Braying Americans
It happened in Delft, at a pancake house on the Markt. The place had been quiet, although not by any means empty, when we arrived, but now, as we waited for our orders, we were forced to take note of a noisy table by the window. Speaking so that everyone in the restaurant could hear their every word, the group of five Americans brayed on and on about what apparently interested them the most (collectively, at least): waiting for the tour bus; the lines at travelers' check counters; the time when somebody got lost. It was all much too banal to remember in detail, but what we did perceive quite clearly was that these people had nothing to say that was specific to Delft, the Netherlands, or even Europe. They were not rooting around for something to talk about, either, and settling on the tedious side of travel faute de mieux. No, they spoke with great enthusiasm. If they were too nice to interrupt, they were eager to keep the conversation going. This was apparently what they had come to Europe to see: the inside of a bus, the inside of American Express agencies, and one another. They didn't even talk about the plate-sized, crepe-like pancakes that are a staple of Nederlander popular fare. Their failure of imagination was staggering.
In other words, Kathleen and I are dyed-in-the-wool East Coast elitists who look down on rubes from the heartland when they carry on like the folks at the noisy table in Delft. Yes we are and yes we do. We believe in self-possessed good manners; we find swaggering and oblivious disregard almost unpardonably rude. We think that the expense of travel has to be justified by an attentiveness to the differentness of a strange place. As, for example, to the way we live here in Manhattan: Kathleen is driven particularly bonkers by exurbians who confuse New York's sidewalks with their backyard fences. Our sidewalks are busy thoroughfares. See?
I single out Americans abroad precisely because that's what I am when I'm on a trip: an American abroad. Other nationalities are not without fault, but their faults are easy to overlook because they have nothing to do with me. Embarrassing Americans, betraying with every gesture the wish that they had never left home, do. Embarrassing Americans abroad are proof more glaring than any obtainable at home that many of our countrymen lurch from day to day - from bus to bank - without respect, self- or any other kind. And to think that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are telling such people that they're the real Americans!
Comments
Hear, hear. "Obvious" Americans abroad always make me cringe. Overheard once in Switzerland (brayed loudly): "Cheese, cheese, cheese! I'm tired of all this cheese; I want a hamburger!"
I don't wear clown clothes, am not obese, and my physiognomy is average enough so that I can sort of look like I fit in anywhere in the middle swath of the European continent. (Not, obviously, the case for most of the rest of the world.) Amy looks more Levantine, but honestly, who can effectively tell the difference by look between Mediterraneans and many Jews? So we're never instantly pegged as Americans, and prefer it that way.
Re elitism: the right wing has been railing against "the elites" for a while. In fact, they love economic elitism; it's social/intellectual elitism that they loathe. I would argue that some degree of the latter is better for society, and too much of the former is unquestionably worse.
Oh, and we also look down on the rubes from the heartland when they're clomping around the US, whether it's riding a tour bus in Boston, lining up with some scout/church/Young Pioneers group to see the Washington Monument, or in their own turf in the massive wasteland of the soulless, placeless red zones.
I'm confused about the sidewalk behavior you mention. What do the exurbians do with them?
Posted by: Max | February 10, 2005 01:57 PM
They stand in widely-spaced circles and talk about what to do next or how to get there. They photograph buildings with video cameras. (Nice pan, Bud!) When they do move, it's with all the dispatch of a dyspeptic ruminant - five abreast.
Ever since 9/11, it's been clear to us that Manhattan is the new Europe - about as far away from home as anybody wants to go.
"Elite" was probably the first word to be peeled away from its meaning, per my comment at the BR this morning. But I used it deliberately. I do belong to the elite, dammit, and so, probably, does everyone who reads this site. All we have to do is figure what it is that elites are supposed to do.
Posted by: R J Keefe | February 10, 2005 02:35 PM
Something like your 'Braying Americans' piece should be required reading for any American applying for a passport. But I must object to the suggestion that this sort of boorish behavior is exhibited only by 'rubes from the heartland;' two of the three most egregious examples of braying Americanism that I recall were displayed by people with the sort of accent one hears in New Jersey or parts of NYC (the third was a provided by a group of Texans). Which is not to say that I haven't seen this sort of behavior from fellow midwesterners; only that one shouldn't assume that a person will be ill-mannered or unsophisticated based solely upon where he or she lives.
Posted by: jkm | February 10, 2005 02:59 PM
jkm, for me personally, "the heartland" and "middle America" are just as much a state of mind as a geographical place. Granted, the majority of people from Walmartville, Florida or Deserted Hamlet, Kansas are not likely to have a particularly broad worldview.
Believe me, there are PLENTY of provincial rubes in Massachusetts. More than I like to admit. (You should have seen all of the fatty, clown-outfitted suburban kids skipping school the other day to go to the Patriots victory parade.) Actually, I am generally afraid when I leave Route 128, the inner beltway. I think it's often more about cities than about regions; sadly, the US has almost no big towns that are real cities.(NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Fran, LA in certain aspects, Seattle according to some [I don't know it myself], DC minus the Republican operatives, Philadelphia. That's kind of it.) But it's true that the cities themselves also contain appallingly boorish freaks.
Posted by: Max | February 10, 2005 03:32 PM
Boors are everywhere, of course. But why should we live in a country full of fascist boors who like torture and hate us? I say it's time to leave.
Posted by: Biscuit | February 10, 2005 04:27 PM
Thanks for the clarification. I like the phrase 'provincial rubes.'
Posted by: jkm | February 10, 2005 04:28 PM
Hello, I just wanted to say you have a very informative site which really made me think, thanks very much! Have a nice Day!!
free government grants
Posted by: free government grants | April 18, 2005 02:04 PM