately, one of our own spotted a business opportunity and weaponised ignorance and religious bigotry to make billions and salt the earth for generations to come.

 

When overseas, which is most of the time, I tend to have more American and British friends than Australians. We never talk about politics. I find other "cultures" more interesting while Australians can be predictably boring. I don't want to generalise here as it largely depends on the individual. There seem to be more right wing American expats for some reason. I put this down to a high proportion of ex military retired early as military tend to lean conservative. My impression is that military tend to come more from red states than blue.

 

Australia: Where three girls walking down the street in black thongs isn't sexy.

[kinyara]

Why do Americans go abroad when they love talking about themselves and their country so much ? Wouldn't it be much more enjoyable for them to remain in their own patch of global paradise. Not a thread goes by on here without an American trying to relate it somehow to their home country. I haven't read a single comment, just the headline and comment count is enough for me. ????.  

 

 

[Hummin]

12 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Australians look at American politics with horror and hope it's not catching. Unfortunately, one of our own spotted a business opportunity and weaponised ignorance and religious bigotry to make billions and salt the earth for generations to come.

 

When overseas, which is most of the time, I tend to have more American and British friends than Australians. We never talk about politics. I find other "cultures" more interesting while Australians can be predictably boring. I don't want to generalise here as it largely depends on the individual. There seem to be more right wing American expats for some reason. I put this down to a high proportion of ex military retired early as military tend to lean conservative. My impression is that military tend to come more from red states than blue.

 

Australia: Where three girls walking down the street in black thongs isn't sexy.

Both American and Australians can be excessively loud. Cant miss you are either if in same room.

[LaosLover]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

Putting a Canadian flag on your backpack is VERY American!

 

I'm sorry, but:

 

-This flat out never happened. It was troll that I made up on Lonely Planet. And then heard about forever.

 

-Or this did happen, but so few times in real life as to be irrevelent. It's great to see Canadians leaping like dopey carp into the same troll-net a quarter of a century later.

 

That's how you troll people; you appeal to their ego and victimhood.

 

My goofy claim doesn't bear scrutiny: Where would American find these Canadian flag patches? At Flags R Us on Khao San Road? How many flags of any kind do recall seeing on backpacks? But it sounded true.

 

What I do recall is people having little enamel badges of all the countries they visited . I can't recall anyone at all who was PROUD to convey Canadianism through their luggage. Particularly falsely.

Edited January 15, 2023 by LaosLover

[2009]

On 1/14/2023 at 7:55 AM, macahoom said:

 

Being unable to differentiate between the words then and than.

 

 

Yes!

 

What's the deal with this? Drives me nuts.

[Hanaguma]

5 minutes ago, LaosLover said:

I'm sorry, but:

 

-This flat out never happened. It was troll that I made up on Lonely Planet. And then heard about forever.

 

-Or this did happen, but so few times in real life as to be irrevelent. It's great to see Canadians leaping like dopey carp into the same troll-net a quarter of a century later.

 

That's how you troll people; you appeal to their ego and victimhood.

 

My goofy claim doesn't bear scrutiny: Where would American find these Canadian flag patches? At Flags R Us on Khao San Road? How many flags of any kind do recall seeing on backpacks? But it sounded true.

 

What I do recall is people having little enamel badges of all the countries they visited . I can't recall anyone at all who was PROUD to convey Canadianism through their luggage. Particularly falsely.

Glad to hear you have been able to confirm this with EVERY SINGLE PERSON to ever travel in South East Asia /s

 

Americans obviously equip themselves with the patches BEFORE leaving the US. It is a necessary strategy. 

[Hummin]

5 minutes ago, LaosLover said:

I'm sorry, but:

 

-This flat out never happened. It was troll that I made up on Lonely Planet. And then heard about forever.

 

-Or this did happen, but so few times in real life as to be irrevelent. It's great to see Canadians leaping like dopey carp into the same troll-net a quarter of a century later.

 

That's how you troll people; you appeal to their ego and victimhood.

 

My goofy claim doesn't bear scrutiny: Where would American find these Canadian flag patches? At Flags R Us on Khao San Road? How many flags of any kind do recall seeing on backpacks? But it sounded true.

 

What I do recall is people having little enamel badges of all the countries they visited . I can't recall anyone at all who was PROUD to convey Canadianism through their luggage. Particularly falsely.

During invasion of Iraq and later I met Americans in Krabi when I lived there who claimed they where american, only for later reveal they where americans after we got to know each other. Met quite a few when climbing and diving as well living on Tonsai and Railey beach. The patch I never see or knew about

[macahoom]

10 minutes ago, 2009 said:

 

   On 1/14/2023 at 7:55 AM,  macahoom said: 

 

Being unable to differentiate between the words then and than.

 

 

Yes!

 

What's the deal with this? Drives me nuts.

I’m glad someone agrees with me!

 

I can understand your and you’re, there, their and they’re, and even should of instead of should have. But then and than? They are two unconnected words with completely different meanings and it seems to be only Americans who can’t differentiate between them.

 

All I can think is that, possibly, a lot of Americans pronounce the two words the same and this causes confusion, whereas, in the UK, they are pronounced quite differently.

Edited January 15, 2023 by macahoom

[LaosLover]

29 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

 

 

Americans obviously equip themselves with the patches BEFORE leaving the US. It is a necessary strategy. 

Where were they getting Canadian flag patches in America circa 1997? No Amazon back then.

 

At the Canadian-appreciation store? 

 

Demanding that every single backpacker be polled before laughing at Canadians is desperate. Laughing at Canada is as involved with Canada as we Americans ever get.

 

Amuse me. Tell me how it was a  necessary strategy. What terrible things happened to people who had the nerve not to pretend to be Canadian? Were lives saved by Canadian flags?

 

Can you share a fake Canadian story?

Edited January 15, 2023 by LaosLover