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[kattahj]

Lovely Nemi the other day, that really struck me as a European.

Guy: Americans are incredibly ignorant of the world around them. "Is Norway the capital of Sweden?" they ask. "Do you live in igloos? Are there polar bears walking around on the streets

Comments

[tarchannon]

I liked the first bit a lot. People in other places tend to forget that the US isn't monolithic in any way. Can someone born and raised in Michigan understand someone born and raised in Tennessee? The answer is sometimes not, but most of the time it's a challenge. For instance, my state alone has 61% the land area of Sweden, and we have more than 1.1 million more people. That's just *my* state. I dare say that that fellow probably has no more knowledge of Michigan than the average Michigander has of Sweden. :D

Americans aren't unaware of the world around them, they just tend to be more self-absorbed. It's a downside to being a superpower and having it very, very good in so many ways for a unbelievably long time. I think it tends to affect our leaders more than most: they seem to be compeletely idiotic for their level of power.

[kattahj]

Good point. :-) All I know of Michigan is that it's Paul Bunyan's mitten, and I only know that because I had a penpal once who told me. The US is so freaking big.

Also, I think that quite often, people from European countries tend to go, "Well, if I know X about the US, then they should know X about us!" without taking into consideration the size and influence of various countries.